Slingerland

Because we all know that most corporations that have skilled, visionary leaders - aka "most of the successful businesses out there" - are really no different from military dictatorships. The Hitler card has been played, so I'm not sure there's anywhere for this conversation to go but up.

Out of curiosity, the thing that has kept DCI from going with that noble effort to fill the ranks of the Open Class corps was....a bunch of directors who no longer had seats on their Board? I never mistake words for deeds, and good intentions don't mean jacksquat unless there's been actual blood or treasure risked in the pursuit of those intentions. What were the actual results of that drive (or are the Illusory 7 somehow to blame for no one else carrying through on it?) Look, these are all nice people. Even a few directors I think are kinda d-ckish at times are, at heart, not bad people. But go back to something I noted a few weeks ago; the problem with drum corps is that it's driven by people who love the activity, but aren't in the position to make hard cold decisions regarding paths to growth. I got curious to see who was the head of US Gymnastics, since they've done a great job of growing their activity at all levels. A background in marketing and events management, and work in the broadcasting world. Nothing that mentions he ever did gymnastics himself, so I imagine it's safe to say that he was hired for his experience in sports/events/broadcasting, not his love for gymnastics. And yet, his success in growing the activity's profile with major sponsors has afforded his organization the means to invest more in grass roots growth and professionalization. If folks get away from the idea that drum corps becomes more visible and marketable, that those at the grass roots will pay the price, it seems to me there's a fair amount of room for agreement on a path forward.

I'm sorry, but that's the biggest pile of 'weak' I've seen in a year. The DCI Hall of Fame? Are you friggin kidding me? Great men and women, all, but not a single one of them a person who can PICK UP THE FRIGGIN PHONE AND GET A DECISION MAKER WITH A TOP 100 BRAND ON THE LINETO FIGURE OUT HOW DCI CAN LAND A $200-250,000 A YEAR SPONSORSHIP DEAL FOR THE ACTIVITY. The problem is that they're all amateurs. In the root sense of that word. They "love" what they do, but none of them do it in the way a business person would do it. Not a single person connected with DCI knows the decision makers in corporate America, and no one seems to be willing to swallow their pride and pony up the kind of money it would take to hire someone who does. Until you fix that, you're dead in the water.

In other words, DCI is just fine, they don't need to do anything, and the mix that exists now is sufficient. Because if you want to say that the O15 approach - don't change anything to make the product better, don't force us to step up our games - is a viable solution, then that's what you've proposed. Status quo. 15,000 paid at Finals, no television deal, no major sponsorships, no hope of making drum corps anything better or bigger than it is now. Whew, that was hard. At the lowest competitive tiers, drum corps is perceived as marching band. Good marching band, but notthing that can't be seen in any number of community bands in high schools across the country. That's fine; those drum corps are really there to teach their members how to play the game, not to compete to win. That's an excellent reason to exist, and it should be supported by everyone - but it isn't saying that those teaching corps are the corps that the activity wants to showcase to a wider audience, simply because it wouldn't necessarily do much to improve the public's perception of what too many still see as "marching band.' Anyway, I suspect no one's minds are going to be changed by anything here, so there's probably not much point going further with this discussion. IF DCI limps through another year or two with no significant improvement in reach or revenue, even those at the bottom will start to realize that status quo isn't going to cut it, and maybe they'll be ready to try something really radical with the potential at their fingertips. But it's going to take SOMEone in the mix to step up and say "here's a direction for actual, rapid, sizable growth" not "if we all spend $1 less a month on copying, we can survive another day."

No television show cuts away at 4 minute intervals. Programs could still be 9 minutes with two-minute commercial breaks during a two-hour specialty broadcast or cable show. But 2 hours would probably be the maximum length of the show, if you wanted it live, so the corps would need to be able to strike and set up their shows faster than they do now, you'd only be able to show the top 6 or 7 corps from Semis, and DCI wouldn't have the luxury of the interminable wait before Finale that they do now at Finals. All in all, having to tighten up the live show to fit television standards would be a boon to the live audiences too. Less waiting for something to happen.

