cixelsyd

Madison Scouts won in 1975 and 1988. I believe that makes two titles, not one.

You cannot understand why anyone would object to removing the 19th-22nd corps from world class? I could understand why people associated with those corps would object. :doh:/> Now wait a second. You said we need to limit this to 18 corps. If we keep changing the number, that will blur the marketing message. "Showcasing the top 18 19 20 however-many corps... ". If the philosophy is to allow however many corps meet the standards, then how is that different from what we currently have?

I sense resistance. Again, all I asked is that if one believes that financial armageddon is imminent and drastic measures are necessary, why should cost cutting not be on the table as one of the options for consideration? The only part of your response that addresses that question is the assertion that corps have similar expense levels, which is not borne out by the data (Cavaliers $1.2 million vs. Bluecoats $900,000, for example). But even if every corps was spending the exact same amount, why not consider a way in which that cost can be reduced for all corps?

Oh, like world class and open class. Done! All that remains, then, is to demote four corps, right?

Those were separately governed circuits back in 1988, so there was no chance of getting them all to do unified branding. But if we follow your suggestions, like this one... ... we will have the same issue they had back then.

Slashing a top corps budget from $1.x million to $400,000 is not what I meant by "trimming" expenses.

No longer sure precisely what you are expecting. NASCAR is often held up as a master of branding and corporate sponsorship. But every one of their races has a different name. The right to name an event belongs to the sponsor of that event. Likewise, in drum corps, where most shows are sponsored by TEPs, the right to name the event belongs to that TEP. If the day comes when a sponsor can provide such a massive combination of money and/or human resources that they can serve as TEP for every show on the DCI tour, then they can name all the shows "The (name of corporation here) Summer Music Games of (name of town here)". If doing that for a sponsor will get us that many millions of dollars in annual support, sounds like a good deal. But why would it have been beneficial back in 1988 DCI, with no such tour sponsor, to take the naming rights away from the event sponsors and change the names of long-running, successful shows in order to ensure that every last show was named "The Summer Music Games"? Great. Hope Rick Odello and Steve Barnhill were able to set you straight. I doubt that was the word you were looking for - unless you really think it is pointless to generate money from our own fan base. Anyway, it is starting to sound like you echo Slingerland in taking the cost side of the equation off the table. Just saying "the amount of money needed to keep this activity going", as if that is some fixed number carved in stone, makes it seem as if the prospect of corps trimming their expenses is not even under the remotest consideration. If, indeed, the zombie apocalypse is upon us, and the demise of DCI and every corps it touches will happen in the fall of 2013 as you predicted earlier, why only look at revenues and not costs? (Sorry. I should be more specific. You want other corps to cut costs by leaving DCI and joining DCA or regional circuits. You want DCI to slash their costs by jettisoning services and the people who perform them, and serving fewer corps. Do you not want top corps to look at their costs?)

Only one, eh? How to decide? Since more participants would bring more customers, we should increase participation. Need more corps for that. There are several ways to go about that, but if only one is allowed - We must recruit people to run corps. Running a corps is more work intensive than it used to be, and most of the corps we are losing are on account of directors quitting with no one willing/able to fill their shoes.

Good for you. My mindset is slightly different. My posts should give those same lurkers things to think about, but they are also intended for public discussion so that the thoughts of people both in and out of "the game" can all contribute to the vetting of ideas. I know, I know - the sky is falling. Oh, if only we had branded all DCI events with a common moniker, like "The Summer Music Games", everything would be okay. (We tried that back in, like, 1988.) Why not all three? a. Your "information" leads you to conclude that corps below a certain placement are uniformly smaller, younger, less experienced, touring less, more interested in education but less interested in competing, and more locally limited in recruiting. Either your information is limited to what you see on YouTube, and... b. ... you are not interpreting it correctly, or... c. ... you are in denial. Like you marketing types say, message focus is key. If your message is that DCI must change to serve fewer corps, you need to present a clearer, more logical case to support it. Tangential complaints about tangential issues, punctuated by the occasional hair-on-fire post claiming (without substantiation) that DCI will cease to exist in mere months, will not convince either the people posting here or the lurkers. You can revert to the routine where you claim that you are BFF with powers-that-be who show you secret data that proves DCI will self-destruct in five seconds. But enough of us have friends among the powers-that-be to know that the financial situation is not as dire as you say. Certainly, a reasonable dialogue is needed to chart the DCI course as they continue through a challenging economy. But it needs to be a reasonable dialogue, not an emergency takeover amid bug-eyed panic.

I think it is your hair, not the house, that is on fire.

As you allude to above, their design and instructional staff are paid. Just saying.

No. At least, that is not what I am saying. I would expect that different corps would fetch different prices for their performances on an open market. But they all fetch higher prices performing in the DCI market. If that were not the case, enterprising corps would be performing on the open market just to raise funds. Enterprising corps have found ways to raise funds performing on the open market (BD Entertainment is one example), but with smaller derivative ensembles. One of the primary and founding purposes of DCI was to make touring practical for their member corps. Touring is not practical if the corps cannot book enough shows. Allowing show hosts to pick their lineups would inevitably lead to someone getting left out. While it is nice to imagine how all corps would supposedly pander become more entertaining, this is not the proper way to incentivize that behavior. Individual appeal (among other things) is already rewarded through souvenir sales. DCI charges enough to make a small profit, not a "hefty" fee that is "way more" than their expenses - and I do not appreciate the inference that I said that. By the way, this new mantra that every dollar DCI makes is "competing with the corps" is nonsense. If that is how the G7 feel, they might as well leave at once. But then there is no point in creating a new circuit, because as soon as Music in Motion, Inc. makes their first dollar, they too will be "competing with the corps".

