audiodb

And I see you are once again ignoring all the times I have debunked that claim of yours.

Here's why....if it has the potential to harm DCI financially. If something can hurt DCI financially, DCI might want to disallow it. Take for example the bans on use of water, bare feet, or pyrotechnics in shows....all items that can lead to personal injury on DCI's watch. What if A&E were found to be financially damaging to DCI? (And by the way, pre-recorded singing/dialogue is running rampant in DCI....don't know how you could have missed it. You did go to a show this year, right?)

So what? Judging is subjective to begin with! You demonstrate exactly what the problem is here....this attitude that contest results should not be permitted to vary from show to show, or from person to person (i.e. judge to judge). It is an old 1970s-era myth that any inconsistency must = bad judging, and so to fix it, all judges must conform to a consensus. That's how slotting was born.

How delightfully naive. Two primary differences: 1. At "the beginning of the activity", everyone was on the field. Now we have devices that are staged 15-30 feet in front of the field, and remain there for the whole show. The phenomenon described in the OP was never a characteristic problem when all players were mobile and capable of restaging. 2. At "the beginning of the activity", we used only instruments that were designed to project from the field. Now, not so much. I am convinced that the solution to this problem is to get the judges out of the press box. Balancing to the box is no longer a tolerable status quo.

s - t - r - e - t - c - h - i - n - g . . . .

Men landed on the moon over 40 years ago, and we still limit the tour to just Earth? Not everything needs constant change. Need I remind you that soccer is still the world's most popular sport? Oh, guess I just did!

And as this thread demonstrates, the "who" in question is often not any specific corps. Many people just want to see a DCI contest. Wrong again. I know folks who skipped the 9-15 block Thursday because they knew they would see them all Friday. Now who's straining?

Like what? I noticed that corps #8 always has far fewer butts in seats than corps #9. I guess corps #9 "sold more tickets", then. Funny....it doesn't matter who #8 and #9 are, and it's true every year. At least, every year there's an intermission between those two corps. Perhaps this only tells me how many people got caught in the nacho line, and couldn't get back past the ushers during #8's performance....or how many people's flights to Indy were delayed....or how thick the traffic is around LOS on a Thursday evening....or how many people can't get Friday (or Thursday, if not local) off to travel to Indy....or how many people skip Thursday now that Friday has 25 corps instead of 17. So say there were 250 people in the stands when Blue Saints started things off. Does that mean the Blue Saints sold 250 of the 6,647 prelim tickets? And if 6,647 tickets sold, but only 6,600 people actually sat in seats, what corps sold the other 47 tickets? Please....you can't tell me anything about what corps "caused" which tickets to sell. Fact is, many people buy a ticket to see a whole event. Once there, they might watch everybody....or if they can't sit still that long, and they have some way of knowing who the best corps are (like DCI placements that almost never change from day to day), then they are more likely to be in their seat when those better corps are on. That does not equate to tickets sold. OK, here are two situations where you really can say a specific corps "sold X tickets": 1. Corps each get a block of seats from DCI, and they sell the tickets to their parents/boosters. At least here, the corps is doing the selling. 2. In rare cases, a single corps stages an event all by themselves (i.e. Academy's early June stage show). Then, there's no doubt that every ticket buyer is there to see Academy's performing ensembles.

This.

You know what? If we're going to put lighting on the table, in addition to all the other expensive toys already in play, then I say let the tax-subsidized scholastic activities be the "innovator$". The drum corps activity blossomed because it made field pageantry and competition cost-effective. The farther we stray from this principle, the fewer drum corps we have.

Probably not very. AFAIK, there is nothing on the table that reduces the proportion of inmates that would be running their own asylum. I am finding this difficult to believe. Every venue? Is this for 2011, or 2012? Do you realize what this means? I know PR and Crown sold out their TOC shows in 2011, and I'm fairly certain Rockford sold out again this year. If even a sellout loses money, there is no way the business model could possibly work. That's why I'm having trouble believing it....who would be that stupid to run a show that is guaranteed to lose money? How do you know they're talking? Specifically, are G7 directors and 9-23 directors talking with one another....or is someone else doing all the talking?

