ouooga

What’s the criteria for that? Needs would be number of schools/rehearsal sites, adequate performing venue and number of hotel rooms, right? Additional would be number of origin cities with direct flights, average daily room rate in August, hotel occupancy in August, number of rooms within reasonable distance to the stadium, and average weather. Anyone disagree or have something I’m missing. I have access to a lot of this info and am happy to compile.

So it was a traditional bidding process? And the main crux was the benefits for DCI to move business operations there v. the benefit of hosting the Finals week there? Edit: I'm asking if Indy won some sort of bid as a permanent Finals week host, not about business HQ relocation incentives. If the entire reason DCI Finals are permanently in Indy is because DCI HQ is in Indy, I can understand that (though I don't agree with it, at least I can understand it).

He's saying that if a West Coast city wants DCI to come there, especially for Finals, then that city needs to provide a financial incentive for DCI to do so.

Very cool!

Does anyone know if DCI solicited for a permanent location through a traditional means (ie. RFP)? I agree, the financial incentive would need to be there for DCI to move anywhere ever, but I can't imagine Indy somehow 'won' in a bidding contest. From Indy's higher-than-average August hotel rates, low total hotel room inventory, and low volume of direct flights from major airports, I just can't imagine other destinations ever got a chance to even make a case for why DCI should come to X City instead.

Obviously I'm biased on this, but man oh man do I wish we could have a reasonable discussion of this. Reasonable as in we give due credit to all the pros, and acknowledge that many of the cons must be applied to other locations already on the drum corps tour. That said, the bigger question I'd like to ask: is drum corps something that travels to audiences, or something that audiences travel to? Answering this might solve more of the tour logistics issues, regardless of region.

I'm just catching up with the discussion on this. Is it confirmed that DCI is not working with a crisis communications firm on this? I thought DCI had been working for several years with a small PR firm somewhere in the Midwest, but I can't seem to find the name of that on Google now.

Wow, even with the year out of finals, I'm surprised Coats had the higher average finish than Crown. This is cool stuff.

Blue Devils 2003 takes the cake for me.

First off, I wholeheartedly agree with everyone above that says drum corps will never go mainstream. It won't, it's niche and that's its nature. If/when a marching arts program ever did become mainstream, it won't look like anything that is drum corps, or anything we've seen in general. That said... Consider Marvel Comics' evolution. Comic books are extremely niche, and looking just at the 80s and 90s, the audience that read them/had the knowledge about the characters/stories/etc. were considered extremely deep in the niche as well. Sound familiar to anyone? Late 90s, early 00s, and basically 08 to present, Marvel has completely reinvented/refined how they deliver their stories (this is broad, I realize I'm ignoring a lot of other things that happened with the niche in the same time period). For the first time ever, Iron Man, Captain America, the X-Men, etc. are mainstream. More than mainstream, they're pop culture. Everyone across the board is free to wear a Wolverine shirt walking down the street and not be considered niche - that would have been unheard of in the 90s, when a person wearing a Wolverine shirt would be given a stereotype automatically. But the die-hard niche fans aren't as on board with the current Marvel. The original fans, the ones who consider themselves 'in the know' on the real Marvel Comics, complain across the board about how they changed the stories, or the costumes (again, sound familiar?), or character backstories, etc. I'm going somewhere with this, I swear. The thing the die-hard's ignore with their argument is that the changes to story/costume/character/etc. are to make the product more accessible. The original Infinity Gauntlet story, told 1:1 on the big screen, would never ever translate. Thanos drives a friggin' helicopter that says Thanos on the side of it (dubbed Thanoscopter in some circles. No, I'm not joking.) and does everything he does to make Death (like the actual hood and cloak Death) more attracted to him. So instead, the elements are there, but the presentation is done in a way that more people will enjoy. And now...drum roll...my point! That strategy has kept them profitable! Marvel Comics was at or near bankruptcy (I think, can someone fact check that?) at one point, and has since become one of the most profitable companies on the globe. For niche, if you change the medium, tweak the model, keep the important elements and put it all in a box that everyone can get behind, there's a good chance you'll get a few more people to spend money on your entertainment genre.

If any corps read this, to any corps that is planning to put out any kind of public statement, crisis communication especially, I'd like to formally offer my writing and editing services at no charge. I'm completely serious about this, and am happy to provide credentials.

Does anyone think Roman would sell the name/assets/etc? Does anyone want to go halves on a slightly-used but nearly-good-as-new drum corps from Milwaukee?

I still can't get over that statement. The whole thing is bad, but that entire 3rd graph especially ruins it. I'm convinced no one who has ever done PR for a living - nay, even PR as a hobby - ever set eyes on these words before they were sent out. It's not a Rah Rah Cheer, it's an Apology Statement to the media/interested parties.