Hmm...Seems someone's gotten their head around the idea of there being 18 major corps. What the G7 attempted was, in effect, a coup. What they ended up getting was the TOC shows, which was arguably the primary thing they wanted out of it (the Board reorganization plan was so crazy that it's hard to believe any of them took it seriously). Now, while I don't disagree that any group of corps who want to should be able to produce their own events and keep the proceeds - I am a capitalist pig, after all - I also don't believe that it was in the interest of DCI to accept a deal like that at the end of a gun. The process was the problem, and the response essentially punted, rather than holding the 7's collective hands to the hot stove. Oh well, water under the bridge. DCI still needs a strong central voice if they're going to move the ship forward again, and I'm not sure that the current makeup of the org is able to take on that role.

The proper response to the original proposal would have been to call their bluff, not cave in to their demands. Because I'll tell you exactly what would have happened. The three midwestern corps would have fallen in line. Looking at Regiment, Cavaliers, and Bluecoats, there's nothing in their history that indicates they feel more connected to Gibbs and Hopkins than they do DCI. That would leave SCV, Crown, BD, and YEA. Well, keeping in mind the pure math - four corps doesn't much of a circuit make - it's also highly unlikely that Vanguard's Board would have gotten behind a plan to shove off with only the other three corps as their partners - which puts four of the seven back in the DCI tent. At that point, you've isolated the three major problem directors within that group, and this type of isolation has the effect of telling them "ok, put up, or let everyone else make fun of you for being blowhards", which effectively strips them of any power they may have ever had. This isn't Machiavelli - it's Board Room Dynamics 101. And no super human strength is needed to carry it off - it comes down to the confidence to know that you're in the power position, and not the one who should be begging for your girlfriend not to leave. Whether the organization intended to or not, the compromise position they struck was exactly the wrong thing to do, since it didn't really put down the insurrection, it actually ended up giving legitimacy to the idea of 7 corps being different than everyone else, making it somewhat self-defeating. The power in any negotiation belongs to the man who's willing to walk away from the deal. DCI 's executive team and the other corps should have embraced that philosophy, and they didn't. And all that says to me is that they don't have enough steel in the Board room and enough confidence that they really are the brand that matters. This isn't taking sides one way or another - there's no emotion in this observation. It's purely business. There was an opportunity to use the energy that discussion brought to the table to create a newly focused and energized DCI, ready to get out of its mom jeans and into its Corvette - but instead, we got the Missouri Compromise.

I'm not a G7 anything, but I don't get why everyone doesn't let it go and focus on the current situation. That proposal was never more than a bad idea, and died a pretty quick death. But speaking of dead... DCI's dead in the water, and has been for a long, long time. Not sinking, but not really moving either. Audiences are stable, but still down significantly from a few decades ago, the public exposure to the activity has been reduced, and the number of avenues open to the corps to find enough funding to support themselves are limited because of DCI's 'tied house' business model. In their current state, they have an inability to compensate the corps - ALL corps - at anywhere near the amounts they need to survive. You won't fix that with more of the same. It's going to take a radical overhaul to modernize the product and make it more appealing to the type of corporate sponsors that would normally be salivating at the opportunity to get their brand associated with what drum corps offers. But to get there, you're going to need someone who has both the experience in recruiting and managing those sponsors and a willingness to #### off some people in the activity in the interest of making the overall presentation and product better. Dan A seems like a great guy. But that doesn't change the fact that he seems to be more a passenger on the train then the guy holding the throttle. Take it for what it's worth, but one of the marks of the type of strong personality you need is that the right leader would never sit still for being in that situation. She'd be the one telling the corps how the thing will go, not the other way around.

I'd submit that there's a damage done to the brand by identifying certain corps that are really teaching corps, not WC competitive corps, as being "World Class." Show sponsors and audiences should be confident that if they're paying WC fees for the corps who perform, that a base level of competitive competency will be on display - and that every corps described as World Class is an improvement over a run of the mill BOA marching band. Right now, that's not the case. The number of corps who would be re-assigned to an appropriate level is relatively small - I'm pretty sure that I've suggested here before that the process be set up to take a few seasons, so that each corps currently in WC is aware that it's a play-in situation for their status. And IF, by putting pressure to perform or move on, it spurs an increase in proficiency and marketability by enough of the lowest ranking WC corps now so that you could make an honest case that the "World Class" league should be 20 corps, then great. Go for 20, but with an understanding that failing to maintain their edge might be cause for someone being dropped down to the mid-level league. I don't think you can wave a magic wand and create more WC corps. It's too hard to do now, and DCI would take a long time to get to the point where they have enough cash flow to provide enough support to just 18 corps at WC, if that's the way you went. In terms of questioning whether Dan A is the right guy to lead, others here have asked the same question before. Just sayin'...

