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You took my quote out of context. I was referring to the student body supporting the Band at home football games. Very few ever travel to long distance events - be it football, basketball, band contest, cross country meets, etc.

It's not an opinion. I'm active in the field, it's a fact. You'd be intelligent not to argue the facts of someone who is knowledgeable and out there on Friday nights (and in the hallways every day).

Why? Why can't it be to showcase their REAL purpose - their continuance of their MUSIC education? Can't it be different for different places? And who are YOU to decide anyone's purpose? The world doesn't revolve around some 1970s Texas idea of football.

Probably the same amount of the student body that attends a football game if it were an hour and a half away... very few, but a few.

I disagree, and argue that nowadays - most of the student body is happy to support their friends in other activities. High School kids these days are a lot different than they were even 10-12 years ago.

OK whoa whoa. So you're saying Band students and their hard work exist solely for the entertainment of the football crowd? I'd argue - staunchly so - against that notion. In fact - my Athletic Director, and all of my school administration KNOW - that while I am a HIGHLY enthusiastic supporter of school spirit around the building... the Band's presence at halftime of a football game is 100% a dress rehearsal atmosphere for our competition show. We come over and play the Anthem pregame, then we play the school song after the coin toss and after each score. At the end of the first quarter, we leave to go do our competition warmup routine. We perform our show at halftime. Our student section and crowd - by and large - stay and watch the Band during halftime and cheer for our kids. More often than not, a large portion of the crowd leave after the Band performs - so many at times that the AD has gotten letters asking if he can somehow 'require' the crowd to stay and watch Q3 and Q4. And we have a decent (+.500ish) football team. After halftime, we clear the field and my kids go back to the school and change out of uniform, after all, we have our REAL performance the next day and the kids don't need to be the last ones out of the school. If the kids want to go back to the game and sit in the student section, more power to them and I support that 100%. Oftentimes I will head back to the bleachers and sit and watch the rest of the game. At basketball... the Band is ALWAYS present in full force - I make it a requirement for every student to be at games. We stay the whole game, and it is loud as hell in our gym. Teams HATE to come here because the Band is so into games. I love school spirit and I love my school. I may be in a lucky situation, but at the same time, I have made it clear to everyone that my kids are given a Friday night showcase for THEIR hard work, talent, and dedication. They're going to go out and burn down their competition show. And we're going to be better at our real performance the next day because of it. Why can't school spirit be... "Hey look, we have a freaking championship-calibur band!" At some places it is, and people are very proud of their competitive marching programs.

To be honest, that's about enough talk of all of the exposure of all of your "bags and personals." There are fines for things like that!

Congrats Jason!

It's funny how they all want to be the first to announce their staff but the last to announce their show design.

I'll argue that all day. It's VERY EASY to look at a crowd in a given stadium and have wild variances on estimated attendance. I concur with Tim K - the newer stadiums look bigger but many times hold fewer bodies. It's all in how the sections are distributed, box seats vs. bench seats, etc.

It has nothing to do with whatever you're calling fictional entertainment (FYI, nearly all forms of entertainment are fictional entertainment, save for music and sports). It has to do with proper reporting and oversight to things like your state's Board of Accounts. Recordkeeping has greatly improved in just the last few years. Whereas to find accurate records you used to have to sift through boxes of paper files, stubs, and whatever, now you open a spreadsheet and CTRL-F to locate something. It's not rocket science to think that the accuracy of these things for whatever event is highly suspect the farther we go back in years.

hearsay hearsay hearsay blah blah blah get off my lawn this thread has probably run its course at this point.

Wonderful concert. But like DCI, this kind of programming is few and far between, not to mention also available online - which goes back to the crux of my argument which is that PBS is irrelevant.

Not any more than I think 25,000 went to Finals and stayed beginning to end without going pee or getting a hot dog, but that has nothing to do with the argument.

I jump in and out enough.

And trust me, I am NOT underestimating. I'm just saying no one is watching. I'm not either. For every terrible-quality, commercially-interrupted Broadway show I can watch on PBS, I can watch 18 videos of different professional productions in 4K on YouTube or Netflix on my own schedule and my own device.

