totaleefree

The Rain (Blame it on the rain)

In my event planning days 90 days out was usually the last chance to cancel things without incurring penalties. These days arn't normal days, bus companies and staduims may be glad to have any business this summer, Same with facilities rent but if they (DCI) cancel June 1st they might get stuck paying quite a bit to Lucas Oil Stadium but now they could probably get out of any lease agreement. The longer they wait the greater the cost of canceling will be. Most of the established corps will be able to cover the day to day cost with regular Maroon and Gold Club or alumni donations or the 56 club. Unfortunatly summer staff would lose out getting paid and it might really hurt the part time drum line instructors and substitute school music teachers who needed the extra summer check to make ends meet. It will take a hit on the newer corps who don't have strong Alumni networks and depend on tuition, however that is why DCI has been putting out Guidelines highly encouraging them to find a lot of non tuition or non seasonal performance revenue.

I think about 20 years ago there was some deal where Disney was going to take over as a primary sponsor of DCI, moving several DCI champs to Orlando, I think that Disney owning ESPN would have help get it on TV there. I was out of the US at the time so I did not follow closely at the time. I think one thing that many corps objected to was that DCI week would have been a permanent thing between Gay Days and Right to Life week in Orlando. ( actually this may have become the idea to stay in Indy for a while). I think the corps were not willing to give Disney control and I thought that was when the relationship with Disney soured and ESPN being part of Disney is not anxious to deal with DCI again. This is all second hand rumors I heard long after the events, But what is DCP without crazy and controversial rumors, (Maybe we could add something about GH to make this conversation more controversial).

DCA may actually be better off than DCI in this. They don't need to get a college that won't let the football team have spring practice to open up for a corps to have spring training, Also most DCA corps don't need weekend housing. With their Labor day champs they could still put together show even if virus fears don't subside until July. The corps that have become more DCI like with housing and such might have a tougher time

One other thing that could make cancellation of the season happen is that events scheduled for now may be postponed and rescheduled for dates during the tour. I know my theater group and my Audubon chapter have rescheduled events to times that I had planned on volunteering with a corps on the road. I have to make a choice which I will do now and the other events I am a commitee member and an important cog in making it happen, Drum Corps I am just a worker Bee. I can imagine some groups will try to have a prom mid summer before the kids all go off to college, maybe some postponed graduations. Also my experience is that a large portion of the volunteers with the long established corps tend to be older falling into the high risk catagory for Covid-19, While MMs are in good shape and at someone low risk of becoming critically Ill and may be able to spend a summer on a bus and sharing a gym floor these long serving volunteers might not be able to work on a tour while there is still any possiblity of the virus being there. It takes a hug volunteer effort to get a corps on the road. My Theater Company had to cancel its last 2 shows of the season plus the last week of our current productions. We had already brought in Actors for out next production, leased housing for them and they spent over a week rehearsing. Now we have to eat those costs and lose probably 300k in revenue that the shows would have made. If DCI waits for more camps to happen they could get to a point where it would be too late to cancel bus contracts, kids might not be able to refund their plane tickets , bulk food purchases nwould have to be disposed of. By cancelling earlier they could save a lot of money and a lot of stress on the MM and the staff.

Well the news conference just said we could be under emergency measures until July, Which would mean no 2020 DCI season

Once a week or so get out my grill and cook for 150 neighborhood kids, and remind them to drink lots of water. Just for kicks show up at a high school that I have never been to, in a random state at 6am and try to find where the bathroom is without waking up anyone sleeping inside, then try to find an ice machine that we are allowed to use,

I think the corps spend most of their money on tour, so if it were cancelled before the tour began I would think most well established corps could weather it, no need to pay someone to write a new show for next year. Also they could just not hire staff for the summer.Where it would really hurt is the kids who have flown to some practices, given up summer job opportunities, and ser high expectations for eh summer. I don't know how many would go back and start again next winter if there is a possibility something like that (Virus) could happen again.

DCI posted on their site that Carolina Gold would be evaluated in March.

I am sure the kids will lineup to carry a marching timpani,

I think their thinking is that they are approved by DCI for all age, so therefore they should not have to got through the entire application and evaluation process that is required for new corps attempting to join open class. However DCI has been burned by corps going on tour and finding out that their finances are not in order midway through the tour. I can't imagine DCI approving a corps for open class without a thorough financial review. Over the past 2 years at least 1 corps had to barrow money from the Blue Devils so that they could get home from finals. DCI does not want this to become a regular occurrence so they want to make sure everyone is in decent shape before they hit the road.

They are not listed for DCI finals, or open class finals yet. They are still listed with DCA, and they are not listed with DCI open class corps yet. They signed up for the shows that they are listed in as an all age corps.

