No housing in San Diego

[SkyRyder_FMM]

You're right Stef. It takes alot of work. I've been doing shows in Michigan City for ten years now. It takes a cooperative effort throughout the community. We have a great relationship with the school systems (public & parochial), media outlets, businesses and of course the number of volunteers it takes to do it. DCI has provided me with everything I need to run a successful event. Thank you for your past involvement as a show sponsor.

How did we do this year? An audience of 3,150 (a full house) and a waiting list of corps wanting to come here year after year. The work for next years show starts in September.

Mike

Perfect example of my point. Thanks.

Michigan City, IN - population 32,900. Atendence, in excess of 3,000.

San Diego, CA - population 2.8 million. Attendence, approx 400.

Again, not disputing the promtion aspect, which I agree if critical. Just observing the lack of butts in the seats from a highly populated state with a lot of drum corps folks begging for late season shows and not attending them once they have them.

[PCSoprano9702]

I didn't go to the San Diego show because of Finals. I couldn't justify the 5 hour trip with Finals within a week and only 2 hours drive. However, that line up in August sans finals, would have compelled me to make the trip... though Stanford would be slightly closer (about 4.5 hours drive). But I also didn't go there because of finals. Not too hollow of an argument.

However, there are more people in San Diego who would go to a drum corps show than there are seats at Mt. Carmel. A properly promoted show would have done the trick.

Clearly Esperanza has problems. It seems like everyone on staff went back to school at once. It's a shame because they were an enjoyable corps and the San Diego shows were normally well attended, even when there would just be 1 or 2 Div I's.

Edited August 7, 2007 by PCSoprano9702

[ScribeToo]

Perfect example of my point. Thanks.

Michigan City, IN - population 32,900. Atendence, in excess of 3,000.

San Diego, CA - population 2.8 million. Attendence, approx 400.

Again, not disputing the promtion aspect, which I agree if critical. Just observing the lack of butts in the seats from a highly populated state with a lot of drum corps folks begging for late season shows and not attending them once they have them.

Location has as much to do with it as the color of the first flower of spring.

Promotion (and lots of it) is what puts butts in the seats, period.

Saying San Diego can only put 400 butts in seats the week before finals is just plain inaccurate. San Diego can (and has) put many more butts in seats for a lineup with far fewer "big names" when the show was promoted well.

This show, in August of 2007, with 400 or so people there was not promoted well(or more likely not at all). That is more likely the reason for the low turnout. I sincerely doubt that California (or even San Diego) is incapable of pulling numbers on par with the rest of the country JUST because it's California.

The last sentence Mikey posted is the most important.

The work starts in September. You can't just gauge the attendance of one show and come to the conclusion that California is a bad finals or late season drum corps decision. It's an invalid argument from top to bottom.

Michigan City's show is one of the Cavaliers' home shows. Not only is it promoted locally, but NATIONALLY. They send out multiple mailings to their nationwide mailing list and they have numerous concurrent events (yearly raffles, etc).. not to mention I would guess the percentage of locals at the Michigan City show, while a good percentage, is probably nowhere near the majority (it being only an hour or so from Chicago).

I don't know that I saw anyone saying that the fans were saving their ticket money for Pasadena.. From my own personal experience during the years I spent working on the west coast as a reporter for DCW and travelling all over California and Arizona as one of only three reporters in the area to cover the west shows, attendance typically was exceptional for shows that were well promoted.. not so good for ones that weren't. We didn't have that many shows and only a half a season to get them all in! Crowds were starved for it so if it came close to their houses, they were there. The PC sponsored shows were almost always full home-side stands -- to the point where it was easier to put me in the booth than in a seat a paying customer could have. The VK show in Santa Barbara was well promoted and well attended. When we started the San Diego show back up down in the south bay, we had great attendance because we publicized it.

One thing I did not see on the west coast as much as I see here in the midwest is multiple show attendance. Typically, the same 5 corps were at all three shows on a given weekend out there. Most people would choose one of those shows to go to and that was it. Out here, people will go to all three shows, regardless of who's on the field what night. But again, that is no indication that California can't fill stadiums.

[SkyRyder_FMM]

I don't know that I saw anyone saying that the fans were saving their ticket money for Pasadena.. From my own personal experience during the years I spent working on the west coast as a reporter for DCW and travelling all over California and Arizona as one of only three reporters in the area to cover the west shows, attendance typically was exceptional for shows that were well promoted.. not so good for ones that weren't. We didn't have that many shows and only a half a season to get them all in! Crowds were starved for it so if it came close to their houses, they were there. The PC sponsored shows were almost always full home-side stands -- to the point where it was easier to put me in the booth than in a seat a paying customer could have. The VK show in Santa Barbara was well promoted and well attended. When we started the San Diego show back up down in the south bay, we had great attendance because we publicized it.

