Galen

Sure seems like it. I don't think a live season would be impossible to do per se, but we'd definitely have to make a lot of adjustments to caption values and starting salaries to make it continue to operate

That's exactly what's happening. Nothing to panic about- scores tend to be very wonky for the first couple weeks of off-seasons. Usually it's the judges trying to get a solid feel for corps and seeing multiple different groups throughout the week.

Kosmos is taking a couple of days to continue developing and implementing their show after their debut performances in Clearwater and Orlando. The main goal is to finish getting the drill for the closing production on the field, and then cleaning. Enchantment is off to a good start out west, winning two of their first three events, and Steel City Sound is eagerly looking forward to their opening night performance in Evansville tonight.

This. I've been to both. For an actual show experience, I actually found Allentown much more enjoyable, but for an overall experience, Indy does offer more overall.

I'm fine with keeping to unlimited for two weeks like we've usually done.

Kosmos and its sister corps are pleased to announce their season 25 programs, as well as give a sneak peak at each corps' uniforms for this season. For their return to DCPI competition, Kosmos will present their program appropriately titled "The Return". Featuring selections from Mahler's Symphony No. 2, David Holsinger's "Symphonia Resurrectus", a haunting arrangement of "Return to the Home of Your Soul" and other songs, Kosmos will look back over some of its great achievements while forging a new competitive direction in DCPI. The corps is embracing a dramatic new visual look this season, sporting a uniform that incorporates its traditional black and blue colors along with a unique houndstooth pattern to create an image that is sure to turn heads. Are you ready for some football? Hailing from the city of Pittsburgh, Steel City Sound presents their program "The Glory of the Game", featuring several of Sam Spence's selections from the classic NFL Films videos such as "The Power and the Glory" "Magnificent Eleven" "The Equilizer" "Classic Battle", A New Game" and "Relentless", along with vocalizations of the legendary John Facenda. Steel City Sound takes the field to celebrate the dedication and passion of America's most popular sport as well as the drive to succeed and become the best. The corps' yellow and black uniforms are a tribute to their hometown and will be easily recognizable. Hailing from Santa Fe NM, Enchantment brings a new style of programming to the field with their production "The Scream". Inspired by Edvard Munch's classic painting, Enchantment will explore the depths and peaks of human emotion, featuring Bobby McFerrin's "Wailers", Don Ellis's "Loss" and "Shout" by Otis Day and the Knights. The corps' uniforms feature a blend of black and white, broken by a ribbon that fades from yellow to red that captures the dramatic sunrises and sunsets common in the Land of Enchantment.

I've been very busy for the last several months, but I'm back in business for 2016! Check out the blog for more details, including the announcement of this year's Bracket Tournament! http://marchingarenas.blogspot.com/?m=1

Corps name: Kosmos Director: Matt Briddell Division: World Class Hometown: Bloomington, IN Home show venue request: IU Memorial Stadium Corps name: Steel City Sound Director: Matt Briddell Division: Open Class Hometown: Pittsburgh PA Home show venue request: Gateway HS Corps name: Enchantment Director: Matt Briddell Division: Class A Hometown: Santa Fe, NM Home show venue request: Santa Fe HS

