Eleran

So Cadets have exchanged live vocals for Memorex® vocals in at least the ballad and the drum feature ... any other sections?

Dear Jersey Surf: Please give us a Miami show, using music of Barry Manilow (Copacabana), KC & the Sunshine Band, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, Jan Hammer (Miami Vice theme), and the Buena Vista Social Club. Thank you.

They just got a batch Saturday, but I'm sure they'd appreciate more!

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See? I told you the positivity couldn't last

I just want to see a superhero landing

Give it time ... DCP can't stay positive for ever

They're missing an opportunity if they don't start the show with the first 20 seconds of Vaughan Williams' Sym. #1

Actually, it is germane to your remarks above. Just because a song is played as an encore and not in the field show itself does not exempt the corps from satisfying copyright requirements before they can arrange and publish a performance on social media (granted, some encore pieces are public domain, but that's probably the exception more than the rule). Fact of the matter is that I wonder whether corps actually do pay the licensing fees for encore tunes as they should be, since they probably presume it will go overlooked. Edit: Even some of the common warm-ups and exercises are copyrighted materials by musical pedagogues, and it's always questionable whether all the requirements for use have been satisfied. So, you bought one copy of that book of great exercises by So-and-So, then copied and pasted it into the corps' technique handbook then distributed to 150 members, without ever paying So-and-So for an additional 150 copies? Yeah, let's avoid broadcasting that online, shall we?

It was the starting location of Spring Training, not the latter half, that was important - can't book airfare if you don't know what airport to fly into. They finally released that info to members at the March 31 camp.

SOME do.

I'd settle for letting people know where Spring Training is being held. Under 50 days away but still TBD?

And that's the big "IF". Middle schools are not known for having the financial wherewithal to buy all the necessary and appropriate equipment. Middle school teachers are not known for understand everything they should with respect to the sports they teach for 2 weeks a year before moving to something else. And middle school students are not known for avoiding doing something stupid. I had to take a fellow fencer to the hospital while fencing at Penn State, because he hadn't put on the appropriate gear and took a foil in the armpit that went on through to his chest cavity (not from me, thankfully). And Penn State produces national champions in the sport, so it's not like they don't know how to protect people. And ultimately, that's a lot of the problem with corps: it's a bunch of musicians, who put themselves in the position of doing a lot of things they're not trained for and not even particularly well-suited to do. Thus you see corps with financial problems, logistical problems, HR problems, etc. But we suddenly think that these same artists running corps/DCI will have the knowledge to provide all the necessary safety precautions? Edit: and what's worse - maybe the top corps can pull it off in a safe manner. But then all the copycats try and do it because that's what the judges are rewarding ... right on down to the high school level, where the average school clearly won't have the financial capacity or knowledge to do it safely.

It's only the first leg of the drive that's a killer (admittedly - that's a long killer). But once you reach Clovis, from that point on through El Dorado, KS, the average distance between venues was 293 miles. The average through El Dorado on the Eastern leg was 306 miles. So the appearance of being daunting looking at a map isn't the same thing as actually being daunting. And by the way, the average distance between venues from El Dorado to Indianapolis, the second half of tour, is 312 miles. As for the total tour mileage, West Coast option vs. East Coast option, you're talking 11094 vs 8962, or a 2132 mile difference (all in that first leg from Spring Training out to Clovis, CA). EIA.Gov shows diesel rates in 2018 ranging from $2.6-$3.4/gallon. While I would presume they aren't using the most expensive stuff, I think $3/gallon is probably a safe estimate. BigW's mileage estimate of 6 is probably about right for the buses and 18 wheel trailers, though probably way too low for the box trucks. Using it anyway, that's $1,066 extra for each vehicle with the Western Option. If we say 4 buses and 3 trucks, that's $7,462. In 2018 they increased member totals from 150 to 154. Those 4 extra people chipped in an at least an additional $15,000. [Note: the above assumes the corps pays for gas - I'm not certain that their contracts for buses/trucks work that way, and may instead be a "per mile" price. If so, there's no way of knowing the actual cost, though calculating the gas numbers is probably a good method for estimating.] So they cancelled the western tour to save $7,500? Which they'd already made back up twice over with the extra four members? And I'm being generous not factoring in the extra miles they had to travel from housing to venue because they got sent out to the boondocks for housing during that first half of tour, because they were scrambling late to secure anything they could get. Not to mention possible financial losses over any deposits they may have made with respect to anything for the cancelled western tour (not saying I know whether that's the case, but it's certainly a possibility - even just air fares for staff members meeting the corps out there that might have already been purchased). So without actual hard facts and details from the corps about their costs, I'm not buying that the Western tour was cancelled to save $7,500.

