bartyount

How would streaming finals be different from having the PBS/ESPN broadcasts? I doubt those broadcasts negatively impacted attendance or DVD/CD sales (might have even increased sales).

Thanks so much for the play-by-play! You helped me through the most difficult part the evening for me by calling out Bluecoats show! It was almost as good as being there! Ok, not quite as good as being there, but I appreciate it non-the-less!!!!

The "Olympics"? What's that? There is nothing else but drumcorps on finals week.

Make him a colorguard judge. Sounds like he knowns better than the semis guard judge.

I think the approach is wrong. You want to "penalize" the top guys by making it less attractive to march a higher placing corps in order to try to make the playing field a little more even. I would suggest a system that instead provides incentives to march a lower corps. The lower placing a corps, the more incentives there are to march there. How would this be implemented? I have no idea. It's just a thought about a possible approach to the problem.

Ditto here. It was a long time ago so it may not apply today, but the impression still remains.

You meant 3rd and 4th, right?

Congrats to BD, but

Except alot cleaner I would guess.

I'm starting to get concerned about the stream on the Fan Network tomorrow. I can't even log into the Fan Network right now, and they aren't even streaming anything tonight.

I hope not. That would be extremely anti-climactic.

Ah... I was about to ask what the heck your mom is doing in Bloomington while you're sitting in front of a computer. ;)

My guess is Carolina Crown followed by Blue Stars or Bluecoats. Not sure where Glassmen would fit in since I haven't seen their show.

This isn't new. There hasn't been any way to see Finals live for years now (unless you're there of course). And while it would be totally awesome to see Finals offered on the Fan Network, I can sort of see the line of thinking for not having it. DCI hopes it will help encourage live attendance at the show.

I think that must be Jason Pittman. Yeah - I think he started marching Sky Ryders the year I went to Bluecoats and then he came to Bluecoats after I aged out. We've emailed a few times, but I don't think we've ever met.

Phew... that's a relief. Thanks for that. I've always pre-ordered mine before Finals and I got real nervous when I went to the DCI store and there's no mention of 2008 anywhere.

I just went to the DCI store to pre-order the 2008 DVDs/CDs and found that they are not being offered. There is no explanation why they aren't there, but I'm assuming that if they aren't offering them by now, they won't be offering them at all. I suppose all that will be available will be the downloads. Anyone know for sure? I guess this saves DCI money, but I would really hate not to have the physical DVDs and CDs. Now, I might be able to forgive them, if they were to offer uncompressed video for the legacy collection and make high cams of all of the shows available. Oh - and while we're at it, make more than just the top 12 for all the years available too. And, and..... (am I asking too much?)

Not "Semifinals", but at Preview of Champions semis in 91, Sky Ryders tied Spirit of Atlanta or 12th. We both performed at finals that night. I'm pretty sure the show started at the original starting time and just ran long to fit all 13 of us in.

None from Coats huh? That's a bummer. I thought it was a pretty cool gesture and hoped they had kept it up. Maybe they got too distracted by the drummer that was hit by a car on Finals day in 95 (you still out there Krebs?). ;) Well at least it seems that Glassmen "paid it forward" for you guys. I loved your show in 95. I saw you guys early in the season and knew you would be in finals.

Just a note on the historical video - specifically the Legacy Collection. The video on the DVDs is heavily compressed and does not look very good to me. I assume they did this to keep costs down by being able to put the entire top 12 on a single DVD disc. The video tapes are better quality than the DVDs which was disappointing to me. HD aside, I would just like to have the Legacy Collection with uncompressed video.

If I remember the story correctly, in 87 when Bluecoats first made finals, Phantom Regiment made a big banner signed by all the members and staff that welcomed Bluecoats to the top 12. When I marched Bluecoats in 93, in passing on that gesture, we made banners for Glassmen and Colts who had broken into the top 12 for the first time that year. Hopefully Coats have continued to do the same for Crown, BAC, etc. (I don't know if they did or not). For this year, I don't know if Blue Stars falls under the same rules since they are returning to finals instead of making it in for the first time! But congrats to Blue Stars regardless!

I think there is such a thing as practicing too much. When I marched, I always felt we had really good rehersals when we were well rested. But most of the time, we were not well rested. We sacrificed sleep for practice time. And when we praticed sleep deprived and exhausted, it really showed. You could tell people couldn't stay focused and had lower energy levels. It still frustrates me to this day thinking about it because I feel that we could have been better than we were, but the staff chose the "work harder, not smarter" approach. I know that other higher level corps at the time had, in general, shorter daily practice schedules and had standards about the amount of sleep the corps would get (ie 7 hours of sleep minimum, where 2 hours on the bus equals 1 hour on the floor, etc).

BTW, I marched four years (90-93) and I never had any physical problems due to stress. Of course I was high brass so I wasn't carrying heavy equipment and the drill back then wasn't as demanding so that probably helped. All in all, I think it probably helped my physically by getting me in shape.

I think the quad drummer from Star was on the 93 broadcast. The thing with Bobby Knight was a separate piece that aired on the 89 broadcast I believe. You can see these on the legacy collection DVDs.

Ditto everyone on the no age limit. When I marched Sky Ryders in 91, our show was Camelot and at the beginning of the show, we had a kid of about 6 or 7 playing young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone just before the first hit. He was the son of the tour manager I think and that was all he did in the show. If you have the Fan Network check out the video - he's shown at the very beginning of the show.