MikeN

It's past time to open DCI membership to OC corps. Honestly, it's probably time to rethink membership requirements and benefits, along with the touring requirements. Mike

Or, based on some of the comments here, DCI could try enacting more stringent policies that force corps to follow more uniform and transparent procedures? Mike

Sorry to see them go. We had a healthy rivalry with them during my time in DCI, and it had felt back in the Before Times of 2017-19 that between Southwind, Louisiana Stars, Heatwave and Guardians a new southern presence was slowly building. Mike

I'm the second longest-tenured member remaining on DCP (behind George D, the founder). And DCP is now so old it's in it's age-out year. 😞 MIke

Former corps person here - it's great value for the corps. Adding extra performances is absolutely brilliant and essential, especially as the costs don't go up dramatically from staying in place the extra day. Right now Open Class gets the best deal of all; we were guaranteed three performances that week at OC Prelims, OC Finals and WC Prelims. Half the OC corps got a fourth performance at WC Semis. That is awesome bang for the budgeted buck. All of WC not in Finals gets either one or two shows. Especially for corps coming from either coast, that's a ton of expenses for what is less payoff. It's a good deal for members - the majority of corps stay through the Saturday regardless, and performing on the weekend show date allows more friends and family to come through the turnstiles. Also, it's also great value for those fans on site - the majority of attendees don't arrive until Friday or Saturday, and don't get to see the full lineup. This would let the half of WC corps that never get to see the 20k-sized crowd actually play for a packed house. Finally, it's great value for non-attending fans; a longer San Antonio-style show lets FloMarching broadcast a full day to the streaming audience, which dwarfs the in-person crowd. More corps = more eyeballs purchasing the subscription to watch the stream, staying around longer throughout the day, and consuming more ads. Top 12 as a show is an arbitrary number for any competition, and we're moving far beyond it. Providing value for the corps, the members, the attendees and the streaming audience far outweighs the historical precedent, I think. Mike

I alluded to this earlier, but we couldn't do Sysco as we didn't have a trailer large enough to store the size of order they would need to deliver, and we weren't always close enough to make it feasible. Very few of the OC corps I think are built for it. That's definitely something else to consider about volume purchasing. A few years ago DCI tried to bring everyone into bulk perishables, and that's how practically the entire activity ended up drinking Sqwincher for a summer. Mike

I worked at the bottom of the DCI pyramid at Guardians, and we were Sams Club devotees. Mainly because we couldn't afford to store larger Sysco-type deliveries, and Sams Clubs were pretty much everywhere. Mike

Gotta be honest - if they can solve their organizational issues and swing a return to the field without incident, I'll be happy with whatever placement they can get. (That said, my gut says they'll fall into the 6-12 range.) Mike

Didn't say what year... /s Mike

I wish I'd added that rule to DCP's Community Guidelines at the beginning... Mike

I play battery stuff all the time. There's a pretty active and involved transcription community for drummers, so it's not hard to find. It's pretty eye opening - there's a massive gulf in difficulty between the top 6 or so batteries and everyone else. You can definitely tell when you get to the Big Boy parts. Mike

I think I was making the same point from the other direction. You said it better. Mike

Madison doesn't need to try to be a top 4 corps. They won't be scored such and they don't have the talent to pull off that demand. First goal should be challenging for that 12th spot. On the field, I'd look to Spirit and Pacific Crest for inspiration. Both have solid design teams that know what they want to get across, and pretty much Stick to the Plan. If you want to be the "in your face" corps, that's absolutely still possible - I'd argue Troopers had one of the more aggressive brass books in the business this year - but you have to have a visual program to complement it. They're just not going to move up in the ranks otherwise. Anyways, my "if I were director for a day" advice would be to get everyone on board with what Madison is going to be, over-invest in visual staff and Stick to the Plan. Mike

Agreed - it was a great visual update while still keeping the Madison look, and that was really neat. Mike

I started watching DCI in '89, so I grew up watching the opera/musical era of the corps. To me that's just who they were. Them switching back to classical in '96 was kind of a brain jump for me, and then going back and hearing the earlier 80's stuff feels like listening to a different group sometimes. Personal funny story - my kiddo was a DCI conductor in 2017 and 2018 and a hardcore drum corps addict. I got them to sit down and watch 2001 Vanguard with me (New Era... New Era...) and all they could talk about was how *slow* everyone was marching back then. Definitely made me o_O - I still don't see it, which means I'm probably too old to! Mike

1992 was an absolutely fantastic year for the Scouts. It was an incredibly well-conceived show musically and visually, and it doesn't hurt that Camp Randall's field makes DCI corps look like a million bucks on TV. Seriously, every time Finals is there, the broadcasts just have extra color depth that makes the groups pop. And yeah, Funny is just an instant classic. Mike

Oh man, that show is absolutely killer. Got to see y'all in Leander that summer, and it was hella impressive. I will die on this hill - that might be the best *arranged* battery in DCI history. Seriously - that was peak Casella and Gusseck. The drum-only recording is on youtube, and if you just start it and sit back, you can literally hear the brass melodies echoed in the drums throughout the whole show. It's absolutely incredible how tightly the brass and drums are wound together - so cooooooooooool. Mike

This came up in the SCV thread, and it feels like we kind of need to indulge in a little lighthearted nostalgia for Finals week. What's your favorite (not best) Madison show? For me, it might actually be the 1997 Pirates of Lake Mendota production. It was a little more "serious" musically I think, while still putting a little bit of a jazz twist in places. Got to see them live that summer, and they brought the house down. There's just not a dull moment. Honorable mention is of course the 1995 Malaga show. My only gripe is that while they have a kerosene-infused brass and drum line, the ballad (Concerto de Aranjuez) just kills the momentum for me. I actually think the '96 production was a better set of tunes if you could have swapped out Malaga for Malaguena, but didn't have quite the crispness of the year before. What's yours? Mike

So sorry to hear that. Much love headed your way. Mike

Congrats Guardians! Seeing on Reddit they had a 2.0 penalty?!?

Usually they do.

Lets go Guardians! They're in a good spot score wise, and the short tour means they've still got room to grow. Mike

Down in OC, I don't think Director and Operator was DCI required when I got there, but Crossmen helped hook us up with their agent. We did have liability insurance, we did have accident and equipment insurance, nobody had health insurance (almost all staff are 1099, the director was the only paid staff and he had his own). All together, I don't remember an exact amount, but it was a fairly small line item in the grand scheme of things. Mike

As long as I'm tossing my opinions out there, I'm also concerned by a couple of other things in their statement. This is good: This is a massive red flag: Where did the capital and endowment fund go? If it was to pay vendors, as is implied by the fact it's all in that one sentence, questions must be asked. The other issue, regarding leadership: This is ... kind of ... concerning? Could be a big deal, could not be. While the Board definitely has the authority to conduct business without an ED or corps director, that means the Board also made the (possibly) decision above to spend their capital and endowment fund. They're also charging full steam ahead without having installed any permanent day-to-day leadership, and the run up to 2024 starts on literally Sunday. Finally, this: This probably should have been Step One for 2024, not step At The End Of The Summer. And nobody at SCV BoD has contacts on their own? When I was at Guardians, I had half a dozen other orgs on speed dial that were cartoonishly awesomely helpful when I needed it. And we were on the bottom shelf of DCI, not the top. Anyways, there may still be much going on we don't know about, but that's what stood out to me from this most recent update. Mike

They aren't yet. Means they couldn't meet the original deadlines and asked for extensions. 😞 Mike