cixelsyd

I liked the 2017 outfits better. How about the ones they wore end-of-show that year?

Okay, but to celebrate a championship anniversary "now" is either one year too early, or three years too late.

In case you missed it: https://www.philly.com/news/a/drum-corp-international-sexual-assault-misconduct-mike-stevens-george-hopkins-cadets-20181213.html You can also use this article to start your head count for answering one of your other questions: You can believe whatever you want. But with articles like this one being published, it is not hard to see how someone else might get the impression that sexual predation is a systemic problem in the DCI activity. And yes, I agree with your several subsequent posts saying that it is neither fair nor accurate to extrapolate these anecdotal incidents across the entire activity.

Regarding the underlined portion, I seem to recall Fred Morrison stepping down, and a new chairwoman - Kathy Black.

To me, it seems like three steps forward, two steps back. The three steps forward: DCI and their corps have developed (and/or refined) policies on harassment and whistleblowing. Since actions speak louder than words... in several cases, DCI and/or individual corps have had to take action in accordance with such policies. Claims have been investigated, some accused have been suspended pending investigation, some have been removed (or when appropriate, cleared) due to the findings of the investigation. Probably in reaction to the above, others with possible blemished backgrounds have fled the activity like roaches scattering in the light. Whether every last one is gone or not, the activity is inevitably safer. The two steps back: The cost of these improvements is high. The down payment was the negative press that exploded starting one year ago. We continue to pay in installments as sponsors, housing sites, and fans are lost due to that negativity. And the fear of more such news, or an escalation in litigation over them, is the compound interest adding to our total cost. Now we have DCI "ethics guidelines" that are catastrophically vague, leaving virtually everything to the judgment of whomever is implementing them. For example, only three of the Hopkins allegations are actually prohibited by current DCI policy. Background checks are a must, but when a background check finds something... oh, there is no required action for that.

Blue Devils 2014 tour leading into Ft. Wayne: 7/3 Cedarburg, WI 7/5 Whitewater, WI 7/6 Lisle, IL 7/8 Ft. Wayne, IN None of those are long rides.

"Travel tired" coming from Lisle, IL, two days earlier?

Scores are already in the realm of subjective opinion, so you have no basis on which to dismiss other opinions categorically. We have plenty of "clues" from our own observations, eyewitness accounts of others, and the documented caption scores.

The show cited was Fort Wayne, Indiana - July 8th, 2014. Looks like all of their visual caption scores were in their expected slots, as if nothing was amiss.

So can you. Better yet, as a moderator, you can parse an ongoing tangential conversation into a separate thread.

Ahh, so that is how it works. Once a new thing gets inserted somewhere in "the various adjudication standards", it becomes a required element. Its absence reduces the scoring potential of a corps. Here is where it gets confusing. I am fairly certain that "Bb horns are here to stay" is not written anywhere in the various adjudication standards. Therefore, the expectation ought to be what we were told when the rule change was made... which was that Bb/F would be an option, not a requirement.

Sorry to single out this one part of your otherwise excellent posting on this thread, but a correction is in order. No new equipment added to DCI ever becomes passe, as long as there is a DCI sponsor manufacturer still selling it. I doubt there is any such thing. The worst I can see happening is additional safety measures, likely in the form of equipment enhancements (giving those sponsors yet another thing to sell to the marching music market).

By that standard, every equipment-related rule change since 1972 has been a conflict of interest. But this is how DCI does business. So since Tresona offers services related to music licensing, a DCI sponsorship would be one more way to give them additional visibility to the greater music education market they wish to control serve.

If the score is unaffected by the absence of a design element, there are only two possible explanations: 1. That design element is of no value. 2. Judges are not accurately assessing the value of the show without that design element, either via slotting, or a specific forgiveness policy toward problems associated with that design element.

It just occurred to me that the marketing gurus of DCI, amid their own zeal to answer this question, have directed the focus of all things toward high school band kids. After 20 years of such focus, we are now told that the typical duration of fan interest (allegedly 3.5 years) is shorter than the typical high school enrollment. If that is true, then your "typical fan" target demographic must be the same HS/college age group that our current participants represent. (Personally, I disagree with both the chosen pigeonhole and the data that suggests we double down on such pigeonholing, but I do not have a seat at the marketing table.)