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I just read that they sold 2900 tickets for the NY show last night. I have no idea if that is an increase or decrease in attendance.

Sounds like a merger to me. Has anyone else notice that the DCI site has been hacked? Or did Phantom Regiment actually come in first place last year with a score of 47.6?

Did they? I thought that there were more than 8 corps.

Thats the sad thing. That we have to be trained to look for certain things. We make up criteria to use as a guidline to place judgement. The type of criteria that we would never notice if we weren't educated as to what that criteria is. to me, this totally takes the enjoyment factor out of anything. A long long time ago, I was trained to inspect resturaunts. It now drives me crazy as I find myself mentally evaluating every resturaunt that I go into, instead of just enjoying the food or the company that I am with. I'm looking at the stained ceiling tiles, I'm making a mental note of the fact that the bathroom is not handicapped accesable, I'm noticing that the legs of the pie cooler arn't the required minimum 6" in lenth. The "I'm going to show of my knowledge of this topic by nitpicking" type of thinking really can make a lot of activities less enjoyable. Along the same line, when I have invited people to performance events, I have on occasion notice them particularly looking for our "person" on stage or on the field. Sometimes they are asking "which one is he"? this totally irritates me, I didn't come just to watch my person, I came to watch the performance that my person is in. Trying to focus on one person eleminates the possibility of simply enjoying the show. There's really no excitement in trying to track someone on a football field, it can become one of those tasks that leads to obsessive dreams at night.

No, we just haven't all posted and I figured most of y'all wouldn't care to read what I have to say about it. Anywho, in Greenville SC we had 200+ folk. Great crowd response for Cadets and Caveliers, even bigger response for Crown. Same type of technical issues that everyone else seems to have experianced. I found the trivia questions at the begining interesting, especially the one that asked "which corps performed at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics" because I had spotted the composer for the 1996 Olympic music in the audiance. And while standing in line someone approached us and gave us a free ticket - thats the third time in a row that we have gotton free tickets to a DCI event.

Exactly.

It's a fundraising video. Creative accounting increases the percieved need of the organization. I am quite sure that the figure for Instruments and Uniforms is misleading. Their contract on the uniforms is for ever other year replacement, and I would think that the uniforms are at a significant "sponsorship" discount. I am also under the impression that Yamaha provides them with instruments at a very low cost, then they resale the instruments each year and have also been known to rent out a set. I am not saying that amount is a lie, I am just saying that is a multiple year total and excludes any discounts and money returned from instrument sales. Their Vehicle and Transportation categories total a half million dollars. That's likely the total cost of transportation, maybe including activities other than the corps itself, and likely includes the full cost of any vehicles even though they use those for multiple years. Even the food cost sounds a little suspect, although it is not inconcievable. I am not suggesting that they have done anything wrong, they did what they felt they needed to do to make their point, but I doubt some of those figures would be confirmed by an outside audit as annual cost for just the corps alone.

They come with an odometer built in?

Ya, and the fewer the corps, the less the prestige of being a "top" corps. If there were only 8, being 8th wouldn't be too impressive (in terms of being labeled a "top" corps), even if that 8th place corps was just as good as they would have been being 8th out of 39. For there to be winners, there has to be loosers, and the more loosers the better. The issue of not having enough to fill a show could be resolved by a better planned "tour", like the TOC concept, but at some point it simply becomes a "show" and not a competition. Sort of like Pro Wrestling, or the traveling dirt bike shows. It may be amazing to see the great performances, but they are shows, not truely competitions, and not nearly as fun as going to a true sporting competition. What if there were only two NFL teams and they just competed against each other each week. It would be quite boring, no one would really care who one or lost during a particular game, although a few people would still watch the NFL "shows" just to see great athletes. For drum corps to maximize attendance, they have to put on "shows" for people who just want to see a good show, and to put on "games" for people who are into the competitive aspect. There's not enough interest in the activity to do just one or the other.

That makes a heck of a lot of sense. I hope that the DCI bosses are paying attention!

Some corps may require a physical anyway. You may want to check with the corp and see if they have a standard physical form before your physical - it will save you from having to do it twice. It actually might help you a little with your audition if you show up with all your paperwork including your completed physical form.

Yup. I've seen them indoors several times, and outdoors several times. One of my favorite college bands, except for the singing part.

My personal observation with high school bands is that they always sound louder at competitions than they do football games. I think that the crowd noise has a lot to do with that. At footballgames the crowed is loud and are not all that interested in listening to the band, at competitions listening to the bands is the reason to attend so there is less "noise" from the stands. I would assume that the comparison between DCI, where most of the crowed is into the performance and not a football game, as opposed to a college band where most of the crowed is there for the game would be the same.

Wonder how they make robot lips that have good tone. Looks to me that the trumpet is perminately affixed to the head as right arm never moves or removes the trumpet from the mouth area. It looks neat and is certainly cool, but I really don't think that Toyota has developed anything of any significant economic value or amazing new technology. Really, isn't this analagous to a player piano? Didn't we have player pianos over a hundred years ago? It's not like the robot is acting autonomously. I would seriously doubt that it can improvise, although it may be able to play whatever electronic sheet music that it is fed. Although it may be a real trumpet, the trumpet really is essentially just a speaker, and is used in the same form as a speaker on a computer playing a midi selection.

From the perspective of simply being entertaining to the general public I think that Cavies have the best show (out of the ones that I have seen so far). Cadets are a close second.