troon8

The Cadets throw this in, courtesy of The Simpsons...(And any good Simpson's fan should know exactly what song I'm referring to before they even click on the link!)

Holy cow, just watched them for the first time (on video, sadly...won't be getting the chance to see anyone live this year :( For a show about the undead, it sure was high energy!! I was blown away...I'm rooting for them this weekend, big time!

I can't believe it took that long for this to show up...!

Because even if a corps were to try this, they're still not going to please everyone. My thoughts are that every design team with every corps is bound to have a stinker every so often. There have been plenty of designs where it's obvious in hindsight to ask "WTF were they thinking?!" Maybe it's bad group-think, but more likely it's an experiment that just didn't work out the way they hoped. To use your example, I think that yes, the Cadets team did think that "a Christmas music show would ever win gold or be a fan favorite." They may not have been right, but hindsight is 20/20. I really doubt that "ego, stubbornness, or lack of vision" are part of it. For every example like that there's also an example of shows that might not have been popular had you described them to someone on paper (Crown last year or in 2009 come to my mind) but managed to do just fine. Also the method you're describing would complicate an already complicated process to the point of insanity. Even if it were crowd sourced the way you describe, that's hardly a guarantee to make it popular and/or successful.

Her expression is rather askew, I say that qualifies!

...and you know these things are fans!

The Bloo Train's a fan... (How amazing would it be if they toured everywhere in that this year???)

I'm more curious about the schedule of which corps go on which nights. I noticed there were a handful of switches from last year. Is this typical? Is it changed year to year with the intention of balancing out the breakdown between the two shows based on the previous year's rankings? Or does it have more to do with each corps travel & rehearsal schedule?

Sorry if I came off as mean, not my intention. It's clear to me that YOU understand that this isn't the norm...It's more just the contradiction between how little the drill writers I know actually make vs. even the thought of them breaking into five digits (let alone six) that strikes me as amusing.

Some of the numbers floating around on this thread are HILARIOUS...Thanks for the laughs, DCP, I'm now off to feed my leftovers to the real-life drill & music writers whose name are not Micheal Gaines squatting on my lawn. (Not a dig on the fantastic real-life Mr. Gaines, he's earned every penny! No matter how many more pennies those are then just about everyone else. ;)

Cheap thrills we discovered by chance no matter what your age - The playground of the future in Cedar Creek Park! You've never seen a playground like this...unless you're from the future. Cedar Creek Rd. & N. Glenwood / Hamilton St.

Oh sure, now we can tell EXACTLY what the changes will look/sound like from that description...

If your kid was in the band and came to you upset that some of these things happened to them, is this what you would tell them? Reading the actual report (not just the news article. The exhibits referenced are even worse.) some of it looks fairly harmless, but a lot of the specifics are nothing short of hazing and harassment. To me, "Kids being kids" is a #### poor excuse for saying it's OK.

If last year's waffles aren't as good as this year's waffles, maybe there's some disappointment, but even bad waffles are still waffles. Not everyone, even the top waffle chefs, get to have the best waffles every year like they want. And I think that's a pretty well recognized life lesson by waffle eaters at all tables. Factoid: Since Mayan Calender Year 12 Baktun, 89.7% of waffles have been eaten by the Cadevilwaffleiers.

Interesting, I would've assumed that it'd be pretty split...Why do you think that is?

"And in first place, with a score of..."

Also a surprisingly rough year for corps with the word Red in their name...AGAIN...

They can't ALL be making the strongest push! :)

Maybe, but I still wouldn't eat a 20 year old burrito!

Any. But if I had to pick one...SCV 2004.

My challenge to any corps to put a show on the field about a non-prime number still stands... (Calender years, i.e. 1930, don't count. But maybe Four Corners did... ;)

I'm sure most on here already know this, but theme and story are not the same thing. A story is a narrative; a tale of things happening to characters with a beginning and an end. Sometimes these are explicit. For example, Bluecoats 2008 had a pretty clear storyline. Sometimes, whether intentionally or not, story lines aren't as distinct. Sometimes viewers find stories where none may have been intended, see a completely different interpretation from what have been intended, or fail to recognize a storyline that was intended at all. And hey, that's cool. A theme is a central topic, like machines, good vs. evil., love, birds, Dada, New York City is awesome and crazy, the number two, circles, the 1920's, etc. You can certainly have a suggested (not explicit) theme about an abstract concept, or an explicit portrayal of an abstract storyline or abstract theme. I'd say Crown 2013 had a number of both. Some shows have both themes and stories. It's getting increasingly rare (for better or worse) to find shows with neither.

I like shows where I can be a beer-ing fan.

Not to make it sound like something deeper then it is, but cheering is a personal choice. Even though I, like some others, get mildly annoyed at wild yells of enthusiasm for every rifle catch, you can't control or predict when others will (or won't) cheer. So that really only gives you two options: 1. Let people cheer whenever they want, with the knowledge that sometimes they'll be making loud noises when you wouldn't. 2. NO CHEERS FOR YOU. All audience members must literally sit on their hands. Dead silence from the crowd. I know which I'd take...

Let's look at just the different parameters mentioned by the OP that people get fired up (or not) about... 1. Synths or not 2. Judging now, or judging my favorite way 3. Any key, or my favorite key 4. Any brass, or only my favorite brass 5. 150 members, or only my favorite number of members. I'm probably doing this math very very wrong, (i.e., I picked the wrong online calculator to figure it out,) but if we require each of those five categories to have one answer or the other, and all five must be selected, it gives us 252 possibilities. Therefore, the solution is to create 252 distinct drum & bugle corps circuits. Everyone will be happy. EVERYONE.