I've decided to add on to my dream (probably Madison) show. Previously, it was Malaguena (Malaga opener, Malaguena closer). I'm not upgrading it to be Malaguena Salerosa: - Malaga - Malaguena - Malaguena Salerosa

In general, this is the biggest hurdle that the activity faces.

2015 SCV's Pure Imagination should be on that list.

I somehow had no clue that Troop didn't march in 06. They came back in 07, and made Finals in 09. Seems like a year off might be the best thing some of these struggling corps can do.

I believe it just guarantees the spot, meaning they're committed to the money and the corps is committed to not giving the spot to someone else. Don't quote me on that, that's just my interpretation.

Aside from the tie in Bronze, Blue Devils have the most of every medal type, and they're also the only corps with double digit silvers. Wow.

Man, this is seriously the way it needs to be done. I know there's so many voices against this, but let me ask this: If you were going to design a program like drum corps today, and design it to be as sustainable as possible, would you really base it on the design of a bunch of musicians from several decades ago?

Obviously I don't know everything about every corps, but that just doesn't seem true at all levels. There's definitely some corps that 'get it' and they do it really, really well. What absolutely baffles me is how other corps just ignore what their peers are doing. I said before on here, Blue Devils seem like the smartest run drum corps, and the members seem to resonate with what they're doing extremely well. I cannot fathom how there are corps like Pioneer who can look at the activity and how the Blue Devils run their organization, and then simply think "meh, my way's better." (Purely just one example)

Purely curious, what does everyone want/expect DCI to do? I'm constantly advocating that DCI needs to take a larger role in the business of drum corps, from negotiating collective buying opportunities at big box retailers or specific gas stations in exchange for discounts, to coordinating a more regulated tour that involves all corps being near each other all season, to ongoing marketing and public relations efforts throughout the summer that utilize the corps for promotional reasons. At all phases of this, I'm told routinely that the corps are separate entities from DCI, and want to remain separate in all of these aspects. If the corps are so separate from DCI, what is the expectation from DCI in this situation? From everything I've gathered, the corps are so separate from DCI that there really isn't much DCI can do, other than maybe revoking status or barring from competition, which doesn't actually help anyone.

I appreciate the second post. Thank you for that. Re: the bolded part, you're not deficient, you sound like a drum corps fan who just doesn't 'get' a show. A lot of us don't get some shows, and even some corps in general, and that's ok. Me liking one thing and you not liking that thing makes no difference, which is cool. It doesn't make either of us right or wrong, it just makes us us. I will say, I have no knowledge of music outside of what I learned in school/drum corps and that's been well over a decade. I also have no interest in learning more, it's just not something I want to pursue. This summer I've been to one drum corps show live, three live jazz shows of varying quality, a few well known bands from the 80s and 90s, and far more drum corps shows on live stream than my wife would care to admit. I can tell you absolutely nothing about the hows and whys, but I can tell you I enjoyed them. And I enjoyed SCV a ton this year. I like the visual a lot, I liked the parts that gave me goosebumps, and honestly I liked the music, which I haven't stopped whistling for a few days now. If I was hard-pressed, I could probably figure out why I like those things, but at the end of the day, I'm not too interested in the why. I gravitate toward what I like, and that's good enough for me. It sounds like you enjoy/appreciate the music side more, and probably have a different pallete for what that entails. For that reason, there's a real chance that you and I are going to have different enjoyments from drum corps. So, to round this out, I have absolutely no way of defending SCV's music or discussing much of the pieces you mentioned, because they're in your wheelhouse. But I can say that, for what I go to drum corps shows for, I enjoyed SCV, including the music, and that's enough for me. Again, thank you for the second post.

Knowing extremely little about the corps or the situations, I'll voice this: if members are having a bad experience, the competitive side is never going to come together. If Pioneer in 2019 scores exactly the same and places exactly the same as 2018, but every member comes away from the season saying "this was the best summer of my life," they're going to get retention in 2020. The exact same thing goes for staff too. Also on the topic of staff, I have no clue the involvement of Roman (though the Director/BOD position seems weird), but it sounds like he's extremely hands on in everything. Considering drum corps is a huge part business and a huge part art/design, and to some degree one part potentially-awesome-summer-camp, there's no way one individual can do it all and still do any of it effectively. With that, I refer you to Mr. Iacocca: "I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way."

Hmm, I admit, I didn't think about support columns. I walked through a large convention center yesterday though, and feel confident (meaning I don't know the measurements) that the distance in at least the one I was in was the length of sideline to sideline; they're really big facilities here, hell, I'll pass 3 of the 10 largest in the country on my way home from the office tonight. And ya, concrete on the inside. I'm not saying it's ideal, but I think we've all marched on several fields/parking lots that weren't ideal, and none of them were air conditioned.