If you're supposedly a major league team, yet you routinely lose to what are supposed to be minor league teams, you're not really a major league team. Either you need to step up your game, or be honest about your abilities and compete at the appropriate level. A more focused, more competitive top division would be helpful in defining the product for potential sponsors, which would serve to increase the overall amount of money available to the activity. You seem to want to cut funds to the corps, rather than growing additional funds through improved communications, product development, and marketing techniques, but I'll guarantee you that your 'business philosophy', while useful as a temporary measure in recessions, is not a successful concept in the long term. The problem isn't overspending at the corps level; it's under-performance at the DCI level. DCI, as an organization, needs to have a gut check of their member corps, and find out if they want to continue muddling along or whether they're ready to get aggressive about growing their market, even if it would require a major realignment, and being willing to change the programming and competition philosophy to improve the overall appeal. But right now there doesn't seem to be anyone at the DCI level who's willing to sit the corps down and start that process. If Dan Acheson doesn't feel confident enough of his abilities to be the guy who leads, than it would seem to be incumbent on him to acknowledge as much, and leave room for the Directors to hire someone else who will. If it helps, I guarantee you that both Gibbs and Blenski would be unhappy with the direction that DCI needs to take in order to grow, for completely different reasons. Gibbs would hate the demands to make the product more sellable and less WGI, Blenski would hate hearing that he'd have to start playing to win or work at a different level. But plodding along, the way they are now, is not really an option. If you want to save DCI, you're going to have to care about making it bigger and better, not more of the same.

I gotta say, this seems like such obvious common sense that I can't understand why anyone would object. Provide a path to promotion for the most aggressive "minor league" or whatever you call it corps, and a mechanism that would allow for relegation of those who fail to maintain standards (if all 18 maintain standards, then fine - add the minor leaguers who've proven their abilities and grow the 'major' league to 19 or 20), but get away from the idea that all drum corps have the same focus and aims; they don't. Little League isn't hurt by the fact that the major leagues are promoted as the best out there; the two concepts are complimentary, not competing against each other. Drum corps geared toward teaching pre-teens through high school age kids how to play the game would be helped, not hurt, if the profile of the whole activity was raised.

28,000 people watched Madison play "Malaguena", Spirit play "Sweet Georgia Brown", and BD play "La Suerta etc" as concert numbers in 1980, plus another few million on live tv. Just playing, rather than marching, for 3 or 4 minutes in a 13 minute showdidn't make their shows less appealing; if anything, the evidence might point in the opposite direction. BTW, at that point, Visual GE was 10% of the score, and the guard was buried in the M&M sheets rather than being their own caption. Music outweighed Visual 2:1 on the GE score ratio, and the general sense was that what the corps were doing, programmatically, was working quite well to grow audiences, even if the visual demand was a fraction of what it is now. I love cool drill; Gaines' work with Cavaliers really made an outstanding contributions to the form. But most visual programs don't come anywhere near that level of design, and as a result, aren't anywhere near as impressive.

Cool. Then please expand on your argument that there is plenty of excess spending going on, with examples of where the vast majority of WC corps are spending too much. Most of them are in the $800k-1m range for drum corps program numbers, so the pattern must be consistent. Make sure you separate out the drum corps expenses from the overall organizational expenses, since a number of orgs like BD, YEA, and SCV are supporting multiple programs with their budgets, and it wouldn't be helpful to include those non-drum corps related expenses in the conversation. Thanks in advance.

No. But it's likely that Daniel has actually done the research, as I did, looked at the numbers breakdown, and come to the same conclusion; you can't produce a national touring drum corps that is anywhere near the standards we've come to expect from the best for $400,000. You just can't. And if the quality at the top of the activity drops to the levels we see from those who ARE working in that budget range, you can kiss the entire activity goodbye, because it will cease to have a reason to be. If the quality isn't what sells it, if you're no better than a good quality high school marching band, no one will want to watch it and no one will want to do it. Is that cruel? Tough. This activity could use a little dose of reality. The performance quality of the best 15 or 18 corps is what makes them interesting. The training aspects of those working in the lower ranks is what makes them worth supporting. But it's a mistake to equate those two very different ideas, even if it makes a few of you feel like saying the truth is 'elitist.'

