CVQuesty

My 14 year old marches with me now, yes.

You also have a lower barrier to entry with DCA corps. You can put together a minicorps (think Futurecorps) and come to finals, competing in the Minicorps competition. You can slo join MCA (Minicorps Associates) and attend their championships as well. Once you build up your visibility and size due to performances as a minicorps, you can expand into class A. Class A will allow you to compete at smaller sizes and reduced touring costs until all your poop is in a group to declare Open Class and compete. There are corps in pretty much any area of the country now, so if you're in the SE you have CorpsVets, Alliance, and Music City. The Mid-South you have Jackson Generals, Gulf Coast Sound, Frontier, Masquerade, North Central has Kilties, MBI, Govies, etc. Out West is Renegades, SoCal, and River City. There are MANY all-age, Senior, Alumni, and Parade units throughout the Northeast...too many to mention. You have all your DCA Open Class folks, several parade outfits, Alumni, etc... An average operating budget in an Open Class corps that competes at finals and does a normal season will be ~100k. Minicorps can get off the ground for next to nothing. Class A corps can be between 50k & 100k. The average season out of the NE will have from 6-10 shows (depending on what exhibitions you can land) while the northeast will have 1 or two a weekend throughout the summer. (or rehearsals depending on schedule) If you have any questions or need access to some ideas, you can contact DCA for the rulebook and some literature regarding starting up a corps. DCA has a good deal of info, I'm told, and can also give you some anecdotal guidance and contacts you can communicate with to help guide you along the path as well. I hope that helps.

Yeah.. say that in 10 months. :P I'll take my 90 now for a 40 in January, thankYOUverymuch. :D

Methinks Hrothgar has found his hotdog corps... As usual, wonderful review top to bottom. I didn't get to see this show, as we were hanging with Teal and sharing a dinner. I appreciate it, and really feel as though I was there. Props once again. :P

I dunno, man... Of all the reviews I've read on this site, Hrothgar's has been one of the best. You may or may not agree with his opinions, but you can't deny the quality of the reviews themselves.

Especially after giving such amazing reviews in the past. :D

Scott comin' on here talkin' all kindza sense and stuff. Cut that out.

and what would be the ramifications of said action if the show sponsor was a corps? Does the sponsoring corps incur any punitive action for disregarding the 35 rule?

Which is a danged shame, because some of us are at rehearsal come 4PM tomorrow.

Congrats, Nik. Good to hear it.

It was really classic the judges tape where the guy is nearly drowned out by tenor sounds saying over and over he can't hear the tenors.

Ok, this was all harmless until Geoff got involved. :D

Well, Keith, with a few exceptions I think the conversation is very pertinent to your original question. Again, there were some completely unrelated interjections, but the conversation regarding travel, how corps get around the circuit, how corps can get to your proposed show, whether NE corps can make it (or Central or West for that matter) is an upcoming issue that really is going to have to be addressed and put to bed in a satisfactory way for people in all regions. You started a very important and very pertinent discussion.

word.

I think the issue then comes down to judging. to get any kind of usable read (with finals being the end target), you really need to get a read /against/ Bucs/Cabs/Bush, etc. Let's say we win a bunch of Southern shows with some sweet scores. Fine. Then we go NE and tank it good comapred the the previous year's top 4. The only way to keep the judging community aware of not only your standing, but also your progress "in the mix" is to be seen several times against others in the top 10 so that the read and the comments are more accurate and can actually help you in the long run. Hey, guys, I'm not saying any of this will ever happen, and it still remains to be seen how everything is going to shake out over the next few years. But as time goes on, equity is going to be an issue. Now, if CV, Frontier, Gold, GCS, MCL, Jackson, and Say... Masquerade were all powerful, large corps all scoring in the mid-80's in late July, then your argument holds... there's not as much of a reason to travel quite so much. It's so much a chicken and the egg thing.

certainly. I estimate my rookie year total expenditures to be about that. I travelled 8 hours one way.

Don't make me come over there. Because I will. I'll turn this circuit around and NOBODY'll get Ice cream.

Thursday evening, actually...

Well, John, as you know.. That's why the Principal is on the release now. The kid at least has an advocate in the administration to a degree, and recourse with the school board if necessary. Certainly, they'll never get another one signed if they wind up having to strongarm the director, but it's a tool nonetheless. With a good conversation with the band director on behalf of the student, though, most problems can be overcome.