One thing I did not see on the west coast as much as I see here in the midwest is multiple show attendance. Typically, the same 5 corps were at all three shows on a given weekend out there. Most people would choose one of those shows to go to and that was it. Out here, people will go to all three shows, regardless of who's on the field what night. But again, that is no indication that California can't fill stadiums.

See post 49 and 62 on not attending to save money for Pasedena.

The line up in the midwest is not consistent night to night? Come on Steph. If your eye sight getting poor with your age? :P

Pick a city and look at the neighboring shows within a few hours drive. The line up if often very similar if not the same. This is often because the tour is coming through and hte same corps are there night after night for several nights in a row. It's not that different from the west coast.

I am not disputing your arguments about promotion, but I think you are drastically discounting the lack of attendence in a major market. I'm not going to both to try to articulate all of hte many reasons why this is the case, because you do not appear to want to consider them. That's fine. I respectfully agree to disagree with your view here.

Also, my personal experience on attendence at the local shows in CA is not what you articulated above. I've commented on the lack of attendence at the local shows in the past only to receive comments back about not wanting to see the early shows, there were not enough Div I corps there for them, etc. Plenty of excuses on why people DIDN't attend. There have been plenty of complaints from fans here about wanting to see late season shows. Here they are. What more promotion do these folks need (said somewhat tongue in cheek, but if they really want the late season shows and one is scheduled, do they need someone beating them over the head to attend?)?

[oldsoprano]

As a small indication of how this year's San Diego show was promoted (or not promoted, I should say), I looked at Esperanza's website numerous times in the past few months trying to track down someone to call about housing, and I never saw any mention of the show, even on the sponsoring organization's own website.

That's about the most basic and cheapest promotion they could have possibly done, and they didn't even do that.

So, no, I wasn't the least bit suprised by the small crowd Sunday night. I told my wife as we were driving down from L.A. Sunday morning that it would likely be a tiny crowd judging by the way everything else was being handled.

[ScribeToo]

See post 49 and 62 on not attending to save money for Pasedena.

The line up in the midwest is not consistent night to night? Come on Steph. If your eye sight getting poor with your age? :P

Pick a city and look at the neighboring shows within a few hours drive. The line up if often very similar if not the same. This is often because the tour is coming through and hte same corps are there night after night for several nights in a row. It's not that different from the west coast.

I am not disputing your arguments about promotion, but I think you are drastically discounting the lack of attendence in a major market. I'm not going to both to try to articulate all of hte many reasons why this is the case, because you do not appear to want to consider them. That's fine. I respectfully agree to disagree with your view here.

Also, my personal experience on attendence at the local shows in CA is not what you articulated above. I've commented on the lack of attendence at the local shows in the past only to receive comments back about not wanting to see the early shows, there were not enough Div I corps there for them, etc. Plenty of excuses on why people DIDN't attend. There have been plenty of complaints from fans here about wanting to see late season shows. Here they are. What more promotion do these folks need (said somewhat tongue in cheek, but if they really want the late season shows and one is scheduled, do they need someone beating them over the head to attend?)?

You mentioned you'd travelled to a few shows in California.

I lived there and attended just about ALL of the shows during the early season.. my experience is based on repeated exposure to it. On average, the show attendance was really good whenever the show was promoted well.

also, a show promoter chooses the stadium, not DCI. As long as the facilities are enough to handle the corps in the lot and on the field, they're pretty much okay with it. If a show promoter says, "we can charge $X for all tickets and expect to sell X% of the seats and still make a profit" then they get to make that call. DCI doesn't say, "if you can't get a 2000 seat stadium and fill it, you can't have the show."

And TWO POSTS about people who said they didn't go because finals was in a few days? Did you not read the paragraph of mine you quoted?

The mindset there is totally different than it is here. There you think, "hmm.. BD, SCV and PC all at the next three shows.. two of them are an hour away.. one of them is 4 hrs away with traffic.. one of the two an hour away is not a work day.." That's how that person decides which of the shows they go to. The mindset I've experienced here is, "what time do we have to leave work to get to the show tonight? We're staying overnight in DeKalb and going to the Rockford show on Saturday then we're staying in Janesville and heading up to Madison on Sunday -- oh yah.. who's in the show again?"

