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Since everyone is focused on previous year's attendance, is there even enough good concert side seats at Lucas Oil Stadium to SELL 24,000 or more tickets for finals? What is the exact capacity of the concert side at LOS?

1) I would strongly encourage you to check (and double check) with your physician regarding your cochlear implants. This a question that none of us can realistically give you the best advice about. 2) Every corps approaches sponsorship a little different. Pioneer has a program called "Sponsors of Pioneer Youth" that provides you with materials to hand out to family, friends, teachers, local businesses and so forth in an attempt to raise money to cover your dues. Some members in recent years have raised enough money to cover the entire dues amount. We also have a new Sponsor Board on the Pioneer website that allows our corps members to post their picture and a short bio. This board is then searchable by alumni and fans, and sponsorship can be arranged that way as well. 3 & 4) I would strongly encourage you to consider Pioneer as you venture into World Class competition. All of our camps are held in the Milwaukee area, which is only a couple hours and maybe a tank of gas away from most of Indiana. Our dues are fairly reasonable and the experience is one you won't forget. Don't worry about your experience on Mellophone. We've had people switch instruments on many occasions and come to us with very little experience on a brass instrument. As long as you're willing to work hard and get Better Every Day, we've got a spot for you!

Just to bring people up to speed in this thread... At least 3 dead at Indiana State Fair due to the stage collapse. A 53 mph wind gust was recorded at Lucas Oil Stadium at the time of the collapse, so be glad that you had a roof. Other areas nearby reported 77 mph wind gusts. Very rough night weatherwise for the Indianapolis area. Keep those who were affected by the collapse in your thoughts.

I have done my homework and... You are correct: In shows where an Open Class corps appears with World Class corps, they are paid an appearance fee. That fee, however, is less than half of what Pioneer is getting paid right now. In that respect, there are financial implications involved right there with possibly going Open Class. Combine that with the fact that Open Class corps do not get to as many shows as World Class corps, and the financial gap widens even more (not to mention a diminished touring opportunity). For stand alone Open Class shows, there is no appearance fee. As a result, the DCI contract amount for hosting an Open Class show is much smaller than a World Class show... Which ultimately is what makes those shows possible.

I completely agree with Mike on this point. If the corps is going to show signs of improvement, there has to be a significant contribution by the 1,800+ alumni that marched with the corps... Not just from the 90's, but from the entire 50 year history. The alumni response over the past couple months has been interesting to say the least. The 50th Anniversary re-engaged some alumni who had lost touch with, or lost interest in the corps. I got a lot of positive feedback and "thank you for finding me" type responses to communications about the 50th. There's been a lot of positive interest in stepping up to help the corps in one way or another. There are several fundraisers in the works and a few more on the table for discussion. At the same time, there's also been a good number of people that have openly stated that they want nothing to do with the corps based off of the recent history of placement or other factors. They either don't want to make an effort to effect change, or they feel that such efforts will be fruitless (ie. the elephant in the room concept). Lastly there's a whole separate group of alumni that don't nececessarily have anything against Pioneer, but because they went on to age out with another corps... that's where their allegiance lies. They'll root for Pioneer, but any contrabutions that they make (monetary or time) will be towards the corps they aged out from. It's an uphill battle to say the least, but at some point you have to start climbing that hill!

In the 90's there were a lot of things going our way that helped us boost numbers. First of all, you can't discount the competitive nature of the corps back then. Three championships plus a handful of solid appearances in Quarterfinals as a Division II corps made Pioneer a fairly attractive destination for anyone looking for a place to march. We also had a handful of relatively popular staff members from different regions across the country. Those staff members were each able to bring several members from those regions to the corps. Those members then brought a couple more people and the growth naturally occured. However, once those staff members left the corps, the members from that particular region often followed suit fairly quickly. Lastly, Pioneer benefitted on a couple occasions from the unfortunate demise of other corps in the activity. Not saying that we got a lot of members that way, but we opened our doors on more than one occasion to the members of corps that had gone inactive (Wabash Crusaders in 1996 comes to mind).