They had planned to leave Spring Training the exact same day, or possibly one day earlier - I don't recall which. As I said above, the increase in miles was marginal: multiple shows in California were going to be out of the same housing venues (they would have been nearly 10 days within just California), and heading up and down the East coast from Boston to Florida, eats the miles up just as bad as heading West and coming back in time for the mid-west swing. They had the exact same number of shows planned on the western spur prior to El Dorado as they actually played in on the Eastern spur before El Dorado, so it would have been the same number of paydays. GH even made it clear back during the Spring of 2017 that DCI had put significant pressure on him not to do a West Coast tour in 2017, as he had planned to do. DCI was desperate to make their failing Florida experiment succeed, and they wanted as strong a billing as they could get. Just look at this year's schedule - they're down to one show in Florida, instead of three, and only have on the schedule Boston, Carolina, Heat Wave, Jersey Surf and Music City. Well, this argument has run its course. Back to Crossmen.

No - that's a press release after the fact The idea and the urging came from DCI. Please explain how it would have preserved funds, since the corps would have been on the road the same number of days, staying overnight at schools the same number of nights, consuming the same amount of food, and traveling only a marginally increased number of miles (for which the total increase in gas costs would have amounted to less than one marching members' tuition - I did the calculations at the time)? Instead, they had to settle for whatever last-minute accommodations they could get, often at such a distance from the show venues that any mileage savings were lost.

That's just factually incorrect. The tour was rearranged at the "request" of DCI - it was not Cadets' idea, as the logistics for the western tour were already wrapped up, including volunteers, and Cadets had to scramble to make the different tour work.

No, it CAN be taken to a federal court in that instance under diversity jurisdiction. It doesn't have to be. And even in such event, the law applied would remain the applicable state law, including any statute of limitations.

The PA statutes of limitation are much shorter on civil cases (generally 2 years) than most felony crimes (e.g. depending on the sexual offence charged, could be up to 12 years). I'm not sure any of the allegations made against Mr. Hopkins are alleged to have occurred within the past two years.

Didn't Wicked already do this show?

[Edit: nvm ... last thing I want is to appear to be seeking sympathy]

2019 will be my son's 6th year in DCI, 4th at Cadets.

Witness John Doe: "I saw an invoice from "Internet Scrubbing Corporation" to "Crossmen, Attn.: Fred Morrison" which said "for cleaning sex offender's online record" That is NOT hearsay. [Note: the above is a fictitious example illuminating a rough summary of what it appears the reporter's source indicated he/she would be able to testify, offered merely to contradict an incorrect usage of a legal concept, and it is not an attempt to accurately depict any actual document or event, about which this author has no actual knowledge]

Jeez, I wish you'd quit mis-using that word.

Perhaps, but Stu's statement took the subject well beyond the realm of drum corps. Then again, I disagree that drum corps can not make it on tuition alone, especially at the open level, when we all know that they are getting very little in the way of sponsorships or donations anyway. They may have to be creative in managing expenses, but I'm guessing the tuition-to-income ratio is a lot higher than most people think as you travel down the competitive scale.