Here's a local article about the relocation of the Bristol show. It basically came down to the corps themselves saying that the venue is too small overall to accommodate all the props and staging stuff in shows these days. http://www.eastbayri.com/news/bristol-fourthes-to-cranston/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Cranston's stadium is certainly an upgrade over Mt. Hope HS in Bristol- artificial turf field, seating for around 3000-4000 or so. Parking looks to be rather scant though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4EFddbHkRo For many seasons, the fields and rehearsal halls around Bloomington, IN have been empty. Where once the footsteps and drumbeats filled the air, there has been only silence. And where some of the best and most innovative programs were designed and perfected, there have been only silent memories of glory days gone by. But that time is over. The original DCPI champion, Kosmos, is thrilled to announce that they are RETURNING to the field! Our main plan is to compete only in live seasons, starting in season 26. However, with this next season being the silver anniversary season of DCPI, we thought that it would help make this season a special one by entering, and our Board of Directors was kind enough to make that happen. So you can look forward to seeing one of the best - and most successful - corps in DCPI history back on the field in World Class competition for season 25. And as has been part of our tradition throughout our history, Kosmos will be sponsoring up-and-coming corps looking to break into the big leagues. For season 25, Kosmos is proud to extend its resources to two deserving groups- Steel City Sound, which is based out of Pittsburgh PA and will be competing in Open Class competition, and Enchantment, a Class A corps based out of Santa Fe, NM. Look for more announcements, including show and uniform designs, in the coming weeks from all three groups. While it looks like we missed out on Mystre, it's good to see many of our old friends like The Knights and Star of Jupiter still on the field. We look forward to rekindling our friendly rivalries with these groups as well as forming some new competitive bonds with all the new directors who have taken the field in the last few seasons.

Afraid there wasn't enough interest for the Eliminator- maybe next year.

Is anybody also interested in doing the ESPN Eliminator contest? This is a contest where you pick the winner of just one NFL game each week, with the caveat being that once you pick that team to win, you can't pick that team for the rest of the year. So say you pick New England to win in week 1- you wouldn't be able to pick New England the rest of the season. If you're interested, PM me on here, and if I get enough interest by next Monday (say at least 6 other people), I'll start a DCP group that we can enter.

No finals for Atlanta yet. It's been nominated several times in the past as a finalist site, but has always come up short.

I'm for it. It would make finals night retreats a lot more fun if we ever did those again.

Another reason to consider Atlanta is that that could allow for Open/A class shows to be held in Texas, as some directors have requested in the past.

Seconding FTW's vote for Atlanta with a South American portion of the tour.

I've done this (badly) a couple of seasons and I don't remember anything about the preseason ranking. How/when does this happen?

I'm in as long as I don't get Jay Cutler as my QB.

San Francisco, even if the field there is supposed to be atrocious.,

Went with Hotlanta. It's been considered and passed over several times in the past and deserves a shot.

Brazil makes the most sense for the reasons that FTW gave, but I can remember that making the schedule for international seasons in the past was challenging to say the least, because I felt like I had to strike a proper balance between giving enough recognition (ie shows) to the foreign locales without shortchanging the US tour as well, not to mention most people not being very familiar with the local geography.

There's always Jackson MS. Seriously though, I'd go with Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa AL for WC and Paul Snow Stadium in Jacksonville AL for Open/A. Little Rock AR (War Memorial Stadium for World and UCA's Estes Stadium for Open/A) and Tampa FL (Raymond James Stadium for World and Southeastern University Stadium in Lakeland FL) could also be good places to look at.

A few seasons ago, we instituted a rule change that restricted Class A corps' caption choices for GE scores to make the scoring emphasis more about performance than show design and encourage corps to use different captions that those that are the "meta" for a given season. However, we didn't increase the caption salaries at the time, and we saw that scores for that division took a bit of a drop in the subsequent seasons. My proposal is to increase the starting caption salary for Class A corps to 105 points from the original 95 (but keep the GE restrictions in place), and let it grow to 110 over the course of the season. I picked these values based on how mathematically, the caption salary for Open Class is about 86% of what World Class's is, and I think it makes sense for there to be the same ratio between Open Class and Class A.

The original purpose of the penalties rule was for the penalty to wash out (or at least blunt) whatever points were gained from going over the limit. As I recall, the penalty got increasingly larger the longer a director was in violation. Adding the DQ provision for a major event (or being removed from their next regular show if it's during the regular season) would certainly give the ED some teeth to enforce this if the offending director doesn't make their changes in a timely fashion (which could be a little tricky based on how the timing of the caption change machinery works). As for Crossmen's penalty, remember that that didn't affect any of their caption scores but was added on after their total score was tabulated, so that wouldn't have any effect on what we do.