audiodb

Actually, they do in this case. Post-season revenue sharing is based on how much revenue DCI makes, and the Atlanta show is one of DCI's revenue generators. Crowd size at a show run by a third party (like the show in Dublin, OH, tomorrow) does not affect the bottom line for the corps....but it does at the 15 or so shows that DCI runs. And of course, when a corps hosts a show, their own bottom line is affected by how well their own show sells.

Academy played all Shostakovich in '05, so guess again. Come to think of it, PR was playing Gershwin that same year....

SCV had trouble with their amps in San Antonio. Major blasts of mid-range noise from the right speaker. Sound board operator was crawling around, trying to fix it several times, and it would stop for a minute....then belch noise again.

Just wondering why bad news from open-class is allowed to sit on the WC forum, while good news (i.e. Oregon Crusaders thread) is not. But while we're here.... Memphis Sound would have completely evaporated had it not been for a contingent of members and staff (and eventually, administration) from north Texas. They made up such a majority of the corps in 2009 that they actually declared themselves "Memphis Sound, from Grand Prairie, TX". In order to resolve conflict between the corps and whatever administration remained in Memphis, they reorganized as a new corps for 2010, adopting the name Forte. The 2012 corps was the result of all-new administration from that of 2010-11....and judging from the "interim director" reference in the press release, it appears the new admin did not stay for even one full year.

When would I catch up on my texting if we changed this format? Seriously, for those who consider this a problem that requires fixing (I'm on the fence myself), some thoughts: 1. This was not a problem back when corps were limited to using only what their members could carry on/off the field with them. (Chances of passing such a rule change = 0.) 2. This was not a problem back when corps started from one goal line and finished at the other goal line. (Chances of passing such a rule change = 0.) 3. Some band circuits take a different approach, giving each band a block of time to use however they want....but they must complete their entry and exit from gate to gate within that time as well, including all their equipment. (For DCI's current ensembles to accomplish this would require an additional two or three minutes per corps.) 4. Some shows blast commercials over stadium PA between corps (with video if there is a jumbotron). DCI may well be making crucial $$$ from this advertising, thus rendering this whole discussion moot. Nevertheless, the best suggestion I can offer at the moment is that if you want to improve the entertainment/time quotient, change the scoring system so that corps are judged throughout their entire 17-minute time block. If those corps who figure out how to make their setup/teardown less awkward, shorter, smoother, etc., were rewarded competitively for it, we would see changes....trust me.

If this show was being performed as well as last year's, it would be placing within a spot or two of last year's corps.

No, it doesn't. We had an entire thread last year devoted to people asking if there would be a TOC in 2012. That's because the 2011 TOC press releases never said whether it was a one-year-only deal, a multi-year experiment, or a permanent feature of future DCI tours.

The original intent of the separate forum for open-class here on DCP was so that their threads wouldn't get lost in a sea of world-class threads. Upon reflection, though, I think that if we're going to do that, the objective would be best served by creating a separate open-class forum temporarily every year for the last week of July and first few weeks of August (in the same manner that we create rule change forums each January). For the other 11 months of the year, we might as well combine the two junior corps forums.

This may actually be the looniest post I have ever seen on DCP. When was the last time you saw....no, this doesn't even deserve to be phrased as a question. I see these corps directors coming in/going out with their corps at shows all the time. And in over 20 years, I have never seen a single one of them "in a rant of anger" or the least bit "tipsy" at such a time and place. So how does that work? "Hey George, I got an idea! Let's go down to the field tonight and start talking about pulling our corps out of DCI, real loud, so that people overhear us." "Dave, that's a dumb idea. You want to get booed like I did at the Rose Bowl?" "George, you said you wanted to test the waters. You said this whole G7 deal is off unless those five people bantering on Drum Corps Planet like it now." "So?" "So we blab this in front of a blogger." "And how do you know who's a blogger, Dave?" "That's easy. They're the ones with those DCP headsets, y'know, that cup the ears and make everything louder." "Oh, yeah. YEA!" "We'll say we have eight corps ready to split, maybe nine now." "Got it!" Seriously....we all know that seven corps threatened to leave DCI just a couple of years ago....therefore, a split is still a possibility, generally speaking. But just because some anonymous DCPer thinks he heard someone that might (or might not) be a corps director say something about corps leaving DCI as if it is still a plan (or maybe he didn't hear the past tense) is no reason to proclaim that the sky is falling. Besides, the sky cannot fall now. We're in the Alamodome tomorrow.