You see any alternative to that getting serious consideration? (Sorry, that question is really just a rhetorical one.) Well, it's not "gone". Perhaps it would be getting done right now, if not for all these other distractions. For example.... You must mean the G7. There were never eight corps making that threat. Before we breeze past this....where was it shown that the TOC shows are unprofitable? I think you flipped the numbers....by my count, we lost one corps and saw four not make it to Indy as scheduled (sorry, five....almost forgot Revo). Oh, and it's not the schedule that breaks corps, but rather, when corps break off more than they can chew. Wow. I'd hate to see the state of affairs when you are pessimistic.

Spokane Thunder stayed in the Northwest this season. Their five-contest season lasted one week. Interestingly, they also fielded their largest corps ever (38B/13FP/7PP/14G).

Oh, yeah, that was the Cadets. I remember because after the way that woke everybody up, the narrative about "not a creature was stirring" just didn't seem to fit.

And it was even worse where I was, down on the field recording them. When I work in industrial settings, hearing protection is required for environments louder than 85 dB. Nothing I have been subjected to on the day job compares to the sound pressure levels as I recorded the Cavaliers from down on the field. I had to plug my ears for self-preservation, and as I looked behind me, I saw many fans in the lower seating areas doing the same. ForTus, their 2012 show was 15 Minutes of Pain. There is no need for the speaker volume to be cranked up that loud....unless they were trying to cover up something. I did notice that in the drum feature, they cranked up some electronic noises in sync with the snares so that every difficult lick would have a corresponding belch from the speakers drowning it out. Might fool some spectators, but the field judge can still tell your snareline is dirty. But there's nothing in the pre-show that needs to be covered up....just that ear-popping whoosh at the start, and the creepy voiceover, "In the future, everyone will lose their hearing in 15 minutes".

Well, if you're taking that view, why even mention how many corps there once were? Tell us how many corps/bands/drumlines/guards there were in the "marching arts community" umpteen years ago, and continue from there. Yes, it is. So why do you continue to argue? By your logic, the opposite is true. Without scholastic marching band programs, there would be a need for drum corps on the local level once again. Get your story straight. The guy on the street is irrelevant. The guy in the stands matter$.

There is nothing you have said in this post that I "refuse to accept". That's your viewpoint, and in the manner it is stated, it doesn't contradict any of my viewpoints. If everyone could choose their words as carefully as you, discussion would be far more constructive here.

I thought we were talking about drum corps. At least, that's what you said previously:

Do you have any idea how many drum corps there were back in the day? Then why is it that the director of those same Cadets comes along every year or two to claim that it hasn't been figured out after all, and that if we don't give top corps like his more money, the sky will fall?

I think the top six lines are pretty closely matched....and if I had to pick a winner last night, it would be Bluecoats. After that, the gap between 6th and 7th should be of Grand Canyon magnitude.

(sigh) Maybe we'll never solve anything on DCP....but this won't get solved in the DCI boardroom either, or anywhere else, as long as people view these issues in black/white with no shades of gray. For instance, the timing, content and font of the OP will inevitably cause polarized responses from those who think DCI can do no wrong, and ridicule from the "I like waffles" crowd. But let's look at the key assertion made within: Now, bearing in mind that both DCI and their predecessors used systems that fit this description....what do y'all think? True or false? (Oh, sorry - there's that black/white thing again.) I find some truth to it. There has to be....DCI was created so that a subset of corps (the DCI member corps) could claim a greater share of the revenue from their events. But of course, to claim that alone is killing the activity when that's how things were done prior to DCI....well, it's not that simple. Conversely, though, I wouldn't say this either: To be fair, I snipped this one sentence out of the context of one of Mr. Willis' thorough and well-reasoned posts which made several dozen excellent points....but a little rewording would go a long way here. Of course DCI didn't single-handedly cause every last bit of decline in drum corps. But they have some culpability....and therefore, some ability to turn things around.

Then why have some activities grown in the same time period? Take youth soccer, for example....or competitive marching band. I'm sorry, but "more choices" isn't even a valid excuse, much less the primary one.

In what way? I don't see anything said here that isn't already reflected in the contest results he is referring to, so how is that biased? Perhaps he already has. Have you listened to all his podcasts?

No, they will not "overtake" BD in Indy....because they will already be ahead.