spikebizkit

Who are you referring to when you say "nobody seemed to like it?" Fans? Corps? Directors? Judges?... I think the random draw thing sounds like a pretty fair way to go. I can see why certain people or groups of people wouldn't like it, but I think in the end it should come down to the most fair way to judge instead of what people "like"...after all, this is a competition. However, I also understand that in addition to being a competition, it is entertainment...and the audience does deserve to have an experience that gets progressively better as the show goes on instead of being sporadic in quality. It just seems like with the current method in place the Corps at the bottom of the bunch never really get to move up in ranking because they're always being placed at the beginning of shows. In addition to the preconceived notion that those at the beginning are already not as good as those at the end, theres also the fact that the OP brought up: less audience. The smaller audiences do nothing to help these corps get GE points.

Well, no. But wouldn't being "docked points" for a certain reason be basically the same thing as not receiving them for the same reason? If a parent doesn't give their child dessert because they're misbehaving isn't that the same thing as taking away their dessert because they're misbehaving?

Hmm...this leads to an excellent topic of conversation. What do you all think about this? I personally think it would be a nice change to have the finals judges be somehow completely unbiased so that the corps all have a completely fair shot at winning it all. However, any real ideas I've had about how to go about this are unrealistic in one way or another. I've had basically 2 ideas which I'll describe below. 1. Having the finals judges sequestered for an entire season...something like the TV show Big Brother...with no contact with the outside world of any sort that would allow them to know anything about a show before watching it for the first time on Finals night. The obvious problem with this is that each corps reveals their show concept for the season sporadically and not all at a designated time. Also, many of these judges would be unable to do this because of other jobs they have. Being fans of the activity themselves, I also can't see very many agreeing to this rule as it would mean them having to miss out an entire season themselves. 2. Having the corps all perform with a common uniform so that their visual identities will not play a role in the judges decisions. Problems: Doing this one without the first one would have no impact whatsoever as the judges will already know who is playing what anyway. Also, the corps' visual identities often also play a huge part in GE depending on what they decide to do with the uniform for the season (i.e. Phantom wouldn't be able to do the uniform change.) But there are also some not-uniform-related things that could also give away corps identities anyway (i.e. Vanguard's traditions). 2.1. Perhaps a rule requiring show-specific uniforms (at least for finals) that give no hints toward their usual visual identities so that GE is not impacted as much? Ofcourse, this would still only work if the first one was in play.

So, I'm a n00b to this forum. Am I correct to assume that what you all mean by slotting is that the judges have decided the results before actually judging the individual performance?

Btw I do like basing my rankings off unrelated shows, though. Kind of like a high score method. Corps are ranked based on their highest scores to date whether or not they've competed against each other or if they've dipped a few points in later shows. Ofcourse, nothing is really official until San Antonio where they finally all compete against each other. I really want to go to that show.

Judging solely on the trend this season I'm going to have to go with a pretty vague ranking system. I feel like this year is unfortunately a battle for 2nd. BD just seems too far out of reach for anyone to catch up at this point. I hate it. I don't like BD and probably never will. Idk why exactly, but I'm just not a fan. 1. BD 2-5. Cadets, Crown, Bluecoats, Vanguard 6-9. Cavaliers, Phantom, Madison Scouts, BK Aaaaand I don't really follow the rest. I just now started following BK because them breaking 80 could rattle Madison's placement, but the stretch between the corps at 6-9 is too far apart for it to change too much from what it is now IMO. Cavies are more likely to break top 5 than the others, but I'd like that gap to close too. Wouldn't it be nice if all top 7 corps had a shot at winning because of how close the scores were? I would love to see the gap between BD and everyone else get much smaller and make it a great competition for 1st, but I just don't see that happening. I'm all for new champions and I'd love to see Bluecoats take it all.

So, since the season is under way and I don't see this being discussed anywhere else, I figured this would be a good thread to start. What corps have started taking advantage of the ability to use trombones and other brass instruments previously not allowed? The only ones I've seen so far are SCV. Can anyone who has seen the show live tell us just how these instruments are being used?