I had a lot of conversations with some people in the upper echelons of DCI this summer. Most of it was about logistics for an open class corps however one thing that was mentioned was getting housing sites, and they said we might have a better shot finding housing for 100 than 150. Most facilities, a gym can do 150 and more stretches it, there are some big gyms, but the larger the corps the harder to find housing sites. Also food trailers built for a corps of 128 is stretched right now feeding 150. Going to 200 would require many corps to get new food trailers with more ovens and more freezer space. I never discussed increasing the size directly but if that were a thing I think they may have at least given me a clue.

I would have to disagree with that. I would rather see the 12th place Open Calss Corps than the 5th place A class corps. Usually maybe the top 2 class A are equal to or better than #11 but the 3rd and forth generally don't match up. especially years when there were 14 and 15 open class corps. Sometimes a corps has 70ish people and would have been 2nd in class A but instead finished in 12th and could not go to finals.

They were approved as an all age corps eligible to compete at DCI Shows (ie Not Soundsport). However you will see that Atlanta CV is also listed at DCI Southeast and they are not competing as an open class corps. They (Gold) do not have DCI open class finals on their schedule yet because they need approval from DCI to reclassify as open class. If not approved I guess they can do their current schedule but with no official scores. With the new Open Class requirements and the issues with Pioneer I imagine there would be some kind of pretty serious financial review prior to granting open class status. I think DCI wants to make sure they have financial means for an extended tour, Remember Coastal Surge had their debacle only 100 miles from where Gold is, and I am sure they want to make sure kids don't start the season and have the corps unable to finish the tour.

I never saw anything official in writing saying that DCA went to DCI to prevent corps from leaving DCA. What I heard from others unofficially and inferred from what was said on here was that DCI would not hold its own ALL AGE championship in competition with DCA. Which is what a lot of the non Northeast corps were pushing for.

Ironically they will not be at DCI Southeast, instead being in Michigan that weekend. probably no Flo Marching , unless they cover crownbeat

Having been involved with one of the few remaining outside of the NE class A corps I can share some interesting information. For Carolina Gold in my opinion the biggest handicap is travel cost and time. The cost of DCA in the south is much higher than the NE mainly because of travel costs and practice time lost due to travel may be considered a competitive disadvantage. What I thin Gold has done to survive as a DCA corps in the south is first they have a great instructional staff, The Guard caption head is in high demand and many people want to work with him in the guard, also they have great Brass instructors, the Brass arrangements the past 2 years have been written by Jesse, the Corps Director and I think especially this years was really great. I think that their championship show could go head to head with any show from a DCI corps of that size (26 horns). So people are attracted to the corps for the learning experience. It is also a fun corps, I know folks won't pay a lot of money for their kids to go out and have fun every weekend, but most of the parents I talked with always told me how the kids looked forward to their Corps weekend and came home tired, but happy. The part where I came in was that they had good food every weekend , I also helped on the Phantom regiment food truck but I think that my food at Gold was better than what PR had and PR had some good chow too. Last year 2018 was a new start for the corps, basically the budget was tight. For many years before the corps had gone to Big Sounds in Motion in Reading the week before finals. In April when schedules were being finalized it was determined that there was no way that the corps could afford to travel to that show. After that call was made the corps had only 1 DCA show (A dci open class/DCA show ) before finals and I and many others questioned whether going forward was viable the members want to do shows and get scores. I do not Know the full story but with the possibility of losing another corps I think that DCA gave them permission and support for a one corps show 2 weeks before finals, which may have saved Gold's season. So though people moan about 1 corps shows I think that it showed that DCA did want to try to save some out of the NE units. Another thing that I was against originally that I think may have kept Gold going was the move back to Class A for 2018., BY writng a show for 65 people and performing it with 65 committed people you get a much better product than writing a show for 100 when only 75 are really committed and the rest are just filling holes. Also you can have a balanced show, 26 brass in a 65 person show is a powerful horn line, 26 brass supporting a 100 member show is struggling. It also makes sense financially since every seat on the bus is filled and you are not paying for 10 empty seats on each bus. From a kitchen viewpoint cooking for 80( Corps, Staff, Volunteers) is much easier than 120 especially with the facilities we had. I think the possibility of winning also motivated the corps. I am sure everyone would put out their best even if they were fighting for 8th place, However in 2018 when after prelims the corps was .06 behind the Govies and becoming class A champs. the kids really went to work and practiced very smartly and then gave the best show of that Season. This year the pressure of being defending champs motivated the kids and they stepped up huge for finals 2 points better than prelims. In spite of the financial challenges the corps still goes to DCI Atlanta every year, which is actually the highlight of the season for many marchers. The corps is the first corps on and has had no practice time since the Sunday before ( it is a 6 hour drive from Raleigh to ATL) and is judged by DCI Judges who give good tips for improvement, but don't really match up to DCA judging. However it is on Flo Marching, and the kids get to see the rest of the show from the 10 yard line and make contacts with DCI corps if they want to march next season. Another thing that I like about Gold is that it is a second choice corps most of out young marchers tried out for Crown or Spirit and realized they weren't ready yet, ot just couldn't afford it and Gold as limited as performances are gives them a chance to perform and step up their game, this year we had a couple from last year who could have made a good DCI corps but opted to stay with Gold because they liked the experience. If you watch the corps from day one of practice until their finals show you see a huge amount of progress and tremendous growth. The first full corps weekend in 2018 we had such a motley crew and I was worried that they would embarrass themselves on the field (Which is why I styed to help that season, I thought at least they will get a good meal out of practice before they have to hang their heads) But 4 months later they were really good . I don't know how this applies to other out of NE corps but it definatly will hurt them eventually if they don't have a good multi year plan that is transparent. And my biggest disappointment with Gold was that they did not have a real plan that possible donors could see. I had wanted to purchase some new Tubas for the Corps but I could not find out if they had plans to buy a matched set in the future, or how many they would need, or even if that was the greatest need for the corps. Everyone had different ideas what was needed but there was no plan on what the # 1 priority was. ANd no guarantee that if you gave money to buy Tubas that it would actually go to that. I wound up using some of that money to buy Tee shirts for the Corps members and will probably give a lot to my local theater group and PR will get some too. However without a visible plan that donors can easily see and understand there is not a very large supportbase and the corps are forced to rely on member dues for most of the corps expenses. I think a lot of the Class A corps did not have a detailed multi year plan and members and donors did not see where the corps was going and the corps wound up ending or dropping from DCA.

