mingusmonk

This is where we are at. Today. In 2026. With essentially a voice-to-text note taking AI. That the realistic take! Didn't hate it. But at best it is at a phase of "interesting exercise." Because it was so error prone. If a judge or evaluated staff member relied on those notes there would certainly be a disconnect ... today. If it requires that kind of proofing, then the process of listening to, and interpreting, tapes is where the juice is. But I would expect it to improve. And it wasn't making points about your commentary @TheOneWhoKnows. It was summarizing and restating *your* points (if accurate). I'm not here to be an AI hater. But people need to be as critical and realistic in reviewing the nuts and bolts of AI as they would other tool sets. Don't let the sensational overhype of the technology dull those skills.

Did you look a the results? lol Competition Suite has been trialing AI Summaries of judge tapes to assist in critiques and so far they can't even get those voice to text summary notes right. But AI can Judge full shows in 2027? Sure. LLM's imitating the look and feel of something can be an amazing experience. Sometimes we let that sensation of being impressed by the overall vibe of a simulacrum that we forget to do a reality check. Y'all are wild for this.

I listen to a podcast that had Barron's 2 prediction market journalists as guests. One of them asked Kalshi "what makes anything a market" or in laymen's terms, what qualifies as worthy to bet on. One might assume it has to do with volume and size of the market etc. but their answer was, if there is any interest in a yes and any interest and a no, then they would consider it worth creating a market. Here's a link to the full podcast

As contemptible as kalshi and polymarket are, I assume the first place it will show up is with the repugnant staff turnover thread.

Without getting into nuances, it mostly: The vocabulary, range/depth = Brass/Percussion/Music Content Sub-caption Execution of that vocabulary = Brass/Percussion/Music Achievement Sub-caption

This is splitting hairs. It is as simple as the scope and scale of your scenario is still not worth the gain. It is easier today to work the ensemble via more traditional tower techniques, ears, and eyes rather than adding IEMs to the mix. IEMs are not a set-it and forget-it magic bullet. Even for small ensembles. You imply above that this has something to do with lack of support from the equipment/gear scene for IEMs. And that the activity receives some great benefit driven by other suppliers. But simultaneously, you are constantly talking about how electronics are some kind of $2 million budget suck. What segment of the audio engineering industry is currently manipulating the activity's usage? And how are they doing that while still costing us millions of dollars?

It is not realistically attainable to manage 165 IEMs moving dynamically across a 57,000 square foot field for precise execution needs of all performers today. Want proof? Nobody is doing it. Not that the creative minds we have in audio engineering haven't considered all of this and beyond. Their evaluations of the benefits of attempting such feat have left them on the side of "not today."

This is interesting framing. I don't think one should be using it to prove anything. It was an X (formerly Twitter) post with a poll in it. Specifically, the post was their own reply to their original post that exclusively mentions Kid Rock's TPUSA performance. No references to Bad Bunny at all. So the poll was a simple opt-in and you must be an X user to vote (bot farms included). No reliable demographic tracking other than generalized "X user." Nobody had to watch anything to vote. Just be an X user and see the post. One might make some guesses on who that post was being presented to by the algorithm but we'll never know. But here's a helpful exercise: you can look at the Quote Tweets and see who/how it was being promoted. I'm not sure how you could get much looser ties to scientific polling results than that. About as useful as Rotten Tomatoes oft-botted Popcorn Meter.

Multiple drum corps alums on the field as performers! From the sugar cane "bushes", dancers, to musicians. Pretty freaking cool.

The corps that dominated brass in the 2010's+ made this a thing. Fortunately they have learned to more thoroughly develop their designing beyond that and I appreciate it. Will others follow suit? Another group's recent run of color guard victories has really tapped this out for me as well.

y'all sleeping on rarick but thats ok

Mostly true. Bluecoats move-ins are a design process as much as a member development process. The designers have frequently talked in interviews, podcasts, etc about how fluid the program contents are as they get going into spring training. Their process has little resemblance to "back in the day." Technology and teaching methods allow for a lot of experimentation.

Godspeed

Some interesting dialog. Unfortunately, DCP is not the place to get the OP's answer. A lot of old "experts" in here have fine-tuned an environment that is completely off-putting to current marchers. Rehashing the same tired arguments about the failing state of the current activity for decades. Imagine popping in here after you age out and experiencing the vibe we emit. The good news is, a lot of corps have developed long-term programs to improve and sustain member experience, so they don't rely on niche subcultures to set the tone. This pays off in the alumni pipeline as well. The more that do this, the better off the activity will be.