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Parades with more drum corp presence!


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This getting paid to March Parades still baffles me. As TAFL said, we don't get paid for Parades and are tickled pink when they don't charge an entry fee. The Parade we are turning into a yearly event, the Johnson County Fair Parade in Gardner, KS, is kind of an off season Parade making us one of two musical units in the Parade.

We are adding another one in October, The Maple Leaf Parade in Baldwin City, KS, a small College Town. We will try to add another parade in 2010 and may eventually get a schedule of 6 Parades from August to October. There are more of them as virtually every town in the Kansas City Metro Area and surrounding area has a Town or County Celebration. For us it's a matter of how many people we can muster, What time the Parade starts, is there and entry fee or not and is it Televised.

We have two Televised Parades in Kansas City, the American Royal and the St. Patrick's Day Parade. The American Royal is a big deal so we want to start this one when we have little bit bigger unit and the St. Pat's Parade has been elusive due to it's weekday/during Spring Break scheduling.

I'm pretty sure we have had fun in the two parades we have marched. It feels good to get the corps out in the public eye.

Our Ultimate goal is still to do a field show which is about 100 times more fun than a Parade.

Edited by Kansan
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Thought about it after I posted and the Memorial parades we do locally at Hanover and Gettysburg are unpaid (pretty sure G-burg is unpaid). Also perform at the Memorial Day ceremony at Hanover and give a concert afterwards near our American Legion home. Way for the corps to give back to the community and our Legion sponsor. Just didn't want to give the impression everything was done on a mercenary basis.

Northeast parades have been historically paid affairs. That's one of the reasons why there are a lot of Alumni-type corps today and Senior corps BITD. Quite simply they help a lot of corps survive. We average about 10 parades a year including the two Memorial Day parades memntioned above.

Edited by JimF-3rdBari
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True. It doesn't take huge numbers to do a parade, though.

Around here, we don't get paid for parades, so it's entirely for the fun of it and recruiting.

no, but if you have a rep for being a large group, then show up 1/2 as big, the sponsors may get ###### and not book you again

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no, but if you have a rep for being a large group, then show up 1/2 as big, the sponsors may get ###### and not book you again

We are doing it the other way around. We have a reputation of having a dozen members show and will work up from there. :lol:

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Here in Western NY a volunteer firemen's convention is held once a year in the hometown of the outgoing president. This is a 3 day affair ending with a huge parade (many years go I may add) with many corps playing for their local fire departments and competing for the top prize of a few bucks. Along with many high school bands, it was truly a spectators delight. At times some corps did double duty. Many played for a few cases of beer at the firemen's tent. All in all, it was a helluva time to be sure. In the July heat, one does build up quite a thirst.

Sadly, I witnessed last year's parade and I counted 2 musical units (could have been double vision, but who's counting) for the entire parade and to much distance between divisions. Times a changing! Back then, the convention ended on Wednesdays followed by the parade at 3 or so, then changed to a Saturday afternoon and drum corp dwindled. Now, that parade is held on a Friday evening and it aint gettin better.

Yeah Ed, the Irondequoit Fourth of July parade was great with all those corps and did not have to search them out. Heard them before I got out of the truck. Cant forget Prime Time added to that mix and it was fun to be part of it all. Being the last corp down the street, its always a pleasure to stop and play Georgia for a very appreciative crowd. And with ice cream at the end! What a deal!!!!

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Here in Western NY a volunteer firemen's convention is held once a year in the hometown of the outgoing president. This is a 3 day affair ending with a huge parade (many years go I may add) with many corps playing for their local fire departments and competing for the top prize of a few bucks. Along with many high school bands, it was truly a spectators delight. At times some corps did double duty. Many played for a few cases of beer at the firemen's tent. All in all, it was a helluva time to be sure. In the July heat, one does build up quite a thirst.

Sadly, I witnessed last year's parade and I counted 2 musical units (could have been double vision, but who's counting) for the entire parade and to much distance between divisions. Times a changing! Back then, the convention ended on Wednesdays followed by the parade at 3 or so, then changed to a Saturday afternoon and drum corp dwindled. Now, that parade is held on a Friday evening and it aint gettin better.

Yeah Ed, the Irondequoit Fourth of July parade was great with all those corps and did not have to search them out. Heard them before I got out of the truck. Cant forget Prime Time added to that mix and it was fun to be part of it all. Being the last corp down the street, its always a pleasure to stop and play Georgia for a very appreciative crowd. And with ice cream at the end! What a deal!!!!

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I would assume Albgren62 means Albion Grenadiers 1962? If so, this year Irondequoit's fourth of July parade had, (in no particular order) Empire Statesmen, Crusaders, Dansville White Sabres and Mighty St. Joe's. They are there you just have to look for them.

MSJ will march about 11 parades this year. Post DCA, Sept 12 they march in the parade in Gaines.

ALBGREN62 - A Loud Bugle Garners Respectable Enthusiastic Notice (62 is for conspiracy theorists to figure out)

OR

ALBGREN62 - A Low Bugle Garners Retaliatory Expletives Nastily (62 same as above).

One's choice depending on wind and humidity.

Yes Mr Drum Major you are correct in your assumption and the shako is off to ya!

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and when the lead sops and baritones dont show up, it makes for an interesting sound :lol:

that is the problem swith parades, not everyone shows up.

DA

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and when the lead sops and baritones dont show up, it makes for an interesting sound :lol:

that is the problem swith parades, not everyone shows up.

DA

Hey Donny that starts another whole conversation... Keeping the numbers up...Turn out, Distance members travel now...Schedule changes that have happened over the last 15 years.. It's tough to keep it going for sure...Adding performances is difficult... Not having the revenue from performances makes it difficult to support the budget...But this conversation is for a fall / winter mess here on DCP.. LOL

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and when the lead sops and baritones dont show up, it makes for an interesting sound :lol:

that is the problem swith parades, not everyone shows up.

DA

One learns defensive scoring in that instance. Our parade charts are scored in seven parts. They also work well without the contra, so we can go with six. We can also do without one other part, so five works. It's even possible to get nice chord coverage behind the melody with only four of the parts covered (though I wouldn't want to have to do that). Our standards library is getting worked over in the same fashion.

Can you tell that was a lesson learned in agony?

We had an exhibition once where we had no sopranos show up. Bumped our single mello player to soprano, then covered mello parts with bari and contra(!) (we had extra baris at that performance).

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