So would GHantom Regiment use G Bugles, you know tradition and all

I think this may cross over into about 3 of the current threads here. I am heavily involved with Gold and I am proud of all our "Band Parents" who drove over 9 hours each way to come see their kids band show. This year we had over 20 parents come up to Williamsport, the most support this corps has ever had at finals, They all probably spent at least $500 to come support DCA. So while the overall trend may be lower attendance at finals, Attendance from Gold fans is at an all time high. It has been 13 years since a DCA corps from the North came to visit NC (and people on here still complain about that show) so the parents and marchers have no idea what DCA is and wonder why none of the corps there have every been to Nightbeat. Most of the parents know their kids weren't ready for Carolina Crown and are thrilled to find out there is a cheaper and less time intensive option., We were probably the youngest corps there in member age, but a young corps with lots of enthusiastic parents supporting it is good news for the future of DCA. Since we don't have anyone hanging around to ground these parents in DC tradition, we need all the band parent support we can get, I think the support the kids get from these parents shows up on the field where they put it all out for all the Gold shirts in the stands supporting them,

I think there is a disconnect somewhere with next years dates, I am sure we will get something today at least semi official.. i think a lot for next yearr is still up on the air

I am a big proponent of cymbal lines. SCV cymbals can keep you interest for the entire show. However I spent some time focusing on Spirit's cymbals they were a little sloppy I think they added some good visual effect but they spent a lot of time kinda hanging out not really adding to drum line or doing anything visual I think they may have actually hurt their score.

I had not planned on buying tickets (I have passes) however I had a friend who needed to get out of town for a few days who now will be seeing her first Drum Corps show. I did not want her to sit by herself so I bought tickets to both finals and prelims so I can explain to her what is going on. Speaking of attendance I brought my dad who marched senior corps in the 50 and 60's to a DCA show 4 years ago and he will not go back to another show, he thinks that it changed too much and he doesn't recognize the activity.. (Plus at 85 sitting for hours on a bleacher is tough). So in spite of my issues with DCA I am helping to fill some bleachers this wekend,

This is why DCA will probably be around for a while. The Corps in the NorthEast don't want to spend 10's of thousands of dollars to travel to a DCI All age catagory. All age corps would need a weekend, they could not show up on a Tuesday to share a show with open class.. The Northeast Corps would much rather save the money and have their champs at a High School Stadium that is reasonably close to their fanbase. One of the main reasons DCA started was because sometimes the Legion would have its convention in Seattle or some other far away city and it cost too much to go there so DCA was set up partly to keep it local. However Corps in Texas or Minn or GA who have to spend the big bucks to go to champs at a high school would spend no more money going to Indy and have a chance to perform for a larger crowd, and for the families and fans it is no difference or cheaper and less time consuming to travel

This summer we did 2 DCI openclass/DCA shows one in ALabama with DCA doing exhibitions, the other in GAwith 2 judging panels where both DCA and DCI got official scores.