TheOneWhoKnows

Yeah, he would’ve. Judged a lot of drum corps and WGI percussion.

RIP to the legend. I was lucky enough to have been adjudicated by him in my high school days. Always with such passion and profanity that only Gus could get away with these days. And then was even luckier to have adjudicated alongside him in early days of my adjudication career. I was even in the same press box at the last marching band event he judged.

Played a lot of his charts in high school. What a big loss for jazz.

The tour bus broke down years ago Jeff 😂

That’s what I’m saying, they’d be too afraid to do it. But again, it’s only because DCI is becoming the thing the corps that founded it fought against.

And there it is. “YOu oNlY qUeStioN ThINgS beCAusE YoU aRe uNinFoRMeD” Try again.

I appreciate the background on this. My skepticism or concern with the announcement was purely the realistic ROI on hiring someone to do this in this activity as it stands today. I could go deeper into all of my reasonings for that, but then people will poo poo all over it for even questioning their choice because we live in a society where we aren't supposed to question anything anymore.

Just FYI this was their response: Thank you for your generous support and dedication as a valued Friend of DCI. We truly appreciate your commitment. We want to assure you that the seat assignment process is handled with the utmost care, following our established priority system that ensures fairness across all levels of giving. Seats are assigned based on two factors (applied only to packages purchased by the September 30th priority seating deadline): 1. Donation level: priority is first established by your donation level for the season. 2. Consecutive Years of Giving: Within each donation level, priority is then based on your number of consecutive years of support without missing more than two years in a row. This year, demand was unprecedented - we had a record number of ticket packages purchased by the priority seating deadline, exceeding all ticket packages from last season. While this success is wonderful for our organization and the future of drum corps, it naturally increases the competition for preferred seating locations. Due to the number of variables involved - different seat quantity requests, diverse preferences, and venue constraints like partially obstructed views - we are unable to accommodate changes to seat assignments at this time. We sincerely apologize for any disappointment this may have caused. Your support is vital, and we hope you enjoy the conclusion of the 2026 DCI Summer Tour from your assigned seats inside Lucas Oil Stadium.

As far as I know, it’s all on the corps. Before we lost the Cadets in Erie, they were in talks with LECOM to provide sports medicine internships/residencies with the corps, if LECOM sponsored the tour fleet. It was progressing to be a great partnership between the two. Sadly we lost the corps and people here that weren’t drum corps people that wanted to get involved have now just dropped any interest.

At what point does this entire thing start to revert? Meaning, when do those who lost shows or other people who wish to host corps start organizing an event outside of the DCI umbrella? Granted any corps that does would probably receive a lot of issues from DCI for doing so. But who’s to say it has to be a competitive event? Corps attend parades all the time. Say someone in a town wants to hold an exhibition of corps and x,y,z corps will be heading through this area on their way to another DCI event and they just happen to have an event together and earn some money from it. Essentially, reverting back to the entire reason DCI was founded because DCI has become the thing the corps fought against. To a point.

At least since I became a Friends of DCI member, I didn’t have these problems until this year. Something changed and I don’t know if it’s trying to force higher donations or just they found an automated way to do things to cut time in figuring seating out.

True, but a regional model has the opportunity to foster growth. More localized groups would have closer opportunities to perform. Make weeknight showcases exhibitions or smaller Olympic judge panels. Make weekends full panel shows allowing for greater participation. Those localized groups then have an opportunity to build and grow overtime to become potential open class, world class corps. Look at the history of most of these corps, scout troops, churches, organizations. That’s how they started and we’ve gone so far away from it that its dying out.

I have every right to post an opinion just as you have every right to disagree with it. As I’ve stated, I hope it works out for them and that it becomes an example for the activity. I have my skepticism about it. That’s that.

The entire point of a forum is to voice one’s opinions…. So no I won’t keep them to myself lol. I have use an AI bot that pulls every world corps latest 990s and summarizes them, so I’m not wasting that much time. And I find it important as a devoted fan to be aware of how these organizations are doing. And yes there are corps that are holding their own, but the way this activity is designed currently is to hemorrhage cash. One can’t deny that.

I don’t know that it was ever really first come first serve. My only thing is if the approach they’re now taking is you can’t get the 200-300 level seats without donating to such and such level, then say it. Transparency is key.