AlexL

kind of an asinine comparison. It would cost several grand for me to go to the superbowl too, but i sure as hell am not paying $50 to watch it

I dont pay for that either. This is more of the same from DCI. Charge high prices for small volume instead of increasing volume (and exposure) at a more general-audience friendly price. Same thing they do with the DVDs (a model they try so hard to keep going at the cost of losing a LOT of exposure value on platforms like youtube) The only 'big news' here is they should have done this years ago.

$69 seems a bit extreme. As much as a pretty good ticket to the actual event.

Honestly (as an XM subscriber)... no. If they get bandwidth for another channel, they wont be adding this. I mean theyve already cut some other stations, such as the Cinemagic channel that probably had a lot more interest than drum corps ever will.

Madison 05. After dropping out of finals in 02, they climbed back in in 03, had kind of a 'meh' show in 04 (malaga was fun but the rest... meh) that still garnered 8th, but 05 was terrific. Best show theyve had since the 90s IMO. Loved watching them that whole summer. Wasnt a huge climb placement-wise going from 8 to 6, but it was definitely a huge climb in show quality. Unfortunately then they followed that up with the disaster that was 06, and then compounded things in 07.

Not a bad crowd at this one last night

Between 6/23 and 6/26 there was a 5 point margin swing where blue stars went from beating troopers by 3.5 to losing to them by 1.5

Not to mention that quite often scores early on tend to parallel the end of the prior year until the judges get some views and then often you can see some radical movement. See: blue stars 08 where they were starting out the season ranked as low as 14th place and getting beaten by colts. Early july and into the first regional is when things get more interesting.

Beyond TV matters, i would say that DCI is shortsighted in its mis (non) use of youtube in favor of its niche (and outdated) fan network platform. For the gains it gets from a small number of people at $60 a pop (minus the costs of the platform) it loses a lot of exposure opportunity that could be getting a lot more people to show up in person. Yet some have this odd view that if they can see it on youtube they wont bother going to shows... which i think is exactly the opposite.

Youre completely right, honestly. The direction things have been moving is pushing a lot away. I have more than one friend who used to be into drum corps but just isnt interested in how its gone all visual/guard/dance and the music and the 'drum corps' of it has fallen away. I mean hell, im barely interested and am not sure if i'll make it to a show this year for the first time since my first show in 03 (hell, i have 13k posts on this site yet i rarely post on it anymore) And youre right about "it seems like everyone is taking a turn toward Weird Town, where BD Is the mayor" and its a big reason there's been so much hate for BD (among other reasons)... because the more the judges reward what theyre doing, the more corps are going to try to copy that formula.

08 Phantom 06 Cavaliers 04 Cavaliers

If the merger is between 2 corps in dire financial straits, that's only going to result in one corps in similar financial shape. And if the debts accrued are held against corps assets, the merged corps wouldnt have much to work with.

Agreed with this. The secrecy so many corps employ throughout the offseason is a bit over the top, from trying to hide all recordings before the first show, to waiting until #### near tour to announce the show\repertoire, etc. Its not a national security secret, its a bunch of kids in funny hats blowing into metal tubes and banging on things. Honestly, i get pretty disinterested during the offseason. It isnt until i see some pre-season recordings that my interest starts to come back.

This makes sense to me. While a lot of us who have spent time around the activity are pretty discerning, to those whose only exposure is a few shows (likely just their yearly local show), most are very entertained by the 12-17 group. They see an entertaining product that is very precise by any standards theyve seen (mostly compared to local HS groups), and dont necessarily see the dirt that we've been trained to see. Ive seen crowds go nuts over 14th ranked groups. You do start to see a drop-off in fan reaction as you get to the far low end (especially the smaller corps), but thats pretty irrelevant when we're talking about the g7, as id wager the next 7 corps are just as entertaining to 90% of fans as the g7. Hell, madison, one of the non g7 corps, gets as much if not more reaction than just about any g7 corps. Certainly more than the recent champion.. So when most fans are almost equally entertained by 6 corps no matter their makeup, its hard to justify the investment, and hard to justify the 'we are the show' mentality from the g7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_word_for_%22crisis%22

The problem is that its a niche within a niche that often drives a lot of things. Drum corps has the potential for a wider appeal than it has now, but many simply go headstrong with their own artistic ideas of what drum corps should be regardless of whether it will sell to audiences or not.

I dont recall many blue stars fans loving the G7 thing..

Well, while this is certainly better than coming out while on the road and saying 'we're broke', its still #### late in the game. Posting a note that in 30-60 days more is needed than the corps raises in all non-dues sources in a year?

Or just become 'cool'. Not singling out glassmen on this but there are those that could afford to be more audience friendly. Where do you think crown got such a fan following? From doing highly accessible shows that many dcp elitists called 'too cheesy'. Sure, drum corps is art, and its fine if you want to go certain directions with your shows... but some directions are going to pay the bills better than others.

Sure, they were on the same fields as Cavaliers\PR\etc, but they also had a ton of competitive opportunities within short driving distances (so less cost). I remember our tour in 05. We had 8 shows in WI. Another 4 in IL. 3 in MN. A few more in IN\MI\IA. A corps could literally sit in the midwest, and often in the same state, have very little travel time every night, still get a bunch of performance opportunities, and only leave for a short finals stretch at the end. Is that possible now without all the shows that died off when DCM was killed?

To be blunt, theyre not fielding a competitive drum corps, not just 'not always at the top'. So i'm not sure you could say its working when year in year out theyre not even in the competitive game.

This puts how much they need in perspective. In 30-60 days Gmen need almost as much money as their entire dues bring in, or put another way, they need more money in 30 days than they get from all non-dues sources in a year, or even multiple years. And this doesn't address the future. What will they do to make things sustainable? If they can only raise 550k a year from dues\fundraisers (even if they get 300k this time, it won't work if they do this year after year), can they survive dropping their operating budget by more than 25% to get to that level when a lot of the costs are uncontrollable transportation costs. Especially if i were the type of major donor it is going to take to get to 300k this quickly, i would want to know the plan beyond just 2013 but into the following years as to how this corps plans to meet its budget. If not, its just throwing money at a lost cause.

Assuming you couldn't use that space for something else, however, like volunteer seating. If 15 volunteers could fit on the bus before but then require separate transportation, that adds costs on that side.