audiodb

How about 1987 Sky Ryders? On top of everything else they had going on, I also remember them because I hadn't heard a single clean solo from them until finals, when they nailed every single one of them. And if no one mentioned '88 SCV yet....they certainly hyped up in finals. Honestly, though, most of the quantum-leap moments I have witnessed have been in prelims, or outside of world-class (could write a book on those). And I suspect most of the tangible up-a-notch performances among the top 12 took place in the 1970s, before I started attending. Since then, with the continual elevation in preparation and professionalism, Thursday/Friday performances have been much closer to Saturday.

Yes. More than one, I imagine. No....there are enough corps and communities. But there isn't enough competitive parity to support the regional sequestering of 20th-century touring. I don't think what you refer to here is as typical or widespread as you seem to think....but it does apply to drum corps, so go on. OK, I'm with you on that. However.... Like a lot of the absolute statements on a thread like this one, it's not that cut and dried.

....which means nothing if: - you don't fill that extra capacity - that extra capacity is so expensive that the extra ticket sales can't pay for it Plus, the whole concept of coast-to-coast touring is based on creating a string of paydays for the touring corps. If, as you say, you're looking at profitability, you need to consider the cost of travel, and make sure the tradeoff of "fewer shows" doesn't outweigh the benefit of "larger shows".

Actually, he has proposed several different ways to throw different subgroups of corps out of different levels of DCI involvement. Though there is a common thread, each proposal comes with a unique set of objectionable tactics and consequences.

Obvious? Perhaps you have the advantage of having seen their 2011 show live in competition. I did not....and thus, evaluating based only on the YouTube link, I'd say the performance I see and hear there would belong somethere in the 8th-12th place range....in open-class. I'll bet they performed much better than that in competition.

How will kicking the 18th-23rd corps out of WC help them build up cash reserves? They'd lose the annual $75,000 in appearance fees, another $(redacted) in revenue sharing, and more in lost souvie sales opportunities....and most of their dues revenue when kids quit. Oh, wait....maybe you think it would help the remaining WC corps....

Well, what DCI really has is the authority to move corps in or out of membership status. It's just that membership has become very closely tied to WC vs. OC. Hasn't always been that way, and it need not stay that way in the future.

It could be an inhibitor. As I am told, the bar was higher for Surf and higher still for Teal. Assuming all 23 WC corps remain, I would not be surprised if the bar raises even higher for corps #24. But the bigger issue today is less corps that are ready and willing to move up. Back in 2005, five corps petitioned for promotion. Hard to imagine seeing that happen again.

I doubt it would come to that. Every time a corps has gotten that good, they've made the move to WC. If BDB or SCVC rose to that level, I see no reason why they wouldn't make the same move. (Of course, they can't rise to that level with their current budgets and travel habits, so this is a somewhat moot point.)

Hard to say, since there is no precedent similar to the scenario you describe. The only corps I recall ever "wiping the floor" was 2002 Magic, and they diverge from your description in two ways (they didn't want to remain in division II, and the sustainable budget only sustained them for a few years). In any case, with WC and membership status so closely intertwined, I don't think we will see DCI mandating any corps to do WC against their will. One of the criteria for entry to WC is that the corps wants to move up, and declares that intent by petitioning for promotion.

You are wrong. Competitive ability is part of the evaluation. You can have the most fiscally responsible corps on Earth, rolling in money, touring for eight weeks every summer and caring for their kids better than anyone, but if they don't have enough kids or enough talent/experience, they will not be promoted to WC until that changes.

Just to clarify, do you want to start a corps, or just host a show in your area?

Well, that makes two interesting collages of statistics. Do you have any more specifics to offer on the DCI payouts to corps? For instance, among how many corps was that payout divided in 1994, and how many corps today?

But what were tour fees back in 1972? I paid $450 in 1986, so I'm having trouble imagining tour fees were $400 in 1972. Indeed. Actually, you could make the case that tour fees are too low, and that if top corps are in fact having any trouble making ends meet, perhaps that is the reason.

And along those lines, I would be skeptical of their ability to do that without a reasonably large number of events. Even with the premise of bigger paydays, they'd still need 20 of them to make a viable Gx tour. They don't automatically have that many just from among their own corps hosting shows. Please continue.

