Drum Corps Midwest

[bill]

I agree with this. The small corps were really paid remarkably well compared to what DCI paid them (next to nothing). There was more parity. However, it was at the expense of the ticket draws. The move to K-Zoo and away from DeKalb proved this although DCM did last another two seasons after the big boys left.

The DCM payscale formula was based on each corps' score and the size of each corps at the DeKalb DCM Championship from the prior year.

A certain score range netted a corps a certain dollar figure, a certain corps' size range netted another dollar figure.

As example, if using the 2000 DCM Championship, 2000 score + 2000 size of corps=payscale per show for 2001.

DCA-Central uses the same type formula, only based on the score and size corps from the DCA championship.

Edited September 22, 2008 by bill

[Jeremy Denzer]

Moving away from the regional circuits helped the World Class corps who make the decisions.

The Open Class corps really took the hit when the regional associations died. In DCM all corps got paid to perform. Under the current model Open Class corps get paid very little or sometimes nothing to perform.

DCM held on for a few years without the top corps, however they were needed to attract an audience.

The top corps benefited from the loss of regional circuits, but at what cost....the number of corps competing in Open Class this past year was less than half of the number in the mid 90's.

The other benefit of regional circuits for Open Class corps was that they got to go on a real summer tour and not just the last few weeks of the season.

[baritone9172]

I understand not all change is good, but remember Darwins theory. Survival of the fittest. seems to me there are corps like cronw, blue stars, boston, blue coats, glassmen, and others have figured out how to adapt and become more successful over the last 10 years or so.

Great post coming right.... NOW...

This gets me thinking...

Biology Behind this Argument

Darwin's theory of "Fit" is as much of a matter of opinion to the biological world as it is a matter of opinion when put in context towards Drum Corps. Take the Human species (homo_sapiens) as we know it today. We are clearly on top of the food chain and would consider ourselves the most advanced and successful species on the planet, right? There are something like 6.3 billion of us on this planet. Sadly, there is only one surviving species of us in our genus (H0m0 ---> stupid filter won't let me speak with actual biological terms without it getting #'ed out) because years and years ago we out competed many of our close relatives, sometimes with brute force. That is how we made it where we are today.

NOW... Because we are not very diversified it would be much easier for us, or any sign of our existence to be wiped off the face of the earth by a disease, war, or natural disaster. Is that successful? Is that fit? Many will argue, "nope!" and I agree with those people. Take the taxonomic Order Coleoptera (now im really sounding like a nerd, but I promise, there is a point to all of this nerd talk) or more commonly known as the beetles. Think of your typical beetle right now, go ahead... well guess what... there are 349,999 other species of beetles on this planet. They constitute 25% of all known life forms on the planet under the taxonomic kingdom Animalia. That is a helluva lot more than 6.3 billion individuals. For the most part they all have a similar effect on the earth when compared to each other. If half of those species got wiped out over time (there would still be a helluva lot more than 6.3 billion individuals) that taxonomic order would still dominate and rediversify again. Their presence on Earth will still be felt for another million+ years. Talk about SUCCESS out of diversification!

Drum Corps Comparison

My point being... Drum Corps will soon enough destroy itself much like humans will destroy themselves someday (until we do die though we should preserve the drum corps activity :oD ). If it wants to continue and truly be SUCCESSFUL, it needs to diversify again. Drum corps used to be incredibly diverse! By diversify I mean that it needs to take all shapes and sizes: local, regional, international, small, large, all male, all female, church sponsored, scout sponsored, even more cadet corps (ALL of these don't really have to happen, but some do). Now this seems like it would be impossible and seems like it would hinder the quality of programing. How many churches out there now a days would really be able to sponsor a competitive corps? Not many, but that is because the activity has SPECIALIZED too much. It can still be incredibly competitive if it takes a SMALL step back and say... regionalizes again. This would help the activity re-diversify, it would not hurt the corps on the top of the food chain either, they will still have their DCI finals. Not all corps need to go to finals though. It is not always about the final score but also the lives it affects and the doors it opens in peoples lives. There are several SoCal corps that many of you have not heard of that are lucky enough to SEEM like there is some sort of regional circuit down there. That is only because there are a ton of corps and shows in the area that it is possible to have a 11 show schedule and call it a season in mid-July.

In my opinion, Spirit of Newark/New Jersey is just as important to the activity as Blue Devils. If said bottom tier Open Class corps gets wiped out, then the next one will be wiped out too for the same reason and more power to the top corps. There is more pressure on those top corps now to keep the activity alive. Numbers will dwindle until only the top twelve in World Class are left (I am not saying this will happen in the next year but it could in the next 20). Then if those corps get wiped out slowly, it is a pathway to the extinction of the activity.