Right now visual and guard are 50% of the score (20 in visual GE, and 30 in combined visual performance and guard).

Is there some reason to believe that a product should always cost the same to the consumer, year after year, when the costs of production have risen? There aren't too many things that are cheaper this year than they were 3 or 4 years ago, with the possible exceptions of "houses in certain areas of Nevada, Florida, and central California."

Make visual program and guard work worth 30-35% of the score, and musical program and performance worth 65-70% of the score. If someone wants to park and bark for 2 or 3 minutes, and they tear the house down doing it, who gives a ___ about the 'easy' aspects of simply standing and communicating with the audience. Drill is overrated as an audience builder.

Just out of curiosity, why shouldn't every TEP have the option to tell DCI which corps they want at their show? Why would anyone want to buy a pig in a poke? Everyone here wants to say that all corps' market values are the same (all evidence to the contrary). Why not test the theory and open a door for event sponsors and individual corps to utilize their individual appeal in a way that benefits both parties? Is Jersey Surf more appealing than _____ to a TEP? Then why not let Surf benefit from that popularity? What is the overall benefit of telling them that they can't capitalize any further on the work they've put into making themselves appealing? Cixy's point re: having to pay DCI a hefty price tag just for the privilege of hosting a drum corps show ignores the point that the fee, by definition of covering way more than DCI's expenses, is money that's headed for others with no skin in the game. DCI is, in some ways, competing for dollars with the corps it's supposed to be promoting, by charging a hefty package fee for the privilege of giving those corps work.

But if a group of any seven corps want to get together, rent venues, do their own marketing and ticket sales, perform at the event, and keep the gate rather than giving it to a bunch of other corps who didn't have any skin in the game, they're greedy. Right?

Ya think?

Cixy, the tour fees for some of the corps lower than 18th are still comparable to what they are in the top 12. Without citing examples (because I don't want to be accused on 'picking on' anyone), you'll see that it costs as much to the student to march some of the corps who will finish 20th or lower as it will some of those at the top. The downside of that is that the proximity of costs from <20th and >8th, and the disparity of opportunity for competitive placement in those same groups make it less attractive to march a lower-ranked corps than it could be. Everyone here seems to think that it's the Blue Devils or Crown's or Santa Clara's responsibility to underwrite those lower-ranked corps operations (by accepting much less than market value for their appearances), but no one wants to take the responsibility themselves for making sure that those smaller, more regionalized corps can offer competitive touring fees to potential members. If the cost of doing Corps X was just $1,200 a summer, because Corps X had an additional $100,000 in outside scholarship money pledged to them every summer to help subsidize those expenses, would it be make marching Pioneer more attractive to kids who want to march, but can't justify the $2300+ now? Probably. Would it increase the likelihood that some of those corps would increase their talent levels, because more kids who had chops, but not that much dough, might take advantage of that opportunity? Potential members look at who's placing where when they consider who to audition for. I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise. Not saying it's the only consideration, or even the primary consideration, but it is a consideration, particularly for those who might only have one or two years of eligibility.

I'm not even sure how to answer that. A school that has never made the Sweet Sixteen in college hoops is not considered as prestigious a basketball program as NC State or Kentucky. A drum corps that has never made Finals (or not recently) would not be considered as prestigious, by potential employers, as a corps that finishes Top 6 pretty much every year. I wouldn't disagree with your assessment that the current top rankings would be Ivy League. If you had a kid who could attend Princeton for $2600, or Missouri State for about the same money, where would you advise them to go? Both schools are good, but would potential students or employers consider them 'equals"? Probably not. There's a lot of value to be had in marching a small corps (I did it, and have no regrets). But it's becoming harder to justify the members in those corps having to pay the same tour fees as those who are more or less guaranteed to be in a Finalist organization. Again, my feeling is that it's time for the drum corps community - if drum corps really taught all those great life lessons we all claim it does - steps up to the plate and starts providing more support for the whole activity, particularly those who are at the lower end of the economic ladder. Not necessarily so that those corps can get bigger (though that would be great), but so that they can afford to offer their members a better deal on tour fees. Jeff, there are fewer alums in their 30s, and maybe their 40s, but still plenty of alums in their 50s and 60s who marched in the 60s and early to mid 70s, the peak of the activity. DCI needs to find a way to reach out to those folks and get them reconnected. I have no disagreements that some of them might be turned off by some of the programming (Lord knows I am), but that doesn't mean you just walk away from a potential field of support without putting some concentrated effort into recruiting them as donors for the activity.

