mingusmonk
-
Posts
5,258 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
3
Posts posted by mingusmonk
-
-
53 minutes ago, C.Holland said:
While I think this is a cool idea, I am a bit taken back at the cost. Granted, we havent seen a schedule, but Soundsport was intended to be affordable. Which also prompts the "what is affordable" in this day and age, but woof.
That's a good question. Hard to make a blanket judgement on "affordable." But here are some comparisons for context. Relative to Bluecoats DCI experience, these fees are around 80% less. In comparison to an independent WGI experience, these fees are around 40% less than average. There isn't really any shared SoundSport data to make direct comparisons. A lot of SoundSport groups come and go. In this case, there is a stable and proven organization with an excellent reputation for running safe and organized educational experiences at a high level. Which ads value as well. I am not sure how "4 weekends" translates to rehearsal time, performance experience, etc. And it will be interesting to see how well the virtual education works in between those weekends.
-
https://bluecoats.com/news/2023/1/17/bluecoats-launches-rhythm-in-blue-as-soundsport-ensemble
In 2023, Rhythm IN BLUE will bring the Bluecoats Experience to any performer 18+. The Rhythm IN BLUE season will operate with a lesser time and financial commitment to performers and will culminate with a performance at the DCI World Championships Week in Indianapolis.
1/17/23
Today Bluecoats announced the re-launch of Rhythm IN BLUE as a DCI SoundSport ensemble. Formerly a Bluecoats alumni-focused ensemble, Rhythm IN BLUE is now open to any performer 18 or older. The launch was initially planned for the 2020 season, but canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, the new vision for Rhythm IN BLUE returns, providing a more accessible and affordable program offering the Bluecoats Experience.
“SoundSport fills a unique niche in the marching arts community,” said Rhythm IN BLUE Education Coordinator Rachel Spencer. “We can have a student-centered and performance-based approach, without the costs of a full touring drum corps model.” Program fees for the season will hover around $1,000 for commuters.
Rhythm IN BLUE will audition virtually, starting January 18th, and those invited to continue the experience will learn the six-minute show remotely throughout the winter and spring. “We are only going to meet four weekends this summer,” stated Ensemble Director, Jay Wise. “Our approach will be very different to get the most out of the performers in a short period of time, leveraging Bluecoats technologies and practices developed during the pandemic, including Bluecoats School of the Arts.”
Conceptual rendering of 2023 Rhythm IN BLUE musician look.
The show design and creative approach of Rhythm IN BLUE will echo that of the Bluecoats, including custom costuming from Stanbury Uniforms, top-of-the-line instruments from Yamaha and TAMA | Bergerault, and cutting edge electronic sound design. “SoundSport offers such a unique platform to do all sorts of amazing things” said Wise. “Rather than try to follow any existing model, we are going to try to blaze our own path through this unique format within DCI, and open our program to so many more performers eager to get a taste of the Bluecoats Experience.”
“We have always seen Rhythm IN BLUE as a great potential platform for extending the Bluecoats Experience to a wider audience,” said Mike Scott, CEO. “We have assembled an incredible staff of Bluecoats alumni, recent Bluecoats Fellows, and other experts from around the activity. Making Rhythm IN BLUE 18 and older, leveraging Bluecoats School of the Arts, and bringing together these amazing people, is sure to bring the Bluecoats Experience alive for this new generation of participants in our programming.”
To learn more about joining Rhythm IN BLUE in 2023, visit bluecoats.com/rhythminblue.
-
1
-
-
13 hours ago, wolfgang said:
Yesterday, my wife and I walked through the Convention Center in Indy. Unbeknownst to us, a huge cheerleading competition was going on. The entire place was filled with the what looked like kindergartners through high school kids in their various cheerleading outfits.
Doing some research, this was an event put on by Varsity. It has been posted there was some discussion about this group taking over SoundSport. Out of curiosity, I checked the competition website. Here is the performance schedule (49 pages long!). I did not count the total # of groups, but they used up 5 exhibit halls and the kids were performing in 3-minute increments. https://www.varsity.com/jf/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/JFCSN_PerformanceOrder_SPECTATOR_FINAL2.pdf
I'm not familiar with Varsity, but a gut level reaction is as a drum corps fan, I would want no part of this organization. For comparison, I know DCI, BOA, and WGI each have their issues, and each has expenses, but I don't feel like those organizations are quite as much of a cash grab as I felt yesterday walking through what felt like a commercial cattle call. Again, nothing concrete, just a gut-level impression.
