MikeRapp

No but they looked almost identical.

I always watch the opening and closing ceremonies and wonder if show designers are watching to steal cool ideas. Some of this stuff would be easy to translate. The whole solar system section is so SCV.

Saw that! Wild!

…makes me think I’m watching a Blue Devils show.

Politically, Kansas City as a city is shared between Kansas and Missouri. However, tax dollars for the new stadium come entirely from the state of Kansas. Therefore… As far as the new Nissan stadium, I’ve many times proposed Nashville as a Regional and with the new park that will surround the new stadium, it solves the warm-up area issues that exist for the current stadium. Frankly I think the finals should rotate between Indy and Nashville.

Important to recognize that there were many times more corps and shows 40 years ago as there are now. Therefore there will be less upward and downward movement because frankly there is less space to move.

We will agree to strongly disagree. The diversity between the top six is remarkable.

I don’t know that it is getting harder. I think the activity itself is getting increasingly more diverse and deep. To me that means more opportunity, not less. Also, every corps works under the same rules. But until corps are paying kids to participate (like the NFL) you’ll never get a salary cap or transfer rules. Kids pay, kids decide where they play.

You gotta be top six in every caption to even be in the conversation for a medal. There is no exception to this, the scoring methodology mandates this.

I think so but what do I know? You don’t have to play at Titans Stadium. Play at Vandy. You have a weekend that would pack the house with families coming to vacation at music city.

GE is hugely important but it won’t get you a medal. Two great examples from recent history: Drum Corps Bride That One Second When you start knocking on the door of the top six, you are going up against corps that have spent years growing their membership so that there are no weaknesses. You have a great show concept—great. Now play Mahler at triple time running at sprint speed for three minutes flat. Play someone else’s horn for 30 seconds. While also playing your own. Play an emerging brass ensemble feature that grows in complexity every bar. Then adds a repeating echo within the timing. And do that perfectly every single time. The level of complexity and achievement is so high at the top that it truly boggles my mind.

I’m not sure show concept is what ultimately takes a corps to the next level, but a bad concept can certainly drag it down.

Those here know well that I am certain that final placement is almost directly correlated to the average age and experience of your corps. And with shows becoming more physically demanding—and emotionally demanding—it’s impossible to compete with 75-90 teenagers. DCI used to publish these stats some time ago. Not sure why they don’t know, but privacy is probably why. I agree that BD looked decidedly young this year.

I think it has. GE is the most heavily weighted caption. If your show doesn’t deliver in more than tangible, technical ways—you’ll be passed by shows that do.

Lots of ways to look at it. All have some validity imo. The bar for a medal is much higher now than a decade ago. It takes a massive commitment that starts with money, and extends to staff and especially show design. The days of faster and louder are over. Troopers seem to have benefited from this because they have always been an on-the-nose show story corps. That said: Corps orgs come and go. Nothing new there despite us wanting to think it’s different when a corps we know and love goes away. It’s hard to stay afloat in an activity as hardly seasonal and high stakes creatively as DCI. Lots of ways to fail in DCI. Very few ways to succeed. You also have more transparency around how kids are treated on tour—that’s a good thing. I hope this continues. I do see a wider gap between the haves and have nots though. If you look at budgets and average MM age/experience, you see a giant gap between the top six and everyone else. I think it’s going to require a much bigger commitment to contend for a medal.