Green Fleurdelis

The other side of the coin is that they'll see a huge jump in score between July 1 and championship week!

In 2011, the Cadets had the 3rd best score in the country on July 1, and also at the San Antonio show later in July.

I rarely quote an entire post, but in this case I will -- just to say "nicely done: clear, concise, cogent". Plus it helps that I agree with you. :)

:: smile :: Yes, you could argue that. If you look at the data in my opening post of this thread though it seems that the greater-than-two-position-moves-up are pretty evenly distributed top to bottom.

Unless one just happened to be a Scouts fan of course. Don't get me wrong. I love Boston. But, well, you know...

Intrigued, I took a look at this over the same time frame (2010-2014). Indeed, it is extremely difficult to move up more than one place after San Antonio. Much more rare than placement moves after July 1. This is not surprising. Here are the corps who jumped up more than one position (x to y); and how far behind the "y" corps they were at the San Antonio show (i.e. - the deficit they overcame). 2013 -- Boston (10th to 8th); 2.25 points 2011 -- Cadets (3rd to 1st); 0.65 points That's all. And one could argue that the Cadets' move is not extraordinary since it was only overcoming less than a point deficit.

Interestingly, the Cavaliers relative placement from July 1 to Finals was unchanged -- 2nd best score at both points in time.

Neither hype nor myth. It happens. Just not commonly (especially if the point deficit is more than 2).

Well stated. I believe these statements explain the resiliency of the July 1 placements. Or, pick any other arbitrary date. I was surprised at how early in the season the placements settle into what is most likely to be the final placement. Again, exceptions exist. Major moves upward are not impossible, just unusual.

Interesting digression. In the olden days of yore, everybody marched with their local corps. Why? Because they could. Heck, just think of the Chicago corps back in the 60s -- kids would generally only march in the corps that was in their neighborhood. Park Ridge. Skokie. Norwood Park. Cicero. Loyalty was very high. Nowdays virtually no one marches with their local corps and there is substantial competition from candidates all over the country to become a member of the few remaining drum corps, so loyalty is reduced. And there is another factor, which is the characteristics of the average marching member -- in the old days, we were mostly just kids. Nowdays the members are mostly college age music majors looking for the best experience.

Probably. I bet that after San Antonio, movement is even more rare. (Rarer?) Frankly I was kind of surprised at the predictive nature of the July 1 placements, especially if the scores were less than 2 points different. And with the complication of a lack of head-to-head competition. Perhaps the judging across the country is less variable than believed.

As the Original Poster, in retrospect I probably should not have used the term "slotting". It implies a predestination or collusion, which I don't think exists. What I think the data shows is that significant movement in relative placement after July 1st is rare. Not impossible. Just unusual. To the extent there is "slotting" or "neighborhoods", it is a consequence of early season performances. Not a precursor of placements. And at the risk of repeating myself, I think the reason for the lack of significant placement movement has to do with the supreme importance of show design -- how all the elements (music, percussion, drill, guard, theme) work together. (I am still in awe of last year's Blue Devil's show from a design perspective.) The design teams of every corps continue to tweak their show up until the day of finals. But I propose that the reason the placements remain relatively static after July 1 is that 70-80% of the show remains the same. By July 1, it is what it is. Now of course, because of the handful of exceptions, every corps has hope. And they continue to work hard. If I were a betting man I'd lean heavily on the July 1 relative positions. But in reality, it is much safer to simply adhere to the 1st Rule of Frisbee Throwing, namely "say nothing more predictive than 'watch this'." And of course, while I'm talking about placements here, I know there are rewards in this activity that go far beyond placement.

I have long been interested regarding the topic of "slotting" and the difficulty of placement advances after the first few weeks of the season. I wanted to see if my opinions had any factual basis or not. So I looked at the scores** and placements from July 1 to Finals, for each of the previous five years (2010 - 2014). Here are the corps who jumped up more than one position (x to y); and how far behind the "y" corps they were on July 1 (i.e. - the deficit they overcame). 2014 -- Blue Knights (11th to 8th); 3.3 pts2014 -- Bluecoats (6th to 2nd); 1.8 pts 2013 -- Bluecoats (8th to 5th); 1.1 pts 2013 -- Boston (13th to 8th); 3.8 pts 2012 -- Crown (4th to 2nd); 1.2 pts 2011 -- Blue Devils (4th to 2nd); 2.4 pts2011 -- Bluecoats (9th to 7th); 0.1 pts2011 -- Cadets (3rd to 1st); 2.3 pts2011 -- Santa Clara (8th to 6th); 1.5 pts2011 -- Blue Knights (13th to 9th); 3.45 pts 2010 -- Blue Devils (5th to 1st); 0.85 pts So, other than 2011 it is a pretty rare occurrence to jump up more than a single position after July 1. And only 5 times has a corps overcome more than a 2 point margin. With 60 data points, that's is pretty infrequent. Even with the unreliability of comparing the non-head-to-head east coast to midwest to west coast scores as of July 1, the sobering conclusion is pretty clear -- a jump in position after July 1 when you are "behind" by more than 2 points is possible, but very rare (in recent history at least). You may wonder "other than the above, how many corps made a jump up of a single spot after July 1?" The answer is: 2014 -- Blue Devils (2nd to 1st) 2013 -- Phantom (7th to 6th) 2012 -- Cavies (9th to 8th) 2011 -- Phantom (6th to 5th) 2010 -- Blue Knights (12th to 11th)2010 -- Blue Stars (9th to 8th) 2010 -- Madison (11th to 10th) Yep. Things are pretty well set by July 1. I don't think it was always this way, especially back-in-the-day (see signature for the years I marched). But I don't have any proof of my opinion on this -- the data is buried deeper than I have the patience to excavate. I think we had to rely much more on execution and passion which was more variable than the focus on show design these days. Show design is much harder to change as the season progresses, and does not have the same show-to-show variability. ** using corpsreps.com and dciscores.com

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... who will go unnamed.