OK....that's where we diverge. Hey, one question about this comment below.... How many WC fall into that category, in your view? And getting back to the above, how would the numbers in each division come together to make the tours practical?

Academy, Crest and Surf are big corps. And they are competing with big corps (though perhaps not as well as you'd prefer). Where is this "push" you refer to? "Full tour" is still defined as San Antonio to Indy....and you can still get into WC without even doing that "full tour". Now, if individual corps were pushing themselves to tour like a G7 or die trying, that would be a problem. But again, there's no DCI rule compelling them to do so. Well, it was you who said DCI was killing corps, in this context. But no one is "making" them compete. Those corps all chose to move into world-class. Or Oregon Crusaders and Thunder compete with Cascades....oh, wait. I look at this from a different angle. I don't want to draw more lines. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced we need the line we have. Here's what I mean.... Once upon a time, drum corps did not have a class structure. Corps stratified themselves by choosing where they competed. If a corps was young or less ambitious, they would find a local circuit and stay there. Better or more audacious corps might add a trip to a major contest to that routine. Highly competitive corps would travel to a national championship contest each year, perhaps more than one, and might wander outside their immediate locale to lock horns with a comparable rival some other time during the season just for the competitive challenge. Geographical stratification had an elegant simplicity to it that I wish we could recapture today (sigh). Even after "class A" spread all over to provide an additional method of stratification, corps still had the ability to determine their level of participation by where they traveled to compete. There were options available at all levels. Major regional circuits (DCM, DCE, DCW/PDCA) and DCI regionals provided a particular wealth of choices for intermediate corps. Today, we've folded everything into the DCI tent, where there is simply no focus on developing local or regional alternatives. DCI is pretty much all about the national tour. We're lucky that they even offer two flavors of national touring (world-class and open-class), because DCI tends to focus and excel at only one division at a time. I think corps could still stratify themselves even today. One could even argue that they already do, to whatever extent corps have freedom to choose between competing in WC/OC. But why must there be a WC and an OC? (Yeah, I get the whole voting/membership thing, but why must your competitive division be married to your voting status?) And what do the intermediate corps do in a two-class system? WC has over a dozen corps that tour 7-8 weeks, while open-class only provides a 2-week tour. What if your corps is located in some corner of the country that makes a 4-week tour more practical? (Notice how many of the limited-tour WC and more ambitious OC corps come from the edges of our national map.) Ohhhhhhh. Well, if you refresh your memory on the particulars of the G7 proposal, you will see how I got the wrong impression. Their proposal did not establish a viable touring model for a middle division. In fact, it proposed the opposite by reserving all Fridays and Sundays for exclusive G7 shows, with all-inclusive focus events on Saturdays. Meaning, all the touring non-G7 corps would still have to do the same tour to be there Saturday, but be denied any revenue oportunities at the surrounding Friday/Sunday shows. And yes, those same corps would also have faced loss of voting power and a change in pay scale. What you are suggesting is far different.... OK. We're probably not that far apart, really. I would simply prefer that instead of creating new classes and herding corps into them against their will, we let corps chart out courses that fit their own unique circumstances. If you are suggesting an intermediate class that current WC corps can enter voluntarily, without losing DCI membership status or their position on the pay scale, that would be worthy of consideration.