This might be... but I would argue that NO ONE under the age of about 50 is ever tuning into PBS. NO ONE, ever. Period. I am a musician and teacher, and I highly understand the value of some of their programming. But there has NEVER ONCE been a time when I watched PBS randomly. Only to watch the DCI broadcast and the State Marching Band Finals... which as stated before, now everyone can watch on YouTube with infinitely better video and sound quality immediately after the event anyways, instead of waiting for Thanksgiving.

I would wager that DCI has very little to no NEED to go back to PBS, let alone interest in it. Why broadcast to a supposed 300,000 when you can broadcast to millions on YouTube? Why dick around with PBS pledges when you have FloMarching? Why mess with licensing for ANOTHER broadcasting opportunity when you don't need to? Just so the very few who still watch PBS can relive their glory days? Newsflash: Nothing... NOTHING new, hip, and appealing to a new audience is being broadcast on PBS anymore. I wrote in another thread... on my way home from Finals the Sunday morning after, I watched on YouTube the Top 12 shows FROM FINALS. Didn't have to deal with PBS, didn't have to crank my antenna, didn't have to wait until Thanksgiving. Why would anyone want to fool with PBS? I'm not even a young'un anymore... and I see absolutely 0 value in PBS for DCI.

woof woof woof It was always bigger and better back in the day... more more more more views more views more views "Some guy told me 300,000 something or other..." hearsay hearsay hearsay Do you really think like... 100,000 people just watched the same video 9-10 times? anecdotal anecdotal anecdotal For God's sake, just come on here and shout "GET OFF MY LAWN" like a crazy old coot and we will all understand you better.

Many of the Alumni corps I've been familiar with (including mine) allowed members to bring and perform on their own horns if they could perform on them. SCV Alumni, for example, had people on everything - some 2-valve Gs, some 3-valve, and of course lots of Bb horns.

Is there not a "one touch, one note" rule in DCI?

I totally agree. It seems like electronics is a total high-reward/no-risk situation (i.e., "aww, so unfortunate that your mic cut out, but you get points for effort because I saw it at the show last week"). I 100% agree with you. The first thing that needs to be banned is the micing of individuals and then presenting them into the overall mix during ensemble moments (the practice that many of us in the activity have watched go on and have colleagues do on many many occasions yet the populace of this board has no clue that happens and in fact vehemently denies happens regardless of their ignorance to the truth). I don't mind micing a flugelhorn solo (or a flute solo, or a clarinet solo), but when you mic the 2 best players in each section and mix them in, trying to fool the judges into thinking the sound of the ensemble is pristine, there are MAJOR integrity problems. The problem is how to legislate that. But it needs to be done.

I have countered many of your arguments both logically and with direct knowledge of certain situations. You have yet to respond to one, except this one, to claim I have attacks aimed at you. Incorrect. I have attacks aimed at the vitriol with which you approach the activity. I don't know you. What I say has nothing to do with whether or not "they know you won't put up with that," because it's the internet and no one cares what you will and won't put up with, including me. You can't defend a single argument you make, and when those of us who combat your troll responses with actual knowledge call you on it, you either fail to respond, respond with personal insults/taunts, or play the "nuh-uh" game like you did in the thread above.

Apparently you know a lot of other things - like what consumers of the activity want, how ticket sales are reported, how much electronics are necessary, what motivates corps directors to do things, visual and dance instructors teaching jazz hands, why staff changes happen, and pretty much anything else you find you want to throw your $0.02 in on. Either that or you're just another troll. Pretty clear that the entire site has figured you out.

Higher standards and expectations does not equal sh.itting all over a very successful activity. They have higher expectations themselves, which is why the activity is progressing and evolving, which is translating into higher ticket sales across the board year-in and year-out. In fact, what you have is lower standards and lower expectations if you expect any activity - be it drum corps, band, youth baseball, firefighting, culinary arts, spaceship flying, theatre, weightlifting, education, or whatever - to be done the exact same it was 20 years ago.