There must be a healthy diversification of corps so that this never happens. The only way to get to that though is to take a small step back and give the "little guys" a bit of kicking room so they can thrive. Maybe regionalizing isn't the kicking room we need... maybe its something else i can't come up with now. Regionalizing COULD be that kicking room though... we won't know if anything is the right answer until it is tested out.

Edited September 22, 2008 by baritone9172

[Tom Brace]

Here are just a handful of disjointed thoughts which seem obvious to me........maybe not.

I will attempt to answer in an equally disjointed way.

1) Promoting the health of smaller, younger corps as DCM did is good for the activity at large. That's where a lot of kids who make up the top echelon corps learned the skills they needed to survive and thrive at the top.

Large corps do not (contrary to popular belief) get many members from smaller corps. Most students come from high school or college marching bands. The exceptions...SCV, BD and Colts (all have cadet/feeder corps). Many orgs used to have feeder corps...it just became too difficult in the 90s to afford them to continue.

2) DCM corps may have had more weeknight shows (but not as many more as some have suggested) BUT that was more than made up for by the fact that the corps were usually going only 150 to 200 miles per trip; not 400 to 500 miles per trip.

umm....when I was involved in direction of a DCM II/III corps, we had 31 DCM shows in 1997 and 30 in 1998. That was before the DCI II/III season started. So between the second weekend in June and the second third weekend in July...31 shows is almost everyday. It was rare to have a two day same facility stay over. The big guys were also touring quite a bit. It was the same 7 corps over and over again from Tuesday-Sunday almost. Then the next week, maybe one or two corps would rotate out and one or two would join and you'd go another couple of weeks...same corps night after night.

3) IE: A typical DCM show might have had two or three DIII corps, a DII corps, maybe a senior corps, and two or three DI corps. With as many as eight DI corps to choose from (Bluecoats, Glassmen, Cavaliers, Madison, Phantom, Colts, Pioneer, Southwind for awhile......Star before that) no one was getting way too much work. In my opinion doing two shows a three hour drive apart is no worse than doing one show in the same time frame but driving the corps eight or ten hours to get there.

Oh, you mean 2-3 parking lot corps (about 1/3 of the crowd in their seats....thn after intermission, the stands would fill up. Also, a show was really fortunate to get 3 Div. Is. And every corps had to do a home show so that upped the number of shows DCM had to schedule.

4) With the initial move away from DCM smaller corps like the Americanos and Marion Cadets got pinched. In today's economy it's the younger, smaller DI (er....WC) corps such as Southwind feeling the pinch. The demise or potential demise of these units is not good for anyone.

Your anecdote doesn't discuss all the reasons why Southwind is inactive and it doesn't begin to discuss the causes behind Cascades or Cap Reg. Fact of the matter, there are many contributing factors as to why corps survive or fail and this is no different than it has been in the past. Corps folded in every decade. The issue is that new corps are not taking their place and this is because the startup costs vs. the sustainability model is just too risky for most non-profit youth orgs. Starting a midnight basketball league or a soccer league are way more affordable options.

5) DCI has done some fabulous things and I appreciate that. To survive however, the tour model may have to be altered to draw on some of the things DCM has already taught us.......stay closer to home for the first half of the summer primarily.

Just to survive to this point DCI has done a wonderful job. I had my doubts in the late 90s as to whether DCI would be around for this decade. I think DCI is healthier now than they were in the 90s. That's a good thing. However, obstacles in the way of success still exist and some have gotten bigger in scope.

[Tom Brace]

What would a DCM circuit look like if one still existed anyway?

What shows would still exist?

How long would the schedule be?

I believe it would not be nearly as large as a 1996 example.

What would DCM be paying for corps to perform? How many sponsors would have chucked the whole idea by now?

[Peel Paint]

Large corps do not (contrary to popular belief) get many members from smaller corps. Most students come from high school or college marching bands. The exceptions...SCV, BD and Colts (all have cadet/feeder corps). Many orgs used to have feeder corps...it just became too difficult in the 90s to afford them to continue.

This is my impression as well. When the regional circuits were fading away, one of the common doomsday predictions was that this trend would hurt the quality of the top corps because they would have to give 18 year old kids more of the basic marching training that the smaller corps used to give. It didn't play out that way. There's no question in my mind that the performance skill of the World Class corps has never been higher than it is today. That's not to say that there aren't many problems being caused by fewer corps around to compete; of course there are. A falloff in performance skill of top corps didn't turn out to be one of them.

