cixelsyd

So be it. Honestly, if the directors of the 7 share the viewpoints of the two of you here (that we should fire the DCI staff and focus resources to bring in high-priced strangers to take a blind shot at wooing corporate sponsors), and the rest of the corps disagree (would prefer to grow the activity via participation, audience and product), then I think both sides would be better off free from each other, and free to pursue their different agendas unabated (for the first time in 15 years). Yes, I know. That is what I was pointing out. a. Top corps (i.e. the 7) might only be willing/able to pony up $3250 apiece, judging from Music in Motion, Inc., experience. b. Have not established whether other member corps will be willing to pony up at all. c. In your vision, there would be less member corps (18 instead of 22-23). d. Non-member corps have no incentive to contribute to the cause - unless you are considering making all 40 active corps DCI members, in order to get them on board. e. Even with all 40 corps contributing $3250 each, that does not cover the salary difference you are talking about.

I have seen you make proposals like this for quite some time now. I have also seen people point out that the part I underlined is a dealbreaker. The video history of DCI is under DCI copyright, and thus is a significant part of the glue that holds DCI together. How do you propose to convince DCI to relinquish that - by repeating the proposal over and over until they agree? How quickly we all dropped the top-18 idea and moved on to the fire-Dan-Acheson idea. Times like this make it difficult to believe these "ideas" are not just Trojan horses for the G7 proposals.

There is no such ceiling.

$3250 x 7 = $22,750 $3250 x 18 = $58,500 $3250 x 40 = $130,000 For the amount corps will be willing to chip in, you will need a lot more corps. I thought we were hiring a highly paid CEO because he had all the contacts. Now you are saying we need a whole boardroom full of other people with contacts? I thought we were going to grow the customer base. That only grows the donor base, changing DCI from a maker to a taker. Corporate donors come and go. Witness Circle K, Knights Inn, A.J. Wright. I would rather DCI be earning $10,000,000 than begging for $30,000,000, maybe even getting it briefly, and then crashing in ruin when it goes away. If growing audience and participation is what you now refer to as a "bake sale mentality", then get me an apron. Sounds reasonable. That is what they did in 2009, when developing that business plan. I thought we were hiring one highly paid CEO with all the necessary contacts - or one who could recruit BOD members with the necessary contacts. Now we have to hire a whole team of people? Oh. Then this whole post was a waste of your time, since that will never happen.

You must not go back very far in time. The first drum corps field shows were essentially parades around the allotted space. Decades later, corps still started at one end, finished at the other, and played in all directions (whatever direction they were moving at the time). By the time you marched, some thought was given to planning the music to better match the above described drill. Horn angles, sidestepping, projectors on the drums, removal of the end line requirements, and amplification all came in the DCI era.

First of all, a mission statement is not "folderol". But since that mission statement directs DCI to preserve the activity and showcase the top corps, and making money for them is an excellent way to do that, why would you argue? It certainly is for the top corps. They get double pay for those TOC shows. Your presumption about finals night potential is based entirely on available seats, with no regard to the desirability of those seats or the price they currently sell for. What makes you think 10,000 other people will pay $60-$75 to sit down low and/or at the goal line, and watch field programs that are directed toward a single point in the press box on the 50 yard line? Who really bears responsibility for this? The DCI office staff do not have the authority to change show design, equipment and performance techniques so that shows truly play to the whole concert side, instead of just the higher center seats. That is up to the corps themselves, who have instead progressively aimed their shows specifically at press box judges. There have been several studies done. I tend to believe that DCI ticket pricing accounts for that feedback so that they can maximize revenue working with the hand they have been dealt.

Maybe the TOC shows should have 8 spots.

Then so much for that idea. Has nothing to do with emotion. It is just not accurate to point to an organization whose revenue is growing at the rate DCI is (in this economy), and say they are "stuck in the mud". When you do it over and over, even after being confronted with the facts, it would appear your intent is not to inform, but to insult.

You are correct - the DCI 5-year plan did not propose increasing revenue $600,000 by selling more seats at finals. Instead, it proposed raising revenue $2,500,000 by selling more seats at all shows. But the needs have not changed. Contacts, not skills. Anyway, what do you suggest? No one is willing to pay a ton of money up front to chase that windmill. Not DCI; not the top corps; not the bottom corps; not even danielray. Unless you are contemplating a large donation, we are out of luck. Do you think if you insult DCI often enough, people will believe you?