No. That number is way off. Maybe....but I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here. How did you get there from my previous post? What I was referring to in my previous post was that the founding DCI corps were: - interested in national touring - finding it difficult to sustain on prize money of the day - established circuits to provide more paydays and higher % pay from tour events That was a basic principle of the Midwest Combine, as well as DCI. Anyway, once committed to these touring habits, the top touring corps depended on this Combine/DCI revenue to make their own touring budgets viable. That was what my previous post was referring to. Now, you ask about the other 400+ corps that weren't founding members of DCI. They were involved in various ways for an assortment of reasons. The primary one, as I've said here recently, was that the league required open competition with the rest of the activity to establish it's marketing position as "showcasing the finest corps". Additionally, individual show lineups couldn't be filled by the 13 original member corps alone, so others had to participate there too. From the other 400+ corps, they found several willing to fill those open spots in show lineups for less than the guaranteed pay/benefits the member corps received....so pretty soon, much of the DCI operating model took advantage of, er, leveraged the availability of cheaper non-member corps in this manner. It is analogous to how our nation maintains a minimum wage law, but relies on foreign labor sources for low-priced manufactured goods and food. Sounds good to me....but I don't expect any of the powers that be to propose such a change now.

Sorry Charlie!

Who's kidding? The WC corps are dependent on DCI for a significant portion of their annual budget. That's been the case ever since DCI was formed. To a large extent, that's why DCI was formed. And, to a large extent, that's why the G7 haven't left DCI.

And even if all you say here is correct....competitive drum corps continued uninterrupted throughout the Depression....bigger than ever, in fact, if judging by the size of the national championship contests.

I'm not following you. USSBA USBands is a band circuit. Drum corps do not/cannot compete in it, so it can't become a national-level circuit for any of DCI's current member corps.

And because DCI opened their circuit to all challengers, with membership available to any who made top 12....things turned out differently.

Yes....because individual corps cannot deprive DCI of their "drawing power". It really is DCI's drawing power....a consequence of DCI being an established league of national/world level championship competition for drum corps. A closed-circuit club of any number of disgruntled ex-DCI corps could not possibly take that away from DCI. The only way a Gx league could achieve long-term viability would be by establishing their own national/world level championship competition. That can only happen if they open up their private club to the rest of the activity by holding open contests where membership in the Gx is available to those who qualify competitively. Without a legitimate open competitive model, the Gx would last for only 2-3 years as a private club. If they aren't already aware of that fact, they would be come year 2 when their ticket sales drop. That said, there's another suggestion for DCI to guard against systemic risk....attach incentives to DCI membership to discourage participation in rival circuits. Not exactly the same as a "boycott", but rather, making a DCI corps' pay largely contingent upon loyalty, such that trying to compete in both circuits would be giving up more DCI $$$ than they could make from the Gx.