Congrats to those corps that will be performing on Friday! I said all along that it would be interesting how the scores fell into place, and this afternoon definitely has not disappointed from a fan perspective. As a person with a horse in the race, it's disappointing to see that Pioneer scored lower than they did over two weeks ago in Hattiesburg, MS. Just from pure repetition one would think that the show would get cleaner and the score would go up. However, there are no guarantees in life! Overall, great bunch of kids! Hopefully we see most of them return for next season and we can find an equal number of great kids to boost our numbers for 2012.

Keep in mind that Pioneer scored a 70.200 in Charleston, WV over a week ago. The Allentown score was a bit lower, but I don't see a two or three point jump in a week to be that unreasonable. Keep in mind that while other corps were out in Erie and at the Open Class Championships, Pioneer has been hard at work on the practice field. It's going be exciting! I'm kind of annoyed that I'm stuck here at work! However things fall, I'm extremely proud of this year's corps and have to say that in the face of adversity, the corps has performed extremely well.

Most improved corps- Genesis Director of the year- Mike Quillen 16th- 56.60 Spirit of Newark 15th- 63.05 Blue Saints 14th- 69.55 Racine Scouts 13th- 72.10 Les Stentors 12th- 79.15 Colt Cadets 11th- 79.20 Forte Best Brass- Oregon Crusaders 10th- 81.90 Raiders 9th- 82.30 Legends Best GE- Blue Devils B 8th- 84.80 Music City 7th- 86.15 7th Regiment Best Visual- Vanguard Cadets 6th- 86.85 Genesis 5th- 89.25 Revolution Best Percussion- Blue Devils B 4th- 91.50 Spartans 3rd- 94.20 Vanguard Cadets Best Colorguard- Spartans 2nd- 94.70 Oregon Crusaders 1st- 95.00 Blue Devils B

I will back Jeff up on this 100%. For a lot of people my age (30's), they only get a couple weeks of vacation/paid-time-off per year. If I'm going to bring my other half with me for 3 or 4 days to Indianapolis for DCI, there had better be something in it for her as well. Last month I was the chairperson for the Pioneer 50th Anniversary Reunion. I had repeated inquiries from out of town alumni regarding other attractions/events nearby that they could visit as part of their trip to Milwaukee for the reunion. I ended up putting up a whole page on the website of local attractions in addition to putting up links to local tourism agencies. Point being, people were willing to come and dedicate a day to the reunion, but also wanted to take in a Brewer's game, Summerfest, and even local state parks.

Pioneer 2011 Fees: -No Registration Fee -No Audition Fee -New Member Camp Fee = $60.00 per Camp -Veteran Camp Fee = $50.00 per Camp -Tour Fee = $2,200.00 Total Cost: New Member: $2,560.00 Veteran: $2,500.00

How many advertisers would really be willing to spend money on commercials during a webcast? Judging by the few advertisers that jumped on the ESPN broadcasts a couple years ago, I'm skeptical about how many would be willing to be a part of the webcasts. It has to make sense to an advertiser, and a niche webcast won't be worth it to most companies.

This is a bit dated, but covers most of the info that you were looking for: DCI Photo Policy

As a casual observer to the whole situation, it will be interesting to see how things shake out in Indy. Trying to figure out exactly how the Open Class Corps will score on World Class Sheets is next to impossible. Historical trends, while fun to analyze as displayed below, are probably not going to be very accurate since the sheets and activity have changed since 2002. In any event, I took a look at Corps Reps and noted the drop off from Class A/Div 2 Champion from finals to Quarterfinals. Here's the drops that we were seeing prior to the change in finals week format in 2003: 1990 -21.800 1991 -24.700 1992 -19.300 1993 -20.100 1994 -26.400 1995 -20.700 1996 -16.200 1997 -24.400 1998 -21.900 1999 -19.800 2000 -19.850 2001 -16.950 2002 -11.900 How these numbers translate into today's drum corps will be interesting to see!