A lot of kids come from open class corps, too. By that reasoning, we should merge the open class and world class forums.

A bunch of member corps. And in DCI, member corps come first. Yes, those 7 corps are to blame for the 5-year plan not being executed. Since the corps (most notably, the top corps) did not have spare funds to invest in new ideas, the DCI business plan aimed to mobilize people instead. Those type of efforts require cooperation. But within a few months, 7 corps withdrew from such cooperation, and worse yet, created distractions that took the attention of the rest of DCI away from that business plan. In that case, if you get away from proposals to throw member corps out of DCI, and go get that star salesman working for us on commission, we will be moving forward.

One of those. For awhile there, I thought we might get a focused discussion on a potentially actionable idea for change, instead of just insulting the other corps and DCI and demanding they hand over the keys. But if you think this is bad, imagine what the DCI boardroom must be like.

The Axis in World War II.

A sponsorship? You decry other plans as "weak", and then plead for charity as your big idea? I was still waiting to hear about the strength of your previous big idea (cutting down to 18 member corps). Seems kind of weak to claim that DCI is the Titanic, but if we throw 4 or 5 corps overboard, it will float again.

Wow. I have always known that the DCI brand trumps the brands of their participating corps, but I guess I still underestimated its power and value.

Actually, I agree with your plan as quoted here. It is logical, sensible, and actionable. I support it 100%. Speaking of 100%, I think the sales hire should be 100% incentivized (i.e. commission only, no salary). That makes the idea actionable, as no "down payment" will be necessary. Nothing else has to stop to permit this to proceed. No need to fire Dan Acheson, or throw 4 or 5 member corps overboard. No downside. How about you take the job, and show us how to land that title sponsor?

Appeasing Roman Blenski? Appeasing Mark Arnold? From Google: Please describe the demands Roman Blenski and Mark Arnold have made of DCI, and what DCI has done to appease them.

You mean, the mentality that DCI has a mission is the problem for you. That would make things easier for the 7 to get what they want, for sure. But after our episode in May of 2010, there is zero chance of such a reorganization happening, so why even bother bringing it up?

You sound like Jeff Fiedler, hurling "status quo" around as the highest insult. Now, to dissemble your latest strawman: a. No changes to make the product better? We have been making changes at breakneck speed. Any-key brass, amplification, electronic instruments, a caption for colorguard, pre-shows, several judging system overhauls, and the TOC show format with instant encores, I&E performers, and a mass encore. There are many claims that these changes make the product better. Do you disagree? b. Every corps tries to step up their game every year. And honestly, do you think the corps of 2012 were no bigger or better than 10, 20 or 30 years ago? a. 15,000 paying a high price for those finals tickets, plus a sweetheart deal on the cost of staging the event. b. TV? We have the Internet and theater access now. Who needs a TV deal? Spend $100,000s to get on PBS? Does anyone watch PBS anymore? c. Dozens of sponsorships, constituting just one leg of the DCI stool, is far preferable to the activity becoming dependent upon a single, fickle title sponsor. But people associated with the G7 point of view think it is just marching band, too. Ask MikeD. danielray keeps referring to it as "kid's marching band". George Hopkins - need I say more? Leaders of the activity have driven us to align with marching band. Are you saying they were wrong? What do you want to do about this? Should we distance ourselves from marching band? Or should we set about improving the image of marching music, and do both activities a favor in the process? Giving up without even whittling down one firm idea of your own for change? SoundSport and Drumline Battle are next on the agenda. By the way, DCI has been improving revenue each year in a horrendous economy. I know you were just itching to say "status quo" one more time, but this was not the appropriate sentence for it. I was thinking more along the lines of $300,000 a year in cost savings among the corps who spend the most (and complain the most). But for some reason, those corps want everyone else to cut costs instead.

How did they "cave in to their demands"? Last time I checked: a. The G7 did not have two votes each, while lower WC corps have none. b. The G7 do not have Friday and Sunday to themselves. c. Dan Acheson is not fired. Real confidence does not demand boardroom brinkmanship. I would suggest that the rebalancing of the BOD back in 2010 was a measured and appropriate response to the situation, executed by a confident majority that knew, and still knows, that no further demonstrations are necessary to show who is boss. Maybe they think these 7 corps are different. They certainly behave differently. Do you think they are different, or just the same as any other top 18 corps?