As I am sure you are aware, there is another distinction there. When a corps serves as a TEP (show host), as I described in my post, they should get whatever profit is left after covering all their show expenses, part of which is the DCI contract covering judges, contest coordinator, and fees for the performing corps. That DCI contract has a little profit built into it, which returns to the member corps via revenue sharing. When the G7 got together, they wanted their show series to change all three of the parameters that affect which corps make how much. - They wanted to claim the TEP revenue. If the G7 serve as TEP(s) for those shows, fair enough. - They wanted to claim all the appearance fee money by excluding other corps from their shows (mission accomplished). - They wanted to eliminate the part that goes to DCI (and thus, is shared with other member corps) by not working with the standard DCI show contract. This, of course, is not fair because DCI has skin in the game. The shows are part of their tour; they provide full panels of trained, experienced judges; they were operating the Murfreesboro show themselves; etc. There is a clear conflict of interest involved when a subset of corps declares themselves exempt from the DCI contract provisions that other corps must follow. Thank goodness the other DCI member corps are so magnanimous that they not only work this way, but even allow directors of those 7 corps back into the boardroom. Under different leadership, those 7 might have been gone three years ago.

Well, if that is your concern, then we need not bother with the best seats. The seats that need to be sold are the ones outside the 15 yard lines. Show me some corps who can sell those seats, and we can talk about a program to incentivize their participation in the selling process. That would be a far more productive use of time than having top corps bully DCI into coughing up the Friends of DCI seating block.

Probably a good thing, in hindsight. Curious, then, as to who you believe has been driving the strategic direction of DCI. From where I sit, it certainly looks like a few G7 directors have been the drivers. Not only have they been making most of the proposals, but their proposals have been implemented as proposed. Overall, they have gotten everything they want except the proposals that give them governing control and/or reduce DCI membership to some smaller number of corps. Meanwhile, ideas from others are blocked from implementation, like the 5-year business plan from 2009. We also see resistance to the SoundSport/Drumline Battle ideas. Really? Who was in the execution role for the TOC show format ideas, then? Whose kids performed those pre-show solos and ensembles? Who were those people performing the mass encore on that video linked a couple of pages back?

Sounds analogous to what DCI would be, if DCI payouts to member corps were equal. Corps who host shows keep their ticket revenue. Corps who sell merchandise keep their revenue from that as well.

Who sells which seats? Oh, I know... the top corps get to sell the best seats. Is that what this is about? What does that mean? Would a TEP no longer get the revenue from their own show? If Blue Knights host a show, rent the venue, provide the manpower and take the financial risk, they should get to sell the tickets and make the money. Why should any other corps (particularly a corps not in the lineup) have any claim to that sales revenue without any skin in the game? If your idea gets passed, I am starting a corps. My "corps" will copy the DCI.org schedule page, and "sell" tickets to every DCI show.

I see. That sounds like it is not DCI competing with the corps, but rather, the corps competing with DCI. What do you think should be changed with regard to this situation? We cannot make "DCI overhead" go away, or the shows will not even take place. If we stop DCI from selling tickets, we lose the most logical central point-of-sale. Allowing corps to sell tickets in parallel to DCI seems like the best setup to me.

Those were cases of mismanagement. Properly managed corps have shown themselves capable of balancing a budget while offering discounted tour fees to selected members.

These two statements seem contradictory.

You make little sense. How is DCI competing against corps, when their profits go to the corps anyway?

Even in statistics, you learn to account for the probability of an event occurring. The probability of the Blue Devils C corps winning is clearly not the same as the probability of the Blue Devils A corps winning.

You must be drawing that presumption based on quoted dues on corps websites. How could you possibly know how much each student actually pays to march each of these corps? I am on the verge of green plussing your post just for this clever turn of phrase. So much for that green plus. Oh, the phrases are still clever, but the message is wandering off into the weeds again. a. There is no established "market value" for a corps appearance. These corps make their appearances in DCI contests, not an open market. If there was a "market value" for a corps appearance that was much higher, as you suggest, top DCI corps would already be making these appearances just for the additional revenue. b. I could just as easily contend that since the prevailing DCI system pays G7 corps far more than other WC corps, that the rest of world class is "underwriting" the G7. c. Again with the stereotypes? Those corps are not categorically "smaller" or "more regionalized". Maybe. But why hold a gun to the head of the 19th place corps director and force him to lower dues? If the 19th place corps can fill their ranks with members of appropriate ability while still charging the same dues as the top corps, more power to them. In reality, when corps need the additional talent badly enough, they do discount their dues. You might not be aware of it if you only look at the listed dues on websites. But like many purchases of this size, not everyone pays full list price. I know it is. More so today, when it is more predictable.

So that is all you think they are paying for - competitive placement? I would not consider the WC drum corps experience and the high school band experience equal either. But the difference between two top 18 WC corps is more akin to the difference between two ivy league colleges. I do not see potential employers viewing an applicant differently because they marched 2012 with the more prestigious Glassmen rather than Academy, who were equally good but have not made finals in past years. We are talking about top 18 corps, not small corps. If they do the same tour, it will cost just as much. Easy to justify that. I have trouble seeing how not to. There is no guarantee of competitive placement in the member contract. There is no refund or discount if the expected finalist misses that goal. You think Blue Stars or Glassmen should have returned any money to their kids last August for missing top 12? You can quibble over selected WC corps who are only together 9 weeks instead of 11, I suppose. But I would not expect to see clearly lower tour fees until you have clearly less touring (open class). An open class corps that only runs full time for 5 weeks, just doing weekends the rest of the summer, ought to be able to operate on a lower tour fee.

How does a corps in the "bottom 10" (i.e. Pacific Crest/Colts/Troopers) have a "very different track record" from a top 8 corps? In the college analogy, I would see WC as the ivy league.