wilme861

My only thing with this is would you have enjoyed the show just as much if you had known the title, rep or uniforms or anything like that prior to the first show? I don’t know many people that would say not knowing made the SHOW itself better. If it doesn’t, then why bother with all the secrecy? As someone else said, it’s a great way to market and build even more anticipation for the show. Just using Crown as an example, all I heard regarding their announcement was just interest in seeing what they would do with a Camelot show and ideas thrown out of what could be coming.

I’ve received them a few times. It’s not an issue, it’s just something updating on Ticketmaster's side that triggers an update notification for your ticket. If they even change a single letter in the title of the event, that would trigger an update. Nothing to worry about at all.

They finished 2 pts behind the Cadets overall…so no. If he had wanted to put a 10, we would have.

I just don’t see the point of it at all. I’m in no way connected with the Bluecoats and even I’ve seen parts of the show. People can go watch rehearsals, members tell their families, staff tell their friends, etc… I don’t know anyone personally that cares what a show title is or what a show is about or even what the uniform is (although I know some people on here care what they look like). We just care about the entire package as a whole.

You said it right at the end, for points. Todays sheets reward variety and displaying multiple skills, not just the same skill over and over. Arrangers have a tough job in trying to make something enjoyable for both the fans and for the judges. It’s easy to please one of them but both is the real challenge.

So true. Pick a BD show and you can show it to any group as an example of how a group is supposed to look like when moving.

Just looking at the WGI sheets for Percussion specifically music (since they actually post them...DCI your move) and you can see exactly what's being judged. I can easily see the Comp score changing night after night just from clarity of intent or simultaneous responsibility coming through even after a single night. Not to mention the simple fact that Judge A is not the same as Judge B and they won't see the exact same thing as each other. One might see some crazy simultaneous responsibility from the Snares and credit that while the other judge was watching the Tenors at that point instead and missed it. The sub caption breakdown below is also great info I wish everyone knew.

I'm a Crown alum and I would have to say you're crazy if you think Crown had the better performance in 09 to win the title over BD. I will admit that the 09 BD show was probably my least favorite show of theirs since before 2000 sometime but they were easily a step everyone else. I'm also a visual guy and can't remember exactly what the scores were but I can almost guarantee BD got all 20s or #### near close to that in the entire visual caption. I might not always enjoy the overall theme of a BD show (actually Bluecoats have been my least favorite over the last 5 years or so honestly) but you can never deny the performance level from the corps. I will say at least visually, the demand, variety and execution from year to year is just ridiculous. Love them or hate them, they are ridiculous.

So happy to have Jackson and company at Crown. I've said it before but always had a soft spot for the Blue Knights lines in the 2010s and the same for Broken City in WGI. Great pickup for Crown and know past members that marched his lines that have absolutely loved playing his beats and learning with that staff.

I forgot how much I love the Jackson/Shah percussion ensembles. The musicality is just so evident in their writing. Not a diss on Travis at all from the last few Crown lines but I knew right when I heard the new staff announcement that I would love the match up with this Brass staff. Blue Knights never got anywhere close to a Sanford but those percussion sections under Jackson and Shah were a treat to hear EVERY year.

They get a 19.7 immediately and then adjust if needed later. The more interesting question is what happens when 20th should get a 19.5 and the other 19 groups are even better…now what? With how talented these groups are getting every year, I won’t be surprised if this becomes more of a realistic scenario sooner rather than later at least if the sheets don’t ever change, which they would.

It is and has been relative to what all the groups at that competition do. Personal bias obviously sneaks into the judging but not against groups just because of the name of the group but because of what they are doing might not get as much credit from one judge compared to another, which is the whole point of doubling up on judging at the large events to get an average. In DCI, you can let Prosperie and Kristensen judge the exact same show and I guarantee you both will give you 2 different scores, maybe even rank the groups a little different. They are judging the exact same thing but both are human and have different backgrounds and experiences so they'll naturally have different takes on the exact same thing. It sounds like you want it to be a 9.5 in percussion content to equal an exact standard but it can't ever equal that because it's a subjective activity unless we go back to a tick style of judging again. The performance each night most certainly affects the judging and the score. But just because YOU had a bad run, doesn't mean the ENSEMBLE had a bad run, or that another ensemble didn't have a bad run either. An ensemble could have a relatively flawless run and get a 19.8 with their competition getting a 19.7 for a similar type run. The next night, they could have a noticeable phasing issue and maybe some other things wrong and still end up with a 19.8 because their competition had a even more rough of a run and maybe got a 19.6 this time. It's all relative to not just what you are doing but also what the rest of the competition is doing as well for the FINAL score. I remember a while ago, I think it was Hopkins, there was an amendment proposed to change the scoring to ordinals or something along those lines in DCI. The argument was similar to the one you make where the actual number doesn't necessarily matter, it's the actual ranking that does. It failed and I'm glad cause I see the number as not just ranking the groups but also showing the spread and difference between the groups.

