Galen

Play more Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm riffing on the "January lasted forever this year" meme.

Nope, still January. 😋

There was a show at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, LA that I marched at back in 2001. As of today, it's 102,000 per Wikipedia. Not sure what the capacity was back then though. Also, Cotton Bowl hosted the '91 finals and clocks in at 92,000. Nebraska's stadium hosted a mid-season event once or twice in the mid-2000's, the new Meadowlands routinely hosts late-season shows, and Camp Randall in Madison has hosted finals numerous times.

<clap clap clap clap>

I think we have 6 more months of January to get through first. 😛

Last few years, it hasn't come out until springtime, right?

I'm looking to sell my VHS sets of the 1986, 1987, 1991, 1993 and 2002 DCI finals. I'm asking $10 for each set. If you're interested, please PM me.

Rest of the country seems to be though.

The school district there has had some concerns about the state of the stadium for this one (the track in particular has been decaying for the last few years) and has been trying to get financing for a new stadium elsewhere in town. I really hope this is just a short hiatus, because that was one of my all-time favorite shows to march at for the sheer hospitality of the local organizers alone. That said, if they do actually hold this year's show in Syracuse instead of Niagara Falls, I'm hopeful they'll use Bragman Stadium in Cicero, which is a really good venue in its own right.

Per DCI's Twitter feed, the schedule will be released at 11 am CST today.

But those involve moving finals back from Labor Day weekend. I'd agree that there definitely would be more options if they take that step, but if they stay married to that particular weekend, then the amount of top-tier venues greatly diminishes.

So what's basically coming out of all of this discussion is that no college venue is going to be feasible due to football schedules, unless DCA gives up Labor Day weekend. Gotta say that leaves very few options...

It's too bad UDel's renovations are going to be going on for a while. That's a good-sized stadium, good geographical location not too far from Philly. Not sure what kind of relationship the university has with the marching community though.

Both are good facilities but parking is a problem for both. Lehigh's lots are a good hike from the stadium, and it's also in a bowl, so bad weather (common in the area that time of year) would turn it into a swamp. Lafayette is a very nice modern facility but nearby parking is very limited.

Looking back to the original topic, would there be any benefit to looking back at Scranton? It's a city that's hosted finals in the past, has a good-sized venue that's hosted regular shows in the past (Memorial Stadium, not the #### baseball field), still hosts shows on a regular basis and is home to an active corps. What else would be needed? Or are there still too many bad memories from years ago?

Ding ding, we have a winner.

Yep. The only ones who win are the lawyers.

TCNJ's got a nice-sized venue with good parking. Kessler Field at Monmouth U in West Long Branch is another one.

I'd rather vote them off the Ireland.

Then go to bed and don't pester the people who do.

According to this site, it starts on 8/20: https://www.tmorra.com/item/8233519 Not sure if it's accurate.

Whereabouts in eastern PA/NJ, out of curiosity?

There's a third aspect that I'm surprised hasn't been brought up so far from what I've seen- the perception that there is no competitive parity among the corps in the circuit. With 2 exceptions, the same corps has won for more than a decade (and the other 2 corps that won during that time period have either folded or haven't come out to DCA for the last few years and may not be coming back anytime soon). If there's a presumption that there's nobody else that can compete with the perpetual champions, I figure that has to be driving down interest both among fans and potential members of other corps as well.

Pretty much. They told DCI to stick it and DCI did the same. I have no idea why they'd be allowed to participate in any DCI-sanctioned events at this point. But this is a Cadets thread, so...