I would have to guess that they will stack up about the same. The current spread has them right about equal with Pioneer when you put them on the same sheets. It will be fun to see how things shake out once we get to Indy!

Open Class and World Class are judged on different sheets during the season, so you cannot compare what they're getting to what the World Class corps are scoring. BDB and SCVC scores at the Prelims show in Indy will probably be somewhere in the range of 12 to 20 points less than what they score at Open Class finals based off of historical trends. Granted, it's been several years since Open Class corps had the opportunity to be judged on the same sheets as the World Class corps.

Not a problem! I don't have all the info on the original pieces, but I'm sure we'll get it squared away before the end of the season!

Pioneer will be presenting... Celebrate! - a series of original compositions by Nick Golding (the original program was scrapped right before the season began)!

You're not breaking any laws... However, DHS at federal, state and local levels have evaluated almost every sporting venue in the country that holds more than a couple hundred people, provided millions of dollars in grants to beef up security at such venues, held countless workshops and training sessions for venue staff/management, and made recommendations on how to ultimately secure such venues. Some of these recommendations have since been turned into policy. "No re-entry" is becoming a pretty common policy at many of these venues. Not saying it's the right answer, but the precedent is out there.

I just briefly skimmed the thread, and saw the interaction with the event staff at the gate as well as the response from DCI. What I didn't see was a response from the group actually hosting the show. The event staff/gate staff is more than likely either volunteer or in rare cases paid. They simply do what they are told to do in a pre-show briefing. One of them may have been the "person in charge" of the event staff, but my guess is they weren't actually one of the promoters for the show. I'd be interested in hearing a response from whoever is actually the promoter for the show (band boosters, chamber of commerce, etc... Whoever is actually paying the bills/fees for the show). While it's clear that the event staff lied about the reason for no re-entry, they may not have even known the real answer. There may be some obscure reason for why re-entry is not allowed (ie. local ordinance, fire code, district policy, etc...).

Very proud of Pioneer tonight. Better Every Day!

1996 was the first year that they had the drums on a cart and rotated the whole cart. 1997 and 98 were the years they rotated the drummers themselves.

Pioneer Container = Pioneer Drum & Bugle Corps

It has nothing to do with promoting the show... I'm sure the two counties are looking at it as an opportunity to get their name out there to a ton of tourists in a captive environment. The way it works out, it's more or less DCI being paid to promote the two counties. If I'm in the Atlanta area for the weekend, it wouldn't be completely unheard of for me to travel an hour or two in any direction to check out a tourist destination. Direct from their website:

Not a lot of changes, just a lot of cleaning and rehearsing. I had the opportunity to watch them rehearse quite a bit in recent days at Pioneerland and they're pretty intense about what they're doing. I like the focus from the staff and the members. No bull, just a lot of hard work. Overall just a great bunch of people to be around and I look forward to seeing how they do the rest of the season. The Paddock Lake show was a bit of an oddity since they haven't had a show since last week and won't have another until next week. I'm not sure if that was an accurate read or not on the progress they've made. I think they're due for a bump in score once they get back in the regular show swing next week. All of the alumni that were at the reunion and saw their exhibition on Saturday afternoon feel like this corps is back at the same level as they were in the mid 90's. There's a lot of renewed alumni interest and I hope that translates into better things ahead for the corps as a whole. We're already working on a couple of events for next year that will serve as fundraisers and help to get the Pioneer name back out into the Milwaukee community. We've had some positive media coverage over the past 10 days in this market and there's a bunch of people have been reminded that we're still alive and kicking. Looking forward to next year a bit more, the online applications have already started coming in for prospective members. We were able to find 40-50 great kids this year. Our hope is that they stick around and that we're able to at least duplicate that success with recruiting this off season.