I say 2014 BD is the best performance so far because it’s my opinion, not because of the score. Trying to determine the “best” or “greatest” corps is in itself subjective because what does that mean? As you said earlier, you CAN relatively compare the scores. Let’s just use 02 Cavaliers and 05 Cadets as examples since they both got a 99.15. Which show would win if they had faced off head to head on the same night? Personally I’m not sure, I would make arguments for both corps. But I would have both losing to BD 2014 but also both beating let’s say Phantom 2008 with a low 98. That just so happens to match up with their scores but I would entertain arguments for Phantom beating either of them or even BD 2014. What does the number mean? Look at the sheets and they tell you that! For a WGI percussion group, a box 5 score (in the 90s) means they are “consistently applying” the criteria in the sheets. Obviously, a group scoring closer to 90 isn’t as consistent as a group scoring in the higher 90s. For Guard, I think they have a 6th box for 99-100 and that’s for setting new standards in the activity.

Oh I understand why you don’t like it. But what’s baffling me is why you’re just now realizing this is how this entire activity is judged and scored. It’s been like this for over 20 years at least since it’s been the same since I got involved marching. To be fair, the numbers are at least “relatively equivalent” to each other for that year. WGI uses a ranking system comparing all the scores at WGI regionals throughout the country with different judges to rank the groups for prelims. It gets everyone generally in the right spot but once championships come around, you usually get some swapping as the groups are compared directly to each other by the same judge.

What do you want the number to “mean”? Just using BD as the example since their 14 score was the highest so far in DCI, what do you want a 99.65 to mean? To me, it just shows that is was a ridiculously designed and performed show, which it was and is all that number represents. All 0.35 pts they lost came in the music captions. All 4 GE and all 3 visual judges scored them as 20. But you can watch the show and find mistakes that were made in the visual captions but I have absolutely zero issues with their score and actually agree completely with them just because the design and performance level was that high that even the mistakes couldn’t bring the number down.

Fair enough. It's a valid argument for sure but just not how the scoring or judging is done nowadays in WGI or DCI. Just curious, what would have been your thoughts if they had received a 19.9 instead of the 20?

Obviously the judge disagreed. It could just be that everything else throughout the show outweighed that incident and the judge was marking them down but got back to a 20 with the rest of the performance. I think that believing a 20 is more "special" or reserved for special moments is a belief that those that have been around in the activities longer tend to gravitate more towards than those that haven't been around lets say 20 years or so that believe a 20, while rare, isn't a "OMG can you believe someone actually got a 20!!!" type of deal. I've seen Blue Devils in DCI get a 20 in a caption even with errors but I had 0 problems with the 20. I want to say 2014 they got a 20 from the Visual judge even though a member completely missed a step off or a direction change while the corps was in a block. Very obvious error but the corps itself warranted a 20 in my opinion.

These people are just conspiracy theorists. Find me one judge that would ever do this. Seriously, just one. As others have said, a judge judges their sheet, that's it. These people that keep trying to say judges go in vendetta or personal agenda modes are just trying to vindicate their own beliefs and try to craft a story to fit the narrative they want (their group was 'robbed' and it's all the judges fault). Anyways, unless things have changed, judges don't see the other scores anyways sooooo it'll be hard to "screw" a group when you don't even know what score you need to give in order to "screw" them...

You can't satisfy everyone. Design the show you want to put on the field and give the members a good summer. The rest is just a bonus.

Tbh I think most of Bluecoats the last decade or so is underrated...

The Rennick Phantom and SCV lines almost always take the cake for me with the rare exception going to BD or Cadets probably. I can't pick a favorite but Phantom 06, Phantom 07, Phantom 10, SCV 18 instantly come to mind as lines I will show someone if I want to show off what a DCI line can do. Saying that, it's becoming more and more rare to find a line on finals night that isn't VERY good. Even the last few corps are putting out some very quality lines, which wasn't the case when I marched. The talent in DCI percussion lines is just ridiculous now!

Not true since there are still 17 minutes between corps performing so even if all the corps just do 8 minute performances, it would take up the exact same amount of time as if all of them did 13 minute shows with the exception of the very last corps. So you can save a whopping 5 minutes of time for a show at best assuming the final corps does an 8 minute show...

Exactly, I don't remember corps prior to amplification having that much difficulty with a "creative process"

Not surprised of the results at all, it’s almost always the same year after year. What a lot of us think as a good change or a common sense change is usually always struck down because of some hinderance to the “creative process” Oh well, on to the next season…

That’s correct, it’s 17 min between shows so if a corps has a 7:00 time, the next corps time will start at 7:17 and so on…in theory anyways