Interesting (and a little weird). Are there any other corps that don't provide food and/or housing for camps? Garfield, in terms of 'value' to the members, I'm looking at it in terms of their cost of participation. If XYZ corps in the top 8 costs $2600 a year, and ABC corps in the bottom 10 charges $2400 per summer, it would seem to me that the better value would be the $2600. Yes, that's a cold way to look at it, but if we had our own kids looking at two colleges that cost the same, but had very different track records and reuptations, what would we tell them? I'm open to anyone who wants to suggest a funding scheme to help provide additional support for corps in the lowest spots or in the smallest markets to help lower their tour fees. But it should come FROM the fan base of the activity, past and present. There's only one problem with the idea: Drum corps alumni are notoriously cheap when it comes to supporting their activity with donations. It's one of the reasons PBS was so willing to get out of the Finals telecast (too many unfulfilled pledges), and it's why some of the biggest names out there, at all levels, are still struggling to break even at the end of the year. In an ideal world, if you marched, you should give something back. But I'd wager $100 that fewer than 15% of the total number of drum corps alums out there have written a check to support a drum corps, any drum corps, in the last few years. Some of them, no doubt,are the cranky pants who pee and moan that drum corps isn't drum corps anymore, blah blah blah. But aren't there at least another...oh...let's say 5,000 people who DID march drum corps back in the day and could afford to write a $50 check to support someone? Does DCI HAVE a database that includes every ticket buyer from the recent past and their drum corps affiliations? Do they even ask? Perhaps they do, but I've never been asked by them, when buying anything, who I am and what my drum corps background is. And without them having that information, they can't tailor messages that might be of particular interest to ME. That's a missed opportunity on their part, since having "the master database of drum corps alums" could be an incredibly valuable asset to their marketing efforts.

I did some spot checking, and on the 990s, you have Blue Stars reporting $142k, Cavaliers $159k. Put them together and you wind up in the $150k land. Are there other DCI payments that they're showing under different categories? Cavaliers show their member fees and their income from their hosted competitions, but those two, plus performance fees (159k), merchandise sales and their charitable support makes up almost the whole enchilada, income-wise, so I'm not sure where any additional DCI monies would be reflected.

According to the numbers, the two organizations' expenditures are very similar. Take out Cavaliers' WGI program, and factor in the higher expense of insurance and rentals in a major urban market vs a much smaller town, and they're not far away from each other. But I find it interesting that you're acknowledging that you don't really know what the budget breakdowns are. I have to wonder if this is a situation similar to the average American taxpayer, who is so completely in the dark regarding our national budgets on that they believe that cutting foreign aid to "only 10%", for example, will have a big effect on the bottom line. It wouldn't, since foreign aid is already only about 1% of our overall expenses. Look at the reported numbers, and you see that a few corps ARE reporting more in merchandise sales profits than performance fees (including Cavaliers, according to their 2011 990). Why anyone would get snarky about that is a bit of a mystery. === My point regarding Whitewater and the other 70s/80s regionals had to do with DCI's claims that overall attendance is up because of Atlanta, et al. My guess is that it's more or less the same, because of the two-event nature of the old school regionals. But it's possible that a case could be made that the regionals might do well to go back to the old format, where you have 75% of a full roster of past finalists, and are playing in college stadia rather than domes. As an experiment, go back to a prelims/finals on the same day format, just for the fun of it. 15 corps show up, and only 8 make the night show, and you've given people a reason to attend both events. My central points are all pretty consistent. DCI, as a model of efficiency for passing through the dollars created by the drum corps' products, isn't working as well as it could and should. If it was, several of the biggest names in the association wouldn't be talking about bolting. Either they're going to need to figure out a way to increase their efficiency (increasing the amount of cash available), they're going to get serious about working with the corps to make more sellable products (they have "an artistic director", supposedly; is he actually approving everyone's show concepts and designs?), or they're going to have to find ways to start bringing in a lot more outside money to support the activity than they do now. Any of the three would be fine, a combination would be best. But SOMETHING needs to get moving, and sooner rather than later.