Can anyone explain why Varsity should or should not be involved with DCI and/or Soundsport?
Varsity's partnership with DCI in operating a Soundsport Scholastic appears to be dead. They tried high school and college band competitions as well as indoor Winterguard and Percussion circuits. All dead.
Old Varsity Soundsport URL, dead:
https://www.varsity.com/performing-arts/soundsport-scholastic/
Here's a background of the partnership operation via the handbook PDF
It was called Varsity Performing Arts and the band, guard, or percussion competition programs have been scrubbed from their own website:
https://www.varsity.com/performing-arts/
They have since added a partnership with US Bands selling clinics with mostly BD educators.
And they appear to be selling Orlando amusement park trips to scholastic bands now. But that is a pretty competitive market with a lot of seasoned and experienced companies that have great reputations. Hard to imagine them getting much a foothold there, but who knows.
-
1
-
-
For me this activity is about the people. As long as my people are in these circles, I am not pulling the plug. And considering that "my people" includes some folks ranging from pre-DCI performers all the way through incoming current marching members, I don't see that changing.
-
5
-
-
Foothill High School director of bands Efrain Hinojosa faces charges this week for alleged inappropriate conduct against a minor that occurred during his time working in the Ceres Unified School District just outside Modesto, the Weekly has learned
-
1
-
-
8 minutes ago, ContraFart said:
COVID restrictions were much worse in CA than they were in OH
True. Ohio opened bingo halls back up in September of 2020 allowing only 15% of fire code capacity and mandatory masking. 4 months of 15% capacity doesn't make a big difference.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, ContraFart said:
SCVs issue is that they were hurt by a revenue source because of COVID. One that they feel will be a temporary setback and will be addressed and they will be back next year. Isn't this decision scaling it back? I mean people are acting as if the BOD of these organizations want them to fail.
A Reddit user was kind enough to compile all recent corps 990 filings into a single spreadsheet.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ja39zeGtJSWFTu3rejDFLo0aSydUs-t0oioukYk8U34/edit#gid=0
Was it simply Covid loss of bingo? For 2020, SCV's Net Income $ (1,156,499) was almost 3 times the magnitude of the next net-negative organization, BDPA $ (441,627). They aren't the only corps that relies on bingo revenue. Bluecoats own and operate their own bingo hall. Their 2020 net income was positive $ 10,909.
(it should be mentioned that we don't have Cavaliers or Crossmen 2020 filings available yet)
These numbers are probably not completely revealing the direct effects of Covid 19 on the balance sheet because of how the bookkeeping can vary on PPP activity, etc. As I understand, it could take 2021, or even 2022 for those true numbers to wash out.
Shouts out to the missed @garfield who used to run the 990 numbers and analysis for us around here.
-
2
-
2
-
-
26 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:
I’m sure many depends were soiled
I'm fairly confident that most of them knew this hammer could drop before the official announcement happened.
-
1
-
-
12 hours ago, TenHut said:
Almost everyone my age who I marched with BITD and still talk with have completely left the drum corps activity due to the change in direction, awful, weird, goofy uniforms and prop madness. The drum corps activity has done this to themselves. When fans no longer enjoy a product they stop attending/buying. Companies just don't completely abandon their tradition and legacy for obvious reasons, but that is exactly when every drum corps has done.
Bad decisions from the corps, and bad leadership and decisions from DCI and here we are.
This sounds like some of my friends that bailed on the activity. They send cranky group emails and texts. Things that got fwd'ed to them or went viral on social media for which they have no context. They haven't been to a live show in 20 years. Many of them live within an hour or less from Lucas Oil Stadium. I ask them when is the last time they saw live drum corps. I invite them along. They don't respond. Just come and hang with old drum corps friends in the pubs, restaurants or lots. If they won't (and mostly they won't), then I know it isn't about props and whatever clothes the kids wear.
-
1
-
1
-
-
48 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:
A giant has fallen and we're restating the same generic problems that, by now, I'm sure leadership is all too aware of. Go read what the youngers on reddit are saying... it's all the same stuff y'all are saying here, only slightly more disrespectful cause they have even more to be ###### about than us old cats who had our time. VMAPA already started the leadership overhaul recently with the CFO turnover, as I said earlier, and no, GR is not coming back to save us. Some of us wouldn't want that anyway.
The beginning-of-the-end and the they-should've-known-better talk is unbecoming at this fresh hour. Go apply to work for them or volunteer if you're really worried. Or maybe start your own doom-and-gloom threads, since it's been pointed out several times that other corps are guilty of many of the same issues...and let the rest of us mourn. Or whatever, do you, I can't stop y'all from dogpiling.
