gloriousgoo

For some reason I thought that was covered at the banquet. I have a friend in Vanguard so I get confused with what we're supposed to know.

We knew that already, but at least we know they haven't changed it.

Yep Freedom is doing ss. No idea what Jewel City's plans are. If you need proof, both have been removed from the prospective corps list.

So far none have been accepted and both Freedom and Jewel City have been denied.

^Who knew the Holy See had a drum corps?

As a performer, Dayton has become somewhat of a holy ground for lack of a better term. There's an aura of excellence that surrounds the idea of getting to perform there that would certainly be lost if it were to move. That atmosphere that corps people associate with Allentown is the closest I can compare the feeling to.

It would explain pulse getting past them. I sill see no reason why x deserved second, but then again, I am a front ensemble kid. Either way, the judging this weekend was inconsistent at best and bad at worst, and that's coming from someone who benefited from it.

I know, I was there. I still don't think it was that big of a deal. Certainly not enough to warrant a two place drop if the judges had any semblance of consistency.

Great job everyone, awesome shows all around. Wish mystique had held onto a medal, but who knows until we see the recaps.

Vanguard's winter program doesn't have a particularly successful past in percussion. I can't recall them making finals any year other than '14. They had a good show this year (actually one of my favorites) but this is a ridiculous year for WGI. NorthCoast Academy, a rather historically important and extremely good group had a slight dip in quality from their finals show last year to this year and completely missed semis as well, so don't judge the program too readily from a poor result in an incredible year.

everyone already said what I did, my bad.

Actually Vanguard was around 21st. They missed semifinals, and also I think some here might miss the fact that there's plenty of groups between the DCI related groups you mentioned here. Either way, cool to see someone else paying attention to winter season!

As someone who just got a contract with the Cascades, all of this hype around the season makes me happy about my decision to actually do something this summer. I have not yet been to a camp, so I can't comment on the validity of the hype, but I'm really glad to be part of this either way.

Just to update this, I will not be able to do the ratings as I have been offered a contract, and have accepted it.

Wait a second, it isn't? I always thought it was!

This is awesome! For those of you who maybe aren't familiar with WGI, this is a great opportunity to get exposed to it!

I'd rather not reveal the methodology straight away, because I don't want to be guaranteeing results for something that has only worked in retrospect. I will certainly make a thread prior to the season starting to keep track of rankings, predicted finals scores, and whatever it is that I've noticed, If i don't end up marching somewhere. I have a few more auditions in the future and if I can in fact do this for the season, I'll jump on board with this and start trying to do as much as I can!

The fan network used to have all this information. Unfortunately that's all gone now, but I know my fair share of this information (too much probably for a high school student) so if you have a specific inquiry I may be able to help.

I have done something like that over on the BOA forums before, and I think the best way to do this would be to do a thread that gets routinely updated so that people can see the increased accuracy as the season goes on. Also, keep in mind that this would be my first time running this for DCI where I don't know the end results, so it may prove that the coefficients applied to the different parts of the formula may be only retroactively true because I knew how to manipulate them. That being said, the BOA one correctly predicted 33 of 34 semi finalists and all 12 finalists so this may not be as uncertain as I think. I also may be marching this summer so that would throw a wrench in things. I'll gladly shoot you a pm when I get home!

Interestingly, this actually may be true. I actually thought about a way to prove that this exists (Because I thought this was a huge issue for quite some time) and I realized that the most obvious way would be through examining group's growth curves. If slotting exists, certain groups should show slightly unusual growth curves when, as the season goes on, the judges recalibrate their slotting to more closely match reality. What I found was the exact opposite. If you apply a group's typical growth ratio combined with other factors (weekly score derivative curve, strength of competition factor, and of course, spreads) you can almost exactly predict a group's finals score from week 1, and the thing is, their scores day-in and day-out almost all fall extremely close to their predicted values. The above might seem at first glance like it's proof of slotting until you realize that this means that DCI would have to decide before the season even started who would win and by how much. The only area of the scores that showed minor evidence of slotting was mid pack (Oregon and Crest neighborhood). This also speaks volumes about the quality of judging on the circuit. Almost everyone has the same idea of what warrants a 100, 90, 80 etc. If I need to explain this more, or better, I certainly can!

^Really? Cause most of you are curmudgeons.

Funny, I have the exact opposite opinion of every stipulation of the OP.

This may be a little too forward for some of you, but I've had great luck with just firing an email off to the group directors when I want more information about a Wgi show during the latter stages of the season.

I will add them once it is confirmed that they are indeed competing in Open Class!

I wasn't alive in 93, but from what I've seen and heard from these two shows, and the effects of them on the DCI world, 93 Star is, in my opinion, the best, and most important show ever performed. 95 Madison was a "fan favorite" field filler at best, aiming for high GE to overcome the fact that at the end of the day, they were not musically or visually sound.