Sully

Recruiting trumps all scoring systems. The only thing that really matters is how much your show appeals to kids who are in a position to join the corps. Many of them want to take home hardware, yes, but show design and execution attract talent. BD has both in spades. If you want to knock them off the throne, do recruiting better than they do for 5-10 years.

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I’ve (sometimes happily) attended dozens of those festivals. The biggest festivals (Lollapalooza, etc) suffer from a heavy profit motive and a “rags-to-riches” performance mentality. Musicianship is in short supply, as are the chops to perform live. I can’t help but think how much better the bad bands would be with the benefit of auditions, camp, daily rehearsal, staff, judging, competition and/or decades of tradition. Most of my festival friends do not hear things the same way I do. They don’t have the background to understand what they’re hearing- they’re focused on lyrics or seeing a live performance of a radio hit, not on the live performance in front of them. Giving them scorecards would just be a popularity contest, not a musical competition. That said, there are a lot of us who would pay to have the bands judged on their live musicianship. We want to know ahead of time which bands can actually play their instruments and which ones can’t. We also want to know afterward if the band we saw had a good night or not. More than anything, we’d rather see someone who’s mastered their craft than be disappointed by a band who’s only good in the studio. My 2 cents.