jimpjorps

They were on-track to Open Class enough to be making plans for a tour and wider recruitment this season, at least. They seemed to have assurance that they would not have a hard time qualifying.

They're a SoundSport member, and that's still under the DCI umbrella.

Mix-ups can happen, especially in complex group booking situations like this. At Indy this year, those of us playing brass with FREE Players were supposed to pay for our own rooms in the larger group block, but this wasn't communicated to us and the front desk staff didn't take our payment info because they assumed our rooms were pre-paid. Three weeks later we got a panicked call from their director asking us to get in touch with the hotel manager ASAP because they got a surprise bill for a few thousand dollars from the hotel, and realized what happened.

I'm starting to think it's time to start ending DCA's season sooner, too. Even one week earlier would help resolve the situation that's developing lately where high school marching bands are required to have a halftime show ready to go on Labor Day weekend for the football season opening game in "Week 0", as well as college move-ins and a whole bunch of other conflicts.

As someone involved in one of the two corps you're thinking of, it's not an unfair criticism, even if it stings a little. It was an uphill journey to get our show on the field at Williamsport at all, and it involved a fair number of compromises, cuts and late-season recruitment to get it to a point we felt would be acceptable to present to the public. There's also a lot of personal responsibility in a 15-person horn line that's playing an arrangement that puts one person on most of the parts; it makes mistakes or people laying out that much more obvious. I know that it doesn't retroactively make the show more entertaining, but I hope it at least explains some of the things you thought were missing or unacceptable. It is definitely something we are already trying to address for 2019.

Sky didn't want to go on first and Tri-Valley Brass did, so they've swapped spots. I think the schedule is otherwise the same.

Highland is at Indian Park (104 Park Rd) in Montoursville on Saturday.

Like Kamarag said, we'll be in Reading tomorrow. We had a tough time with scheduling this year because of the timing of our approval and because of some longstanding member scheduling conflicts. We were bumped from the Clifton show, couldn't do the Jefferson Township show because about a half-dozen of us had already committed to being in Indianapolis volunteering with the Free Players the year prior, couldn't do Peckville because the roster was already full, and decided not to do Woodbridge so that we wouldn't be doing three show weekends in a row. It wasn't our preference, but that's how it shook out, and I think we're going to be plenty ready for our debut.

The combination of the timing of our approval, our ability to travel far afield and some member scheduling conflicts have made our scheduling difficult this year. We're confirmed for the Reading show and finals; we're trying to get into another show currently but I don't want to preemptively talk about anything that isn't confirmed.

Highland Regiment has passed their evaluation.

There were a few low brass I&Es on upright euph, trombone and concert tuba last year. The top two in the bari/euph/trombone category and the winner of the tuba category all played on non-marching instruments.

DCP and /r/drumcorps are complementary -- the drumcorps subreddit is more aimed at current members than fans. The activity on reddit ebbs and flows with the competitive season, so right now things are relatively quiet and most of the discussions are from people thinking about auditioning for DCI soon.

Honestly, one of the biggest barriers to any local junior corps renaissance is that the realities of education and employment are radically different for kids now. College prep (coursework, resume-building, applying for scholarships, working to save money) consumes most of the free time of high school students, the price of tuition and the tenuousness of the entry-level job market heavily discourages college students from taking time off to indulge in hobbies that aren't directly marketable to prospective employers (which is why the plurality of DCI members now are music majors), and any amateur musicians in school are much more likely to be involved in their own schools' bands because of ease of access and the fact that they fill gen ed course requirements. Anyone left who is still interested in and able to do drum corps is going to be more interested in the big touring competitive corps rather than a small local/regional one with no name recognition. Local drum corps is just a very hard sell in this environment.

For at least the last couple years, Fusion's done a camp weekend two weeks before Finals so that they can spend the whole two and a half days concentrating on necessary cleaning and revisions without having to worry about travel logistics or a show.

No, not that the corps is also running winter guard/indoor percussion -- with the way competitive guard/percussion work, many members planning to be in a corps will be in their school's or another group's WG/IP line until April and unable to make the corps' rehearsals until then because of scheduling conflicts between the two independent groups. I think DCA at least accounts for this, though. I don't think they just count heads at the rehearsal they show up to.