Totally different mindset.

But AGAIN.. You cannot legitimately gauge how well California can fill a stadium, NOR how well San Diego can fill a stadium BASED ON THE POOR ATTENDANCE OF ONE SHOW THAT WAS NOT PROPERLY PROMOTED AFTER THE ORIGINAL SHOW PROMOTER DROPPED THE BALL.

That would be akin to my saying, "what? The Oneida show only had 200 people sitting on a hillside in attendance? Wisconsin just can't fill stadiums!"

The argument is invalid, top to bottom.

Edited August 7, 2007 by ScribeToo

[Newseditor44]

I think Stef is right on point here. Show attendance has been really good here in California, the problem we have always had was promoting the shows. I think it smuch mroe difficult to do here because of the size of the media market, and the fact that there is so much to do.

You mentioned you'd travelled to a few shows in California.

I lived there and attended just about ALL of the shows during the early season.. my experience is based on repeated exposure to it. On average, the show attendance was really good whenever the show was promoted well.

also, a show promoter chooses the stadium, not DCI. As long as the facilities are enough to handle the corps in the lot and on the field, they're pretty much okay with it. If a show promoter says, "we can charge $X for all tickets and expect to sell X% of the seats and still make a profit" then they get to make that call. DCI doesn't say, "if you can't get a 2000 seat stadium and fill it, you can't have the show."

And TWO POSTS about people who said they didn't go because finals was in a few days? Did you not read the paragraph of mine you quoted?

The mindset there is totally different than it is here. There you think, "hmm.. BD, SCV and PC all at the next three shows.. two of them are an hour away.. one of them is 4 hrs away with traffic.. one of the two an hour away is not a work day.." That's how that person decides which of the shows they go to. The mindset I've experienced here is, "what time do we have to leave work to get to the show tonight? We're staying overnight in DeKalb and going to the Rockford show on Saturday then we're staying in Janesville and heading up to Madison on Sunday -- oh yah.. who's in the show again?"

Totally different mindset.

But AGAIN.. You cannot legitimately gauge how well California can fill a stadium, NOR how well San Diego can fill a stadium BASED ON THE POOR ATTENDANCE OF ONE SHOW THAT WAS NOT PROPERLY PROMOTED AFTER THE ORIGINAL SHOW PROMOTER DROPPED THE BALL.

The argument is invalid, top to bottom.

[Guest xsabers]

Thanks for all of the feedback, guys. I really appreciate it!

To answer the one person on here that asked what I'm doing about it? Well, I'm notifying DCI and others on here of the issue so they too can contact DCI.

I didn't arrive at the show site until almost 6 p.m. yesterday. There wasn't anything I could have done at that point. The corps were already warming-up.

But there IS something I can do about preventing it from happening again. Getting DCI aware is a first step. :D I don't have a lot of clout, I know. But I do know some people who do, and I'll make sure they bring it up in the next DCI meeting. :)

Doing whatever I can for whomever I can...always (something is better than nothing at all, wouldn't you agree?)

The question that begs to be asked is "was this an anomaly due to Esperanza's status?". If the San Diego shows in the past have not had issues, then we should treat this as a single issue, not as something that is chronic.

In speaking to a few band directors over the years, bridges were burned by a certain Orange County corps whose members were less than compliant with district rules regarding smoking and such. Many will not support housing a corps. This was many years ago but memories are long and people share stories.

[ScribeToo]

The question that begs to be asked is "was this an anomaly due to Esperanza's status?". If the San Diego shows in the past have not had issues, then we should treat this as a single issue, not as something that is chronic.

In speaking to a few band directors over the years, bridges were burned by a certain Orange County corps whose members were less than compliant with district rules regarding smoking and such. Many will not support housing a corps. This was many years ago but memories are long and people share stories.

OMG thank you for coming in here talking sense!

And for the record, memories seemed to have cooled by the time we had to house corps for our first outing with the SD show.. after that show, we did have some issues, though -- sadly, it was the school where we had housed that same orange county corps :( ..

Stef

[Scout]

Yes, they did a good job, under the circumstances. Too bad the crowd was so small for a once in a lifetime caliber show for this area. With proper promotion, they could have made a big chunk of change.

The crowd was SO SMALL. I was shocked. It could have been a huge money maker for whoever.

The housing situation was a total mess. Like Spirit, Scouts found out their housing about 2pm on Saturday. It was a great facility (a view of the Pacific and Mexico)!