Not really. The same 7 corps are pushing for many of the same things within DCI, and people here (even you) are promoting many of the same principles and specifics the G7 Report contained. Oh, not again. So the sky already fell? What "avenues" of funding are limited? Sorry, but DCI does not have the kind of power to prevent other organizations from pursuing whatever avenue of funding they wish (unless you consider the money of other corps to be an "avenue of funding"). It is not the job of DCI to fully fund a corps. You said so yourself. But you keep making statements like this one, which infer otherwise. What does drum corps offer to corporate sponsors, in your opinion?

Seriously? Because some freak show attracts the brief attention of 9 million viewers, DCI must suck at marketing, therefore we should take all our money and hire pricey consultants to recommend what the pricey replacement CEO should transform DCI into? Hair on fire. You know, there is a logical reason for marketers to be envious of Major League Eating. They have a huge edge over us. Their participant base is much larger. Maybe the alumni of drum corps number over 10,000; extend it across marching band, 100,000s or even over a million. But there are 7 billion people with prior eating experience. That is a huge demographic. No wonder ESPN is buying in.

Back to hurling baseless, inaccurate insults at the lower WC corps? I can only speculate that either your impression of a "run of the mill" BOA band was formed at the Grand Nationals finals, or that your impression of Pioneer was formed on June 22, 2012. Because if you actually saw the corps after opening weekend, and the bands that actually are run of the mill competitors, I think even you would admit that any world class DCI program (even Pioneer) produces a better product, as we would expect given the increased, focused rehearsal time WC corps have. I do not recall you previously mentioning a multi-year phase in. Why not 22, then? You cannot seem to decide on a basis for who is in/out of your premier league model. If it is so hard for one person to decide, imagine getting the DCI directors to decide. You insisted earlier that 18 was the right number. In fact, you continue to make your case for that in this post too: So then who cares how good 19 and 20 get, if we can only afford 18?

That is a good question. Along those same lines, we should also ask how successful G7 directors will be as DCI BOD members after their removals/resignations in 2010. Dan Acheson does not have the same structural authority normally associated with the term "CEO". I think the BOD question is a bit more important. Tony Schlecta provided stone cold, decisive leadership with decades of experience. That is precisely what the DCI corps directors wanted to move away from. They will not go back.

Hey, you said you could not see why anyone would object to removing 4 or 5 corps from WC. I was only pointing out one such reason. Okay. When people object, that is the justification you will present to them. No, that is not how it seems. I look at the data I have available, and I see corps at a whole range of different levels of spending. The one thing they have in common is that they are living within their means. There are a couple of glaring exceptions, but the other corps are balancing their budgets at all of those diverse levels. Seeing that, I think the rhetoric about "the model is broken" and how DCI and their corps will self-destruct in eight months is not an appropriate description of the situation. So no, I do not come into this discussion thinking that corps must cut their spending. But if (and that is why I was underlining that "if" in earlier posts) we were to accept the premise that the drum corps financial apocalypse is here, then I have to ask (not declare, but ask) why cost reduction would not be part of the discussion. Why fight an apocalypse with one arm tied behind your back? Again, I do not conclude that corps must cut spending. I only point out that if danielray is correct and every single touring corps will fold in September of 2013 due to finances, then in that case, why not look at options like shortening the season just this once in these apocalyptic times? Alright, if that is your opinion, so be it - as long as your solution fits the problem you identify. DCI did have a gut check back in 2009. They developed a 5-year business plan designed to mobilize everyone in the activity to generate growth on a variety of fronts. When guts were checked, the vote ratifying the plan was nearly unanimous. Several months later, though, the lone dissenter and six other corps lost their guts, and returned to the familiar, comfortable ground of governance proposals to consolidate power among fewer corps (themselves included, of course). And I do not know where the Dan Acheson criticism comes from, all of a sudden. He is merely an employee of the governing corps directors. He can lead only so far, because if he tries to lead them where they refuse to go, they will fire him. Save DCI from what, exactly?