EKBari Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 (edited) The days of two tours were awesome. DCI tour didn't start until mid-July, generally. You had roughly a month for regional tour (first tour) and a month for DCI tour (second tour). I always thought that was a better way to run it. Although I have been told there were problems with some of them...maybe DCE (Drum Corps East) specifically? DCM was the best ran, it seems, and thusly lasted the longest. From what I recall, we had DCE, DCM, and DCP...and DCS (Drum Corps South) was around for at least one year (1993). DCP was actually DCW DCS was actually a weird one. The Sky Ryders were a member of it, but they were from Kansas and the DCM tour swung through that state for several shows. They didn't join DCM until 88. And the rest of DCS went on to compete at DCE championships. (Spirit won it in 86 IIRC). I always wondered why that one even existed. Edited August 17, 2007 by EKBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvertrombone Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 Wouldn't work. Texas would see how poorly it worked out the first time, vote to squelch the rebellion, and take over the world, thus restoring peace and tranquility in the Drum Corps universe. Or we'd just ban in-state musicians from going out of state and the corps would all have to move here anyway. ^0^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluecoats88 Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 Perhaps other corps would want to go join the drum corps west circuit -- Pioneer would retrace the Lewis and Clark trail and relocate out in Oregon and the Phantom Regiment would follow them but in taking a short cut over the Sierra Nevadas their food truck would break down at Donner's Pass and we'd never hear from them again. Donner Party of 150 your table's ready. Would you like to hear our specials.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legolaus Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 The very last thing we need in this activity is MORE segregation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagicBobert Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 (edited) Donner Party of 150 your table's ready. Would you like to hear our specials.... Donner, party of 149... Donner, party of 148... (for those who don't get the joke) without intending to make fun in any way, I will ask: Was this a practice paper for a Writing Course or Law class, presenting an argument and then stating your case? We could use a little bit more of that on DCP. :) Edited August 17, 2007 by MagicBobert Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob984 Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 The conversations about west coast’s limited exposure to drum got me thinking... What would happen if California decided to pull out of DCI? How about the whole western part of the US? California was represented by four Div I and eight Div II and III corps this year, which is slightly but not terribly higher than previous years. Eight of the 22 Div I corps...over a third of Div I...are from states west of the Rockies. Division II/III is even more dramatic with over 1/3 of the corps coming from CA and almost 1/2 coming from western states. At first I thought this had to be an anomaly since finals were in CA, but the numbers aren't substantially different in Boston '06. Of course, the first question that comes to mind is, How fair is it that a region that is a region that is so largely represented in numbers of corps gets finals so infrequently and won't be even close to a drivable distance for the next decade. But that's not the purpose of my post. I assume that western states directors were on-board with the Indy thing, and the issue of the infrequence of west coast finals has been debated here enough. The question I started to ponder today was sparked by a passing comment made by someone else in a buried post... * Could DCI survive if the western states corps pulled out? Could it survive if California only pulled out? * More importantly, would creating a CA and western states corps alliance that kept those corps touring exclusively in the west be good for those organizations? Would they be able to concentrate on growing the activity in the west? Would fan interest and participation actually increase? Would it be financially advantageous for these corps? Frankly, if I were a director on the west coast with an eye on innovation, a penchant for hair-brained ideas, and an interest in the expansion of the activity, I'd be proposing such a thing. I'd probably propose a true national finals every four years but push for more localized western states approach as the standard. There is so much talent, so much money and so many kids in the west. If you look at population patterns, percentage of high schoolers and college aged people vs. the general population is considerably higher in the west than in the Midwest and east. The interest in and proliferation of youth programs is no more acute than in the west as evidenced by membership in civic, faith-based and non-profit youth programs increasing by 162% in California over the last five years. However, just as more and more youth are choosing to stay close to home for college, I can imagine that drum corps may become more attractive if it became a weekend activity. Just anecdotally speaking, I can attest to the fact that the seven teenagers I took to finals this year expressed a real interest in doing drum corps if they just didn't have to spend their entire summer sleeping on gym floors. Yes, western states fans would miss seeing the occasional corps from other regions and not being able to compete with corps from other regions would definitely take some of the fun out of competition for the members. You have to wonder, though, how long it would take before the western states were so strong that the absence of other regions wouldn't have much impact. I think this idea bears out in other institutions that depend on membership, recruitment and involvement. There are a lot of instances of church communities that become way too geographically spread-out, and membership begins to stagnate or suffer. In a number of cases, splitting the church and starting more localized congregations has been really successful. On the flip side, I think fracturing DCI would seriously hurt Midwest and east corps drum corps. My uneducated observations lead me to believe that especially Midwest corps have many more factors in their favor. Taking away the presence of popular corps from the west could do nothing but harm these regions. I know it’ll never happen…but the idea is kind of