ouooga

To be fair, I'm more triggered by the lack of tact than anything else. Also I was told by a person with a music degree that he knows more about music than me (I'll concede that) and marketing (that's where I'm going to draw the line). Finally, the entire opening of the discussion was explaining to me that what I like is wrong and I need to become educated so I can finally know what to really like. Altogether, I came away from the original post offended, and feeling like I just received a lecture from a bully. After that, I've mostly been addressing the 'what's' to illustrate the points. Though I'll stand by, as a writer too, 'epic musical fail' is bordering on the words I'd use if I wanted to hurt someone who was proud of their music. As for the members, I guess that's a personal question, down to each member. On my end, by July, the show was mine. If someone didn't like 'the show', I assumed they were judging me, not the thing someone else wrote for me a few months ago. OP did say "SCV's show was an epic musical fail,' and the members definitely are the composition of SCV.

Downplaying the hurt doesn't make it ok - I agree most SCV members won't read this and even fewer will really take offense, but that doesn't seem to justify that it's ok to provide that level of hurtful critique to something that so many enjoyed and worked hard to deliver. The words weren't 'bad' or even 'I didn't like it'. The words used were 'epic musical fail.' That's as far away from sugarcoating as you can get before DCP's language filters kick in. Also I'll concede the analogy isn't 1:1. I had more, but it sounds like you get where I was going anyways. The poster wrote a dissertation of why what people liked is bad, and continued to say that most drum corps fans are not intelligent enough on the subject matter to know the difference. That's hurtful. That's literally bullying. You can't reason with that, you can't rationalize with that. And in the instances where others (myself included) have tried to at least counter with our own knowledge/degrees, we've received criticism from the same poster. Somehow the OP is an expert in all things, including our own enjoyment and careers, and the original post's only goal was to make us see his light so we can renounce our ways. It'd be like a high school bully making fun of your lunch just because he doesn't like it, or saying you're shirt is ugly because he didn't like it. There's plenty of ways to say you don't like something without being hurtful or telling people they're flat out wrong. And in the event that you do choose to go down that path, and you use your expertise and education to justify your rationale, it's only fair to concede to the expertise and education of others when they discuss the situation from their point of view. OP opened this conversation disrespectfully, and has kept that trend going throughout.

Outright attack, no, but it can't feel good coming home from three months of practicing a 13-minute show that was eventually hailed as the world champion among its peers to hear that people are saying what you did was an 'epic musical fail' and placing the justification of that assessment solely on a single music degree from a school that doesn't have any direct link with drum corps. Even the world's greatest cooker of steaks has no right to tell someone their burger that they're proud of is an epic failure, based solely on the fact that the burger doesn't fit into their idea of a perfect steak.

We don't actually have a Bloomington. It was a nudge at 08. My dad told me jokes are funnier when you get to explain them, but I'm not sure that's the case right now.

Imagine if the McDonald's marketing strategy was "once they've lost interest in the Big Mac, I'll forget about them. There's new people being born every year, and I'll just sell Big Macs to them. Close the test kitchens!"

I'm a proponent of staying the course. That's my point. SCV 2018 seems like the kind of show that a former fan would still be interested in.

Gotta get closer to the stadium being completed. Start now, everything moves forward, we set a date, and suddenly the stadium isn't completed on schedule and we're forced to drive to Bloomington.

'Everyone' should not be DCI's target audience, agreed. But the audience I that's constantly forgotten is the former fan. Assume right now there's three sets of audience members: 1) People currently involved in marching band in some way/shape/form 2) FMMs 3) Family/friends of CMMs 2 is us, and we're pretty die-hard fans. 3 is probably difficult to retain once people age out, though the ones who enjoy it to enjoy it might stay. But 1 is the one that's forgotten. It's easy to sell more traditional drum corps shows to people who are involved in marching band. High school/college students are playing that kind of music, and it resonates with them. But it seems the current marketing model just assumes that, as those people lose interest in marching band as a whole as they grow up, new people will fill in to take their place. Those people just have different tastes as they get older. But some importance on developing a more accessible version of the activity, not necessarily in all corps but definitely in some, would be the way to retain those individuals. It's not like they stopped listening to music entirely, they're just not immersed in scholarly band anymore. For one third of the audience (I'm estimating those are three equal buckets, not sure if they really are), drum corps' goal from a marketing standpoint is to attract new people rather than retain. Marketing 101 teaches us that that's a much more difficult model to sustain.

I edited my original with a lot of that information. After looking at it for so long, my assessment is that drum corps folks are scared of change regardless how well the data says it'll work. It would be a big shift, I understand, so I realize why it's so hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around this one. All good man.

There's literally 11.5 million square feet of convention space between Las Vegas and Henderson (adjacent city), more than any other area in the U.S. The majority of hotel properties have at least one indoor facility that can accommodate a full corps rehearsal, and there's nearly 90 properties like that on the Strip alone. Edit: I should probably mention that I'm one of the guys who crunches the numbers on Las Vegas tourism for a living. Being an avid drum corps person, I've done the math on this, from number of available rooms and the average cost per room/flight, and in all scenarios the cost goes down unless you live basically within driving distance from Indianapolis. I've also talked to some of the appropriate folks., from city-wide entertainment initiative people to convention facility and hotel sales people. Without a stadium, we're obviously a ways away from being able to do anything but hypothesize, but so far I've yet to find an actual hurdle.

That was the vacant indoor air conditioned convention space part I was talking about...... I edited my original to make that clearer. Sorry for confusion.