Depends. What were their scores the night before?

The sky is falling!

The sky is falling!

The sky is falling! Whoa, let's rewind here. 1. First of all, the rules don't say anyone has to "keep up with the Joneses". We've had corps enter world-class with an assortment of corps sizes, budgets, and tours. The most notable among those (Mandarins, Pacific Crest, Academy and Jersey Surf) are all still with us. 2. And what exactly killed Teal Sound? Do we know that it was anything other than a freak bus contract gone bad. 3. And by the way, they're not "dead" yet, anyway, just sitting out part of 2012. Frankly, we haven't seen a single WC corps die since 2007, despite the recession to end all recessions. For what possible reason? 1. If you think paying top corps more and showcasing them in their own special shows is the answer....well, DCI is already doing that. 2. I can't imagine how you would think any of the rest of that G7 proposal would help a corps in Teal Sound's position. Taking away shows? Taking away pay? Taking away voting rights?

So what does that mean? Do you have a serious suggestion for how to establish a performance standard for world-class, or not?

That is incorrect. Boston only used the synth once in 1985 competition. Exaggerating again? I believe '87 Rocky Mountain Magic was the only A/A-60 corps to do as you describe. Now, there was one other corps to push the electronics rule....Knights were using illegal equipment in early '86, and they may have been taking repeated penalties for it, IIRC. But when informed that continued infractions would result in disqualification, the corps pulled the plug on the electronics.

What performance standard did you have in mind?

No - the Troopers were sidelined by a unanimous vote of the other DCI member corps. By that vote, they were ordered to take a year off and get their house in order. Had they failed to do so to the full satisfaction of the DCI participation review committee, they would not have returned to world-class the following year. We also seem to forget that when a corps misses more than one season, they must return via open-class (i.e. Magic 2002, Capital Regiment 2009). Those are two methods by which a corps can lose world-class status.

Why not? These changes were pushed through with a far higher ratio of conjecture vs. fact in the boardroom. OK....show me the social site where the consensus is that A&E grew the drum corps audience. I'll even give you 15 minutes. I'm not contending that a majority of the audience left over A&E. Well, you must understand how that misconception comes about. Your participation on these threads focuses on arguing with the people who share your view.

Of course. Well, no, it's not that simple. One only needs to look at the first two shows of the 2011 and 2012 seasons (where judges didn't have access to yesterday's scores) to see what kind of variability we would have if judges called it as they see it. And of course, there would be closer competition if corps received equal pay for equal work. Why should we be surprised that the same corps are on top every year when they get paid more every year?

My data shows 23 for BD in 1982, while Garfield does weigh in with 37. I have Madison at 38. though.

I nominate barigirl78 for a spot on the DCI board. We do have a limit on corps size, and that should stay in place. (I only brought that up earlier to show where Shadowtron's logic would lead.) However, I don't see how we could reasonably try to limit what all corps spend, as they raise a significant portion of that money themselves via dues, donations, souvenir sales and external fundraisers. That is what was happening in past years. That's one of the things that made the phenomenon of drum corps possible....in the earlier half of it's history, drum corps was particularly adept at doing big things on small budgets.

Well, then, we could get more participants right now by raising the 150-member limit. No woodwinds required.

How does that work? A 150-member corps today will not have any more participants if woodwinds are legalized. They can't....the rule says no more than 150 members. As for the smaller corps....well, as you say, what makes drum corps special is the level of excellence. If I remember correctly, your opinion is that the smaller corps offer nothing that woodwind players can't already get in their marching band programs. Therefore, they would only try out for the 150-member corps, which can't get any bigger. But since your claim of increased participation is invalid, we'd be left with only the short-term, catastrophic losses. Wait - which is it? You just said attendance hinges on the number of participants. Now you say it hinges on quality? If quality is the only reason all these people go to DCI shows, then more participants won't change anything. Furthermore, attendance trends do not support either of your contentions.