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Hello Quinn, Thanks for the opportunity to talk about drum corps in Canada. There is so many aspect we could talk of. This email could be 3000 pages!! Lets start with a few observations. There might be many ways to grow the activity but the one who will succeed are the ones people believe in and are ready to invest time, energy, talent et money. We have those people at Stentors, pushing for a yearly DCI tour. Those people will not invest their time for a parade corps, a local marching band or a local whatever. The day DCI tell the Stentors we have to go "soundsport" it will be our last day. No one here want to invest 5 minutes in something less than competing drum corps. We will die as no one will take over for this new "orientation". We have 2 parades corps in Quebec. Both led by passionnate people ready to invest time, energy, talent and money for that purpose. They could never do a DCI tour. Their kids don't want that. Their parents don't want that. Their staff don't wanna do that too. Stentors could never go back to parade and local shows. Everybody here would leave. Staff, members, volunteers. Everybody. That said... In order to help ourself, we try to put a feeder corps in action most years (not coming out this year). They stay local. They come without prior music knowledge. Last year we invest roughly 30 000$ US to promote music at daycare in 26 city. We met almost 2000 kids during the summer, making them play brass, drums, danse or spinning a flag. You see, music is dying in school and it is a small org like the Stentors who try to reverse the situation for an entire province. What we do is a drop in an ocean. Can't do it alone. Drum corps is dying not because it is not worth it but because the society has changed. I don't know in Ontario or USA but here, people start working at McDonald when they are 12-13 years old now. School bring them in South America and Europe as end-of-the-year travel. You're better offer something worth it if you want to catch their interest. Back to your questions! While I may agress with Daniel Buteau and yourself, Stentors is a different bird. This is why we are still here 20 years after everyone else's gone. We don't do things that we can't deliver. We had our share of staff earning 20$/day on tour as recently as 2015. Travelling on school bus, cooking our own food to save a few dollars, etc. The sacrifice the people made to make this corps grow financially solid is astonishing. We made so many sacrifice which wouldn't have been done for something else than DCI drum corps. This is our passion. (2022) We did not finish lower or higher than year past financialy (2017-2022). We raised our tuition from 1050$ US to 1600$ US to cover both plane tickets needed (Montreal-LA / San Francisco-Chicago). Everything else was just the same as usual for us (1 month tour + housing + food, ect.). Tuition is about 14% of our yearly budget. It cover about only transportation expenses. No more no less. We don't coun't on tuition to pay our bills. From 2007-2019, tuition was only 8% of the budget. Yes by raising the tuition it became a little bigger percentage of it all. We are still VERY low. Can I add that many members take advantage of discountswe offer (for volunterring and more). 50% don't pay the total 1600$ in tuition. One year we offered every camp for 0$ to all. To our surprise we didn't gain one more kid. In fact we lost a few more at the beginning of the summer. Now that is it more expensive, people pay way more on time. Go figure! How much did our California tour did cost? 34 000$ US - Plane ticket 12 000$ US - Extra on housing 20 000$ US - Bus rental Food = as usual Gaz = as usual (more to bring the trucks in, less during the 2 weeks as we did not move much) If we hadn't been in California I'd fear we would not have comeback. If brought kid, staff, volunteers back. It brought more people in every aspect of the org. It help raised more money than ever. It stimulate people to give more time and efforts. All the gains we had with California last year are still paying off today as we will bring our second biggest corps since 1999 (60) next summer. Along with a bigger staff and more volunteers. We run a tight ship here. There is not many dollar spent without a good reason (we drop a dollar to much here and there of course...but not often). Dare I say "we eat better than everyone else"? Yes I do. 😉 We are not repeating the same mistake Quebec and Ontario have made since DCI hosted finals in Montreal, 1981. We never been. We never "cut" members who were too young or not talented enough. We have started all over again as many time as needed when a large chunk of older members would leave at the end of a season. We are adapting yearly at the multiple challenges trow at us by events, society changes and rising cost. Until 2022, we still played on our old G bugle. Our drumline usually last at least 20 years, so does our uniform. We are not chasing the American glory and that doesn't steals an opportunity to inspire a young Canadian to take up music. In fact we still take kids with no music background and inspire our members to go further in music, nourrishing their passion for it. School with Stentors alum teaching are doing better than the other music program because of grit, passion, dedication they show at work. I believe, learn in part with us. We will not set up for less and will never look at group with a different goal, objective and caliber with disdain. We need a vibrant music scene in order for all of us to do well. And we try hard to show the path forward.

