cybersnyder

I encourage you to look at some of the organization's 990 filings.

Look at DCA's 990. There isn't enough budget to hire software engineers. DCI has about 25x the revenue of DCA. Don't worry about geofencing the vote. Don't include bleacher votes in the corps' score. Possibly award a "Fan Favorite trophy" or something like that.

But you have to get them into the stands in the first place, a voting app isn't going to do that. Don't bother with the "I'm too old to get it comment." I get it.

Looking at DCA's 2017 990, there isn't a huge budget, so bang for the buck is crucial.

That’s fine. But DCA doesn’t seem to do social media well at all. More tools are great, but I think there needs to be something more fundamental.

I believe you can create a poll on Facebook for free. Personally, I’m not installing new apps.

Not NE, but Maryland was pushed to an after Labor Day start statewide.

Ok, that could be a problem, probably a fatal one. But I will give credit to it probably being the best idea so far.

Man, I never remember songs or themes, but I think I remember music from "The Rock". I remember that, that I enjoyed the show and that there was another corps later that my wife and I liked a lot. We called them "drum corps classic" - in the 90's - Heh!!! But, Les Etoiles is the only show that stuck with me.

I like this. Seems reasonable, not a travel burden. The only downside is the shortened schedule.

Was that the year that the percussion switched off between snares and tenors and I remember Tommy Lee style spinning at the end? If so, that's the only thing I remember from Allentown that year.

We don't even talk about all of Tchaikovsky's works, just his greatest hits.

Sorry, missed that autocorrect. But you should see some that I fortunately catch. It can't be too expensive to become a rights holder. There are thousands of small, self published labels out there. ai doubt there will be a huge revenue stream unless some music gets picked up for commercials. But, they'll be in control of their music.

The judges obviously.

Well, in my "original band" mentioned in my comment above. Yeah, people want to hear what the know and enjoy. It's far easier to pick a top song from the millions of songs in existence than to come up with something great on your own.

Before they go to original music, I hope someone is looking into the licensing and rights. "Publish" through a DCI entity so that steaming rights are clear. I was in an a band that did originals. A local brewery wanted only original music because the assumption was that they wouldn't have to pay ASCAP, BMI, SESAC performance fees. That's not actually case if the originals were published through something like CD Baby or whatever. Even if the original artist is performing their originals, performance rights still come into play. It sucks, but they have lawyers on staff that go after venues all day, every day. So, if Blue Devils come up with all original music for a year and it's published through something that filters up through BMI, streaming rights are still an issue. I guess Phantom is in the clear for a lot of their music which is considered in the public domain.

I think someone mentioned merging with DCI as an all age category. If you can start the season a little later, it might be a good idea to join forces. Would NE corps travel to Indy?

Watching the NFL pregame show and commercials, they make the fan central in their marketing. I feel like in drum corps, the fans are just along for the ride. If I got a Steelers tattoo, nobody would care. If I got a Blue Devils tattoo, people (if they knew what it was) would ask what year I marched and then doubt that I'm deserving to wear a Blue Devils tattoo.

Cool. I’ll drop out of the convo at this point.

Schools that already have marching bands. The post I was replying to said to explore partnerships with colleges and schools that don't have a marching program.

I thought it was more of a suggestion to partner and provide a marching program for schools without one. Agree that if they're not already sending a flyer to every band director in a three hour drive radius, they're missing a huge opportunity.

A scholastic partnership won’t work well since the corps are active during the summer ( no school ) and more or less dormant during the school year.

But 200 versus 150 is another bus and additional mouths to feed, unis, etc. So, they’re not coming in as a free revenue stream. Some costs may spread out but I don’t think altering the size of the corps would modify fees in any major way. You could spread out overhead costs, but not individual costs. I don’t know what the average cost per individual is but since there are tour fees, fundraisers, appearance fees, etc, I doubt that individuals are covering all of their costs via tour fees.

Yes, that's the fun side of it. I'm looking at what makes more business sense. I don't think tour fees can go up much more.

"Tilt" - the ending.