Hey, I do want to make it clear that I'm not trying to stir the pot of controversy. Instead, I'm trying to stir the pot of creativity and get some ideas. A lot of people have insinuated greater involvement of DCI in the All-age activity. I want to be able to say "no thanks, we've got 6 shows in region, and two out". If we don't start to build the region, it may eventually be fiscally impossible to keep up major travel schedules for various corps. I mean, if a corps has to go all over to perform and get a good judge read and DCI stands by with arms wide open saying... Look, Alexandria, LA corps... come to Baton Rouge, Pascagoula, Jacksonville, Shreveport, Natchitoches, Houston and Dallas and we'll give you a read. In fact, just come on to Indianapolis when your season is done, and we'll be happy to crown a national DCI All-age champ. How long before such an overture is completely unable to be ignored? I'm just saying. In that scenario, Alexandria Corps can travel a maximum of 10 hours (Jacksonville, AL) and get all the reads they can handle that play directly into their end-of-season plans, and DCA suffers for it. Instead of waiting around for something to happen, I'm thinking proactively to figure out how to not allow bad things to happen, and put together a scenario where everyone wins. Honest. I put down my mischief stick awhile ago. :)

Thanks for the sideways slam. Yes, I do know. I vote on a budget. I can tell you. 10,000 for busses on any trip. Yeah, sometimes we can work a deal, but that's our regular estimates. Gratefully, Heatwave used to be able to take fewer vehicles, but they still had the really long distance traveling. Put two NE shows on that schedule, there's 20k right there. Add the DCA weekend with the same (or better) for buses that will make the trip *AND* stay from Thursday to Monday, and you've got another 15k or so. almost 35k. Add in uniform stuff, staff pay, a show that just breaks even and we have to run ourselves, etc. etc. Where does it come from? Staff that will work for free or just a plain old lack of staff. So then, the travel to the places where you want to be seen costs enough to perhaps hurt the ability to have out of line staff that can make you better for the places you want to be seen... vicious cycle. Let's say for argument that a good sized corps of 100 or so has a 100k budget. Yank that 35 off the top. yank off another few k for equipment truck fuel. What if you need to send a single bus to some local shows 3 or 4 hours away. pull out a few dozen k for staff salaries. take out some for equipment repair. heads. pads. uni fixes/alterations. maybe a rehearsal facility. lose some money on a show. (to be fair, the southern shows are starting to break even. Come on profitability!) supplies, paint, chalk for the parking lot, you get the picture. Very rapidly, you have literally nothing to carry into the next year. No hope to upgrade the staff next year, as your budget has to be maintainable. No hope to go to more places, there just isn't the coin. Now imagine, if you will, that you get 2 or 3 big-name corps... let me be ridiculous here for a moment... Renegades, MBI, and Cabs. (three different sections of the country) and the rest of the southern brothers all come across for a 10-12 corps extravaganza. First, you're not spending 10k on a trip, but maybe 5k in show expenses and let's say that you make 5k on the show. (yeah, I'm dreaming) Pay some fees, and break even. Build the crowd. Next year, bigger show. wow. the possibilities boggle the mind. I don't think anyone is saying that anyone is unfair or anyone is spoiled. (well, other people are, I'm not. I know how hard it is to be fiscally responsible and move a corps all over the Eastern Seaboard) I think what people are looking for is some sort of equity in the process. Honestly, everyone except for the NE region travels extensively. I don't think anyone will dispute that. ... It's the nature of the beast. It's what we signed up for, so we do it. However, at some point there's going to have to be equity. 5 years? 10? 20? When is enough going to be enough? When will the shows be big enough to pull in the big corps that will make the shows big enough to pull in the big corps? (there's a grammatical circle for you) What I don't see is a plan. In some past years we not only put on our own show but helped out other corps in putting on theirs or just put on two shows in disparate locations, all at a loss. The people who are willing to sponsor want to sponsor a large event. We want a large event. We just don't have the one thing a large event demands...large corps to fill the lineup. Until that happens, the out-of-northeast shows are doomed do marginalizaiton. I'm open to ideas. Hell, I'll "age out" this year and work on a committee to host a large show. What will it take on a per-corps basis to get a full show into the South? N. Carolina was a lot of fun, and showed some promise. There's a bunch of us on the Gulf Coast now, though, and to grow the various shows in Texas, GA, etc. and to help grow the region down here, there's going to have to be some "biguns". Literally, I'm looking for dialogue. Show some ideas. What sort of incentives will get NE corps down into the regional shows? Be specific. (oh, and many kudos and thanks to Empire for stretching out in Ohio. How COOL is that!)

Now Ed... You and I both know it's an inevitability. The question is how long we die-hards can hold out before everyone everywhere is on Bb.

So let me get this straight... It's not financially responsible to travel 23 hours to a competition. Even one you make a marginal amount on... So... Hell, I'll leave it alone. It's screaming loudly at you from all out-of-northeast corps budgets. It's amazing how a little corps from FL can travel all over the NE and not gripe once on the budgetary requirements, but ask big corps with better resources and more longevity to do it, and somehow it's not financially responsible. I've said it before, and I'll probably be yelling it until we're all swallowed up by DCI All-age or DCA goes away.. 21 hours to anywhere. To compete, 21 hours to anywhere. To compete against the "big boys" and get a good read from DCA judges that we can actually use the comments from.....21 hours to anywhere. Gimme a break.

Man you guys are fast....especially CloudHype. I was gonna set up some online space for you, but you guys beat me to the punch! Kudos!

Apparently being a grumpy old guy on the forums again. :D