If you cut the population of California in half -- and by extension eliminated a full 50% of all CA high schools altogether, including those that still have marching band programs -- California would still be the nation's 3rd-largest state, bigger than New York. If there is a Swiss-chees-ing of the scholastic music scene in CA, it isn't going to drain the pool of in-state talent potential available to a handful of world-class DCI ensembles. (FWIW, the number of California high schools marching bands listed at marching.com is greater than the number listed in Texas -- exactly what you'd expect to see in a state larger than Texas.) Other Sunbelt states are growing at faster rates, though given CA's overwhelming size, it's comparatively slower growth rate still generates new residents in numbers comparable to the Sunbelt states. Cali is undeniably expensive. Yet its GDP is growing at a rate faster than the national average. Its contribution to the national GDP is, by far, the largest of any state. It's nearly 70% greater than that of No. 2 Texas, even though CA has only 30% more people than TX. CA is simply a higher-performing engine. California isn't some spent force. It has the largest hoard of the ultimate source of the value of capital: people. Plenty of those people, and businesses, and nonprofits, have figured out how to thrive there. If SCV can't hang with them, that's on VMAPA, not California.

"There might be many ways to grow the activity but the one who will succeed are the ones people believe in and are ready to invest time, energy, talent et money. We have those people at Stentors, pushing for a yearly DCI tour. Those people will not invest their time for a parade corps, a local marching band or a local whatever. The day DCI tell the Stentors we have to go "soundsport" it will be our last day. No one here want to invest 5 minutes in something less than competing drum corps. We will die as no one will take over for this new "orientation". Your adult group Old Guy has to have some Boston Crusaders DNA. May the future be successful for the corps.

Maybe the move from 150 to 165 demanded they add Iowa to the recruiting campaign.

From her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janina_Gavankar#Music

I think this is a great point. While Medea was wild, numerous corps have used it since. But Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste was so wild that it was dumb. It's still a ridiculous idea to program that piece, and the 30 years since have shown it. Nevertheless, it was magical.

Marching Music’s Maple League.

If MMs expect more staff, better staff, and higher-paid staff, then MMs should also expect to pay more to get all that.

Outside a few programs, marching band is dying in California. I think people who keep saying "California is the largest source of talent for drum corps" are not informed of the reality. Increasingly, many high schools no longer have a marching band. I've heard that bands competing have dropped to half of what they were 15 years ago. Times they are a changing.

Between the second place shows, I would say Cavies 1991.

This, all day long.

Story from 2015 featured in Halftime Magazine: https://halftimemag.com/noteworthy/janina-gavankar-features-drum-corps-in-music-video.html

https://cadets.org/cadets-announce-music-educator-liaison Commitment to the Erie area being shown to be true! This is amazing for my Western PA community and music education here. I've known Carl for years and his passion and enthusiasm for music education is off the charts.

It still amazes me that we had piano, saxophone and bassoon players in that line. I have taught and still teach the best horn lines in DCI and, these days, kids have to practically be masters on their brass instrument to have a chance to make the line.

Gowrie, Iowa

Thought I read at one time yes, born and also buried in Iowa.

I have another solution to save money. Have all the corps move to Texas and tour Texas. I'm not biased or anything.... lol!!!

Perhaps, but it's not much different than the kids I know that participate in traveling team/club sports where the coaches were (or still are) successful athletes at either the collegiate or professional level. They pay the premium price for that level of coaching experience, and nobody thinks twice about it. In fact, it's the expectation that the coaches are going to have credible experience and certain credentials.

Members perhaps have too high of a level of expectation for most of these private organizations. They're not schools, they're private gigs. Yes, I know they've been marketed as schools, but they're not.

LabMaster and John make tons of sense. We tend to focus on what the activity hasn't done right, but the stability of organizations and concern for member and staff experience is so much better than it was back in the day. Everything LabMaster says about the member experience back then is spot-on.