Just to continue beating a dead horse, Vegas has vacant indoor air conditioned convention space in abundance in August so practices can be held indoors. Vegas is incredibly good at making amazing deals for events that come here, especially multi-day events. Add in room blocks to match corps with their fans, and convention space costs go down dramatically. Can't sleep in there, still gotta house kids at schools or rec centers (of which there's plenty), but I'll safely say that Vegas would love to have drum corps in any way/shape/form after the stadium is ready to go!

3 year old and 1 year old, I understand. That's been my other hurdle as well, though we're talking about Denver next year.

He was busy getting his music degree from Julliard! Didn't you read?!!

Heads in beds = economic impact. Stadium costs money, hotel rooms cost money, people eat, people buy souvenirs, people fly in/out, people fill up gas, people explore bars and such after the show. Every one of those is revenue, and the revenue gets dispersed among employees, and they spend the money again. The former is direct economic impact, the latter is induced, the combined is total economic impact. Cities market themselves to events and sign multi-year deals so their economy grows. This is especially true for cities like Indy, which have a pretty strong convention presence which mostly wanes in the summer. Indy's set up really well for this, since their downtown/hotel district is so close to the stadium that the travel/tourism area stays largely the same throughout the year. This was my problem. I went to Finals every year after I finished marching, but after two years in a row in Indy, I unfortunately haven't been back. I'm not necessarily needing Finals to move anywhere, but it would be great if the big spots on the national tour changed around a little bit more.

Wait, you get to be a music expert AND a marketing expert? I knew I should have opted for the music degree at Julliard......

Since we're throwing around degrees and how they apply to drum corps, I have a BS in Marketing, an MA in Psychology, and myriad certifications mostly leaning toward the former. SCV 2018 was cool, and it is marketable. There's a handful of shows and a handful of corps that are really great at creating accessible shows. Accessible to the common viewer (so, not drum corps people, and borderline not even music people). SCV 2018, Boston 2018, the second half of Bluecoats 18, all of Bluecoats 16 and 17 (I'm forgetting many many, but you get the tone I'm talking about) are perfect in their ability to showcase the activity to a wider audience. There's goosebump moments, wow moments, and in general just coolness. They don't lack cheese necessarily, but they do it in a way that doesn't make the eyes roll. They don't try to showcase nuances that only a hard core fan would get, but instead focus on drawing everyone in. They appeal to the masses the same way a Cirque show might - I assume most people in a Cirque du Soleil show don't have an intimate knowledge of acrobatics, but they definitely enjoy what they see. I'm not sure what the goal of this original post was, but my own personal goal, or vision, or whatever you want to call it, is to make drum corps easily appreciated by more people outside of the activity. Not mainstream - that'll never happen - but requiring significantly less explanation for the laymen to appreciate it. There are many many parts of this year's show that could be chopped into snackable social media content, and it has the potential to be shared outside of drum corps circles. That's marketable, and I love it. SCV 2018 achieved something that can be appreciated outside of our die-hard audience, and for that I applaud them.

I've never heard the original before. That was fun! Side note: it's normal at this point to hear a drum corps play classical music, but it still always feels bizarre and too tame to hear 'drum corps music' (ie music I first heard in a drum corps setting) played classically.

I literally cannot think of any show that I would ever specifically hope to see duplicated by every corps - hell, even a few corps - in style/tone the following year. So, no show is epic in my book?

Ya, I'm gonna need to see some credentials of your ability to have an opinion on this type of thing....

Demand is on the sheets, right? Marching/playing isn't the only thing that determines demand. On that note, if the sheets need to be updated to account for demand differently, the corps (especially those at the top) will adjust. But SCV, like several corps (this decade especially) looked at the sheets/rubric and found the best way to score the highest within that box. It's all in how you play the game. Also, hey seat partner!

Mandatory late season west coast tour. This needs to be a rule!

Interesting you said Texas though, where a lot of drum corps people live. I'm torn on this one. Everything I gather, a sound designer/mixer (of which I am neither) is usually not on the field, instead sitting somewhere in the stands or box to gauge/adjust sound. So based solely on that, it shouldn't be a member. That said, it's an individual who has a specific responsibility during the 13-minute performance that impacts the final product of that particular show. No other staff member position claims that responsibility - frankly most staffs can sit/watch/enjoy/critique/yell in anger/write up punishment plans for the next day - but that's exactly the definition you'd give to a member. As for the grey areas - it takes skill and proficiency, not just anyone can do it, it's not someone actually performing - I feel like a lot of them could be applied to drum majors, and obviously those are considering performing members. But I really don't know enough about sound mixing, so everything I think/say should definitely be taken with a grain of salt on this topic.

Ya, I ran into an old buddy of mine at the Pasadena show, and he said he's had to learn live sound mixing purely so he can still have a job teaching high school pits, and he definitely does the mixing for those shows.

Regarding the mello not moving/playing a ton, this is just smart designing. There's an episode of Binging with Babish where he makes lemon pepper seasoning from scratch, and by the end says there's no discernible difference between the hours of work he put into his creation v. the $2.99 store bought seasoning. This is exactly what I think when I hear about a championship show where members may or may not have had easier drill. I don't care about the difficulty, I care about the show. Granted, difficult often can translate into cool, but it doesn't always have to be difficult to look cool, and not everything difficult looks cool. Cool looks cool. If a designer can get there without having its members march/play too much, that means they're going to get fatigued less. This isn't lazy or easy, it's efficient!