Edited September 22, 2008 by Peel Paint

[Peel Paint]

True. Joliet would have gotten $350 vs. the $2200 of a top corps like Cavaliers at a DCM show, IIRC. Given that Joliet would get $0 at a DCI show, I guess it's safe to say the pay gap was narrower under DCM.

[me: The Cavaliers objected to the DCM system of paying show fees, which in their view, subsidized smaller corps at their expense.]

Wow - really? They must be absolutely LIVID with DCI, then, because that is precisely how DCI operates.

No, as I know you realize, The Cavaliers were not "livid" with the DCI formula, though the smaller DCM corps were very unhappy with it, and understandably so. At the time this all came down, as I recall, Jeff Fiedler was the chair of the DCI Board of Directors, and was a factor in DCM's demise. I recall his argument being that DCI's distribution of show fees was much more equitable in terms of covering his corps' expenses than DCM's, and this was a key reason he cited in wanting The Cavaliers off the DCM circuit, though he likely knew that DCM would have difficulty surviving without the top midwestern corps. An alternate view would be that this was a red herring, and that it had more to do with ego than money, but I'd be skeptical that that was all of it. Again, your view/memory differs? I can live with it.

Edited September 22, 2008 by Peel Paint

[Tom Brace]

No, as I know you realize, The Cavaliers were not "livid" with the DCI formula, though the smaller DCM corps were very unhappy with it, and understandably so. At the time this all came down, as I recall, Jeff Fiedler was the chair of the DCI Board of Directors, and was a factor in DCM's demise. I recall his argument being that DCI's distribution of show fees was much more equitable in terms of covering his corps' expenses than DCM's, and this was a key reason he cited in wanting The Cavaliers off the DCM circuit, though he likely knew that DCM would have difficulty surviving without the top midwestern corps. An alternate view would be that this was a red herring, and that it had more to do with ego than money, but I'd be skeptical that that was all of it. Again, your view/memory differs? I can live with it.

It wasn't just Fieldler. I had a frank discussion with P Siedling outside of Hononegah HS before their dress rehearsal during that time. He was very much in favor of the move to DCI Central. For a corps director, it is really a question of two objectives being met with one move...financial is definitely the main motivation, however, from a logisitics perspective, having fewer overnight hauls is also a better thing for the entire traveling organization....more rest for everyone and in some regards, safer transport.

[Shannon98]

The DCM payscale formula was based on each corps' score and the size of each corps at the DeKalb DCM Championship from the prior year.

A certain score range netted a corps a certain dollar figure, a certain corps' size range netted another dollar figure.

As example, if using the 2000 DCM Championship, 2000 score + 2000 size of corps=payscale per show for 2001.

DCA-Central uses the same type formula, only based on the score and size corps from the DCA championship.

See here is the problem with the way DCM paid and more of why the bigger corps were getting upset. It was because corps that were not full would have plugs or non drum corps people stand on the field during DCM championship so that they would get the higher DCM money. So when people say Fiedler represented the big corps' ideas and Roman represented the small corps' ideas, Roman and many other Division 1 corps would munipulate their numbers in order for a corps to get to the maximum number so they could get maximum pay. So for all of you that went to DCM prelims (not finals) and saw a lot of corps with members standing off to the side that corps was trying to earn their pay for the next summer. It had nothing to do with scores or how well a corps performed it was strictly off of membership numbers. Often those plugs were kids that agreed to stand for one night and you would never see them again after that.

Uh yeah lets hear it being honest!

[Tom Brace]

See here is the problem with the way DCM paid and more of why the bigger corps were getting upset. It was because corps that were not full would have plugs or non drum corps people stand on the field during DCM championship so that they would get the higher DCM money. So when people say Fiedler represented the big corps' ideas and Roman represented the small corps' ideas, Roman and many other Division 1 corps would munipulate their numbers in order for a corps to get to the maximum number so they could get maximum pay. So for all of you that went to DCM prelims (not finals) and saw a lot of corps with members standing off to the side that corps was trying to earn their pay for the next summer. It had nothing to do with scores or how well a corps performed it was strictly off of membership numbers. Often those plugs were kids that agreed to stand for one night and you would never see them again after that.

Uh yeah lets hear it being honest!

Oh...and the corps I could name on that front. And then the numbers manipulation that went on after DCM for the DCI season. Let's see....what division is Mandarins this year? Sounds all too familiar.

Worked with two DCM corps....both II/III....and never did we put someone on the sidelines for a competition. We did have members march most of the show and then step out if needed. But, it is much easier to see your spot sitting next to your tech in the stands.