You hit on a good point that seems to be overlooked or not considered. What did you get for your money BITD? Minimal number of staff which did not enable the ability to achieve maximum performance levels of vastly different programs. PB&J sandwiches lots of times, or if at all. No medical team. No insurance. MM’s pushing busses down the road. Sleeping in busses at truck stops. Staying in filthy bug laden, hot, smelly gym’s. We tend to look at costs today but don’t always look at the value. There are ways to reduce costs. It takes discipline, living within your means and always always looking for additional revenue streams. Spend on the needs that you can support, not the wants that get you nothing but broke.

why Texas? cheaper. thats 5th economy is expensive as hell. and yeah Cali is huge. but Texas music in schools is the envy of the world.

the contras would cost more

Thanks for the link. Very cool idea. This, and the announcement of the tour change, leaves me with a good impression of JS leadership.

The coolest creative energy to come out of Canada. That dude was a blast.

no. people have careers that don't give 11 weeks of vacation.

Star 93 Phantom 06 SCV 17 BD 04

Just a thought.... what if we did a march maddness poll for the best 2nd place show?

I'll approach it from one marching member's perspective from inside the 1993 Star hornline. To me, this show demonstrates many of the limits of what can be accomplished with G-bugles. The highest of highs, the lowest of lows, both in volume and in timbre. While other corps had already branched out into 3-valve instrumentation, we were still playing a full line of 2-valve K-series King bugles that were purchased by Bill Cook in 1984. The line was, with a small number of exceptions, made up of all of the original Kings from that purchase, meticulously maintained by Eric Lund. Jim Prime's arrangement of extremely difficult, sometimes almost inaccessible, source material was some of the best brass writing in the history of the activity. It was integrated with our percussion section and visual design because of professional collaboration at the highest level. We were only able to physically perform this show due to the extreme conditioning program that Jim Mason insisted on, and we only had to use three alternate performers to replace brass members, either injured or otherwise, before the end of the season. I have read lots of opinions of this program over the years, some better informed than others. It was a "revenge" show. It was "too highbrow." It was "not drum corps." I'm here to tell you that it was all of those things, and also so much more. It wasn't just another show and it never will be. Sometimes, I still can't believe that the series of events that led me to Bloomington in January of 1993 actually happened. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. There will never be anything else like it.

The biggest transformative years that changed up in a most dramatic way in regards to " orthodoxy " for the Cadets were likely 1958 and 1969. for 19 years since their beginning in 1934, they were the Holy Name Cadets from Garfield, N.J. In 1958, the Holy Name Parish disbanded the Corps, but the Corps stayed afloat in 1958, but no longer afiliated with the parish ( Ironically, in a somewhat similar vein and time frame ( 1950's ), the Most Precious Blood Parish of Boston ( Hyde Park ) cut ties with their Corps, and the Corps kept going as the Boston Crusaders. In 1969, the All Male Corps of the Cadets from 1934-1969 ( 35 years ) gave way to becoming a Co-Ed Drum Corps. Neither of these moves were met with universal applause or derision at the time. It was a mixed bag of responses at the time but HUGE changes in the organization of the Corps nevertheless.. Yet neither was an operational location change at the time. The Crossmen were a state of Pennsylvania operations based Corps from 1974 to 2006 ( over 30 years ), but moved thousands of miles away to San Antonio Texas after the 2006 season. There were both ansgst and applause with that ( getting out from YEA, seemed to please quite a few if I recall at the time ). But the Crossmen, so far, has made that location for their operations change work rather well the last 15 or so years their operations Hq. have been based there. Most folks on Social Media have accepted the reality that it probably makes good sense both financially and brand wise for the Cadets to move on from their base of operations in Allentown. Even Allentown likely thinks its time for their community to move on as well, as the last decade has not been a kind one to the Cadets given the bad publicity that the former Director there brought to both the Cadets as well to the Community of Allentown. So I understand this move by the Cadets from a host of reasonable reasons, Plus its hard not to find some favor from a community ( Erie, Pa. ) that from all reports is very happy that the Cadets have taken up their offer to move their operational HQ, and training there. I am pleased to learn the Cadets vibes coming out of the Corps these days seem far better than they were not that very long ago. Good for them !. looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us this summer regarding their show.

You can't forget Conquest 1984 with the first moving backdrops!!!