Well, since you went there.... If the Gx leave DCI, DCI and their corps will continue on just fine, regardless of what the value of x is....7, 8, 12, 17. The entire world-class could leave DCI, and the remaining corps in DCI (i.e. open-class) would be just fine. How do we know this? Well, that's essentially what happened back around 2003-2004 when DCI gave division II/III the balanced-budget mandate. How DCI would adjust to right-size their schedule and budget would vary depending on how many corps leave. But I have no doubt that DCI would make the appropriate adjustments and continue on. Furthermore, the quality of life for the corps that stay with DCI would be maintained in year 1, and would then increase in years 2 through eternity. Oh, you really are going there. Alright, here are a few thoughts off the top of my head. We've seen several circuit-level splits of varying levels of hostility over the years. The formation of DCI itself was one; the DCM/DCI episode of 2002-3-4 was another; DCA's early years had various split factions boycotting each other; even the G7 proposal shows some of what might be coming. Learn from them. Expect the departing corps to pull out completely, boycotting all DCI events. Expect them to immediately go after every DCI contest venue, woo every DCI tour event partner, and offer show access to remaining DCI corps with no strings attached (yet). Expect them to stage competing events in close proximity to DCI major events on the same dates. Also, expect that for those organizations with feeder programs, the feeder corps will side with the parent corps whether it makes sense for their own program or not. What to do? Two big things: 1. The immediate concern is to stay up to date on contracts....in fact, get them signed before that big explosive meeting when everything hits the fan. DCM nearly lost their championship venue in the aftermath of the DCM/DCI affair, as the splitting DCI corps directed DCI to call first thing Monday morning after their final DCM meeting and book it for whatever weekend DCM was planning their event. If I was running the G7, I'd already be talking to the Texas Bandmasters Association about why my circuit's event should be the feature of their convention instead of DCI's San Antonio focus show, and why the BOA Summer Symposium should partner with us instead of DCI. Keep that back door closed. 2. And the thing no one here has been talking about (until now)....copyrights. Audio/video of the DCI corps are copyrighted by DCI, and only with DCI's permission can corps use those recordings of themselves. DCI's founders set things up that way for a number of reasons....back in the day, revenue from the initial DCI recording sales effort is what kept DCI alive. One of those reasons is more apparent today than ever before, as I keep hearing from offline sources that collective DCI ownership of the audio/video archive now serves as the glue holding DCI together. Depending on who you ask, it could be the main reason the G7 didn't already leave DCI, as in the event of a hostile split, they would lose access to their own historical A/V recordings. Thinking longer-term, don't allow too much of DCI's power to reside in too few hands. Voting rights should not be cut back to fewer corps. The DCI BOD should not be made smaller. Keep vital infrastructure in the DCI office....do not subcontract it out to individual corps. Proposals with any of those three preceding components in them should raise a red flag. Groom as many corps as possible into show hosts, and spread the show-hosting wealth as evenly as possible among them. Same principle applies to clinics, and any supplemental performance material beyond the competitive field shows that is used to promote DCI events. Oh, and be careful about proposals for restructuring DCI or changing how it is governed. Make sure DCI's mission remains in place, and that incentives remain aligned with it. Control of DCI's assets and intellectual property must remain with DCI, so as not to permit a Gx group to use copyrighted DCI materials.

A few thoughts: 1. There is no SSR or TBTF among the corps. Looking back at your definitions: The failure of one corps, or a few corps, will not cause the rest to fail. We have ample evidence of this, whether from the failure of three of DCI's charter members to even attend the first championship, to the 1975 season proceeding without five of the top 25 (Kingsmen, Purple Lancers, Commodores, Blue Rock and P-N Patriots), or the 1994 season proceeding without five of the 1993 member corps (Star of Indiana, Spirit, Dutch Boy, Sky Ryders and Black Gold). More importantly, there is no systemic mechanism where a corps failure would cause others. Quite the opposite....the loss of a corps opens up opportunities for their competitive rivals. Clearly, no single corps is too big to fail. Again, having had top-3 corps like '74 Kingsmen and '93 Star of Indiana fail (or leave), the activity did not collapse. 2. As for DCI, the questions are more compelling. Obviously, since DCI has assumed operation of the entire junior corps activity, it's failure would be very disruptive, certainly a "systemic meltdown" of some sort. Thus, one could easily argue DCI is "too big to fail" in that sense. In reality, though, I think that if DCI really ever did fail: - someone would step up and take it's place - many of the corps would continue operating in some form Even here, we have historical precedents. Drum Corps Holland had a meltdown back in the late 1990s. Several corps fled to a marching band circuit to keep their events going; a few others competed in surrounding countries; some just performed in non-competitive venues. Should have killed the Dutch activity off, right? Well, actually, hardly any of the corps folded over it, and a few years later, some guy just decided to start his own circuit. Check it out....it's called Drum Corps Europe, and not only did it bring drum corps all the way back in the Netherlands, it has also helped revitalize the British drum corps scene that was teetering on the brink of extinction 5-6 years ago. 3. The premise of one of your questions is ambiguous. Take a look: A distinction must be made between corps "failing" and corps "exiting DCI", especially in today's context. If the corps exiting DCI form their own circuit a la G7, which becomes a cut-throat competitor with DCI, that creates several additional challenges way outside of the scope of the SSR/TBTF issues. (On the other hand, I still don't think DCI would fail even in the face of a hostile G7 split....but that's for another thread.) There might be some interesting conversation to be had in response to this question. But I don't think there is such a risk.

Competitive drum corps activity proceeded without interruption throughout the Great Depression, even at the national level. Of course, the corps were smaller, the equipment simpler, and the "tours" shorter....but then again, DCI and their corps have weathered the current downturn without making any concessions on the scale of their corps or tours.