Don't you think I could've piled on too? Don't you think I know stuff that may have contributed to this? Yet I keep it to myself, for once, out of respect for our unique legacy, and a leadership team who is undoubtedly beside themselves at this fresh hour.
Or does class also go on hiatus this season too? Heaven forbid a 22 alum reads this thread... what will each of your contributions tell them about their efforts? I know what it feels like to be used in this activity and now is not the time to rub it in.
So, after my 1987 experience, I was not able to catch the revolutionary 1988 Vanguard live at all. The annual dice-roll of living deep in DCM territory put more than a handful of shows within easy travel distance, but zero SCV appearances. I absorbed everything I could through Drum Corps World and word-of-mouth osmosis. I went to a lot of shows but remained an incredibly frustrated SCV fanboy. The first time I saw the show was when SCV performed it for the final time on PBS.
Then comes 1989 and they are doing Phantom of the Opera AGAIN?! And they are unstoppable? Somehow the Midwest tour dice still kept them at a distance from me. My friends and I had been overnight to Bloomington, plus a few close shows. Some of us already had tickets booked for Finals night in Kansas City. But there was a show in Centerville Ohio on August 10th ... a 3+ hour drive ... that would have SCV and Star of Indiana (where we had friends and relatives that were marching). I was an insistent pest and somehow our parents relented and allowed us to take a day-trip on our own. Which is crazy in retrospect. 1 day after going to a show 30 minutes away. 3 days before we had to leave for band camp (which was an off-site band camp at a college). And we would be leaving straight from the band camp parking lot on a 9 hour car ride straight to Kansas City for finals.
We drove the last minute trip to Centerville and hung out with our Star of Indiana friends after rehearsals. We watched SCV warm-up. Finally got to experience Phantom of the Opera up close and personal one time. Not knowing that a snare drummer had been kicked out of that very rehearsal site when Gail Royer had become aware of the fraudulent birth certificates. 😯 Then watched them win a week later in Kansas City from the nosebleeds. Including this encore.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1278747992160998
That was my final experience of being a fan of drum corps before marching drum corps. And I often lament not being able to just be a fan. Being behind the scenes and part of how the sausage is made takes away some of the fanatic magic. I still love the activity, but it is different after you've been behind the curtain. And SCV will always have been a big part of that magic to me.
-
1
-
-
5 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:
Anyone have a favorite show or memory they want to share?
I have plenty of opinions about the folding of my own house, but tonight, I'd prefer to mourn rather than pick at the carcass.
I went to my 1st drum corps show at the age of 14 and had no idea what I was watching.
After a full year of high school marching band, I went back to the same show in 1987. Seeing 87 SCV live was the transformative event. As the experience washed over me I knew in that moment that I HAD TO march drum corps. That entire mid-season show is on YouTube and I am fortunate to have marched drum corps, and to be able relive the memory on video over and over again. Here is the Russian Christmas Music encore from that very night. Jump to 36:30.
-
1
-
1
-
-
15 minutes ago, Slingerland said:
He's already the book writer at Troopers. Baller move would be for the SCV vets to go over there en masse.
Probably wouldn't seem baller to kids who had set Troopers as their target long ago and are weeks away from getting contracts.
-
6
-
-
2 minutes ago, craiga said:
Boston has set their drum line as of this past weekend's callback camp. They have posted group pictures of each section, as a matter of fact.
Schedules are a lot different this year, for sure. Bluecoats percussion callbacks are in 4 days. I think we're seeing a lot of groups efforting to get members contracted before wgi rather than after this year.
Hoping for the best.
-
59 minutes ago, craiga said:
I don't care how many times people on here repeat the fiction that only upper middle class kids can do drum corps. It is simply not true. I know dozens upon dozens of current marching members personally, and I can't name a single one who is rich, wealthy, financially comfortable, upper middle class etc. All of them work to pay their tuition (aka tour fees) and interestingly, many seem to work at Starbucks for some reason. Some people seem determined to paint these kids with an inaccurate brush.
It's a good thing nobody actually said "only upper middle class kids can do drum corps."
8 hours ago, Phantom56 said:...The kids who march today mostly come from upper-middle class families. ...
-
1
-
1
-
-
MAASIN Crowd sourced numbers for the 2022 season and came up with this post/thread on fees.
-
I get it.