interesting to me. While DCI has made some great marketing strides, we’re not seeing a huge increase in participation. Maybe it’s time to look at something radically different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob984 Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 The conversations about west coast’s limited exposure to drum got me thinking... What would happen if California decided to pull out of DCI? How about the whole western part of the US? California was represented by four Div I and eight Div II and III corps this year, which is slightly but not terribly higher than previous years. Eight of the 22 Div I corps...over a third of Div I...are from states west of the Rockies. Division II/III is even more dramatic with over 1/3 of the corps coming from CA and almost 1/2 coming from western states. At first I thought this had to be an anomaly since finals were in CA, but the numbers aren't substantially different in Boston '06. Of course, the first question that comes to mind is, How fair is it that a region that is a region that is so largely represented in numbers of corps gets finals so infrequently and won't be even close to a drivable distance for the next decade. But that's not the purpose of my post. I assume that western states directors were on-board with the Indy thing, and the issue of the infrequence of west coast finals has been debated here enough. The question I started to ponder today was sparked by a passing comment made by someone else in a buried post... * Could DCI survive if the western states corps pulled out? Could it survive if California only pulled out? * More importantly, would creating a CA and western states corps alliance that kept those corps touring exclusively in the west be good for those organizations? Would they be able to concentrate on growing the activity in the west? Would fan interest and participation actually increase? Would it be financially advantageous for these corps? Frankly, if I were a director on the west coast with an eye on innovation, a penchant for hair-brained ideas, and an interest in the expansion of the activity, I'd be proposing such a thing. I'd probably propose a true national finals every four years but push for more localized western states approach as the standard. There is so much talent, so much money and so many kids in the west. If you look at population patterns, percentage of high schoolers and college aged people vs. the general population is considerably higher in the west than in the Midwest and east. The interest in and proliferation of youth programs is no more acute than in the west as evidenced by membership in civic, faith-based and non-profit youth programs increasing by 162% in California over the last five years. However, just as more and more youth are choosing to stay close to home for college, I can imagine that drum corps may become more attractive if it became a weekend activity. Just anecdotally speaking, I can attest to the fact that the seven teenagers I took to finals this year expressed a real interest in doing drum corps if they just didn't have to spend their entire summer sleeping on gym floors. Yes, western states fans would miss seeing the occasional corps from other regions and not being able to compete with corps from other regions would definitely take some of the fun out of competition for the members. You have to wonder, though, how long it would take before the western states were so strong that the absence of other regions wouldn't have much impact. I think this idea bears out in other institutions that depend on membership, recruitment and involvement. There are a lot of instances of church communities that become way too geographically spread-out, and membership begins to stagnate or suffer. In a number of cases, splitting the church and starting more localized congregations has been really successful. On the flip side, I think fracturing DCI would seriously hurt Midwest and east corps drum corps. My uneducated observations lead me to believe that especially Midwest corps have many more factors in their favor. Taking away the presence of popular corps from the west could do nothing but harm these regions. I know it’ll never happen…but the idea is kind of interesting to me. While DCI has made some great marketing strides, we’re not seeing a huge increase in participation. Maybe it’s time to look at something radically different. I don't think pulling out of DCI will happen by western corps...nor is it a good idea.....For the competition to be truly national/international, ALL of the best players, representing the entire nation, need to be at the big dance.....it is actually one of the founding reasons. I do fully agree with you that only having one championship on the west coast (this year) in 35 years is very unfair(and I live on the East coast)......in the past, there were regional circuits........maybe keeping all corps in their region from 6/15- 7/15 and then mixing it up would save money for all of the corps.............I am also not for the "100 years in Indy" (lol) policy, but I think Indy must have given DCI an exceptional deal.........but I can't see fans flocking to Indy 10 years straight...........You mentioned about the 7 kids you took to finals who were interested but didn't want to give the huge time commitment.....their are options........the west has division II/III corps that require less time and travel.....even Academy, who nearly made division I finals, only had around 15 shows, compared to some open corps who had 40.........senior corps is also an option...............in terms of corps growth (number of corps): it is so tough today, with the amount of cost....items which are now legalities (basic insurance and also liability insurance) are very expensive, and then you factor the cost of instruments, uniforms, vehicles, GAS, instruction, food.......it's and expensive endeavor, at ANY level........I think that has hindered growth more than anything, and also made it hard for current corps to survive.....some Western corps have chosen limited touring (Academy and Pacific Crest come to mind) and those decisions were accepted by DCI.... 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Tekneek Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 DCP was actually DCW Oh yeah! For some reason I was thinking Drum Corps Pacific... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PCSoprano9702 Posted August 17, 2007 Share Posted August 17, 2007 I would love to see the return of DCW. It made for a nice capstone for the non-touring corps season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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