The peak of my drum corps fan travels in the late 80's, within 2 years I went to shows in:
Goshen, IN
Mishawaka, IN
Ft Wayne, IN
Bloomington, IN
Marion, OH
Dayton, OH
I passed on Michigan City, IN, Portland, IN, Toledo, OH, etc.
For me at the time, all of the above ranged in drive-time from 30 minutes to 3 hours. Day trips.
I went to a few shows further out in Illinois and then KC finals too on overnights.
I'm glad to have experienced it before it was gone.
2023 will be finals week only.
-
2
-
-
36 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:
Okay, since I flubbed my first attempt in this thread, I thought I'd make it up to y'all.
I want a Beirut + Les Mystere des Voix Bulgares show from SCV. We all have our fantasies. Here's what I'm thinking:
Preshow: Beirut, A Call to Arms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2GcTMUi_UE&list=OLAK5uy_ndu_wdZmQH-JDssl2VRJ7ZW29IjTG-Gs0&index=2
Opener: Beirut, Scenic World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUnorrfc77w&list=OLAK5uy_k0H3w0TzsPtz-4ahql-NJ6jsrWIuMnrnc&index=7
2nd Movement / Ballad: LMDVB, Svatba and Kalimankudenku
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDO_rGqZeZw&list=PLEH9VjDyJtE2q9EmHuwNLIwKbtsnMBacl&index=8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD83L4kI3qY&list=PLEH9VjDyJtE2q9EmHuwNLIwKbtsnMBacl&index=2
Closer: Beirut, Elephant Gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWSz_PAfgNc
❤️💚
Love Beirut! Great pull. Their chamber/folk instrumentation really leads into what could work very well on the field.
-
1
-
-
11 hours ago, Boss Anova said:
This 2023 DCI schedule was put together knowing that transportation costs, ie fuel, food, etc are soaring due to inflationary pressures, energy costs. DCI was supposed to fold during the pandemic we often read here and on other social media, but actually rebounded about as well as could have reasonably expected, imo. Its far more likely that the soaring costs of fuel alone that followed the Pandemic likely made DCI go conservative with their shows for 2023, imo.
I think it is a good decision. I wasn't commenting on the merits. What I am looking at is a combination of things like a significant undercut in event staffing. Including, and especially, DCI Finals week. A complete overhaul in the touring model. Groups taking tour pauses and semi-annual breaks in competing. I guess we could say drastic measures for drastic times. So I am giving DCI the leeway to make the moves necessary to be solvent and financially thrive without calling the BBB. It is going to ruffle some feathers because we all know change is not embraced much within our community. Here's hoping t pans out.
-
16 hours ago, Zeke said:
What is going on at DCI for them to go ahead and give the shaft to ALL OF the PNW shows? I hope this and error and at least some dates are tentative. #WTH
I think if we take a step back and look at the gutted 2023 touring model in context of a lot of other recent issues we have complained about here in our community, it seems more and more obvious that DCI (the org) did not bounce back from the pandemic the way we had hoped.
We keep lighting up customer service complaints here but I'm left wondering what the activity looks like if DCI is forced to fold and how satisfied we'll be with a brand new "whatever" that fills the void.
😕
-
1
-
-
3 hours ago, keystone3ply said:
I think 2023 would have been the 40th anniversary of the 1st Evansville DCI-era show.Scratch that! I found evidence of shows in 1978 and 1979! So 2023 would have been the 45th anniversary!
-
1
-
-
On 7/8/2022 at 12:55 PM, mingusmonk said:
PR Encore - Phantom's new levels of volume makes for a fantastically fun encore. Over the past few years, they have converted this pocket of Indiana into a little home away from home. I've seen PR in Rockford, and they have a great home crowd. But this is right under that tier. Dwight Emmert has forged a nice relationship between the corps, Evansville schools, and the community.
Hopefully Regiment keeps a presence in Evansville
-
Channel One Suite
-
5
-
-
You're not going to see a lot of professional composers using Musescore, or at least copping to it. Musescore's sheet music portal is a denizen for copyright theft and legitimate composers are well aware of it. Fans of DCI/Marching Band-friendly composers will recognize a few names in this facebook thread here. Longtime DCP users might also recognize the name that goes to bat for Musescore as well.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158997255676254&set=a.10151295122211254
-
The Noble Assemblage of Caractacus Potts
or something like that
Santa Clara Vanguard 2023 Announcement Thread
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted · Edited by mingusmonk
An excellent Drum Corps Coffee Shop interview with Paul Rennick that details some of the happenings in his own words. It also addresses how the Rennicks have worked with Troopers and how that could or could not change this year (hint, don't expect a huge change).