Hindsight

[gesiferd]

Here's my theory: casinos killed local bingo; loss of bingo revenue killed local drum corps. How's that sound?

[JimF-LowBari]

15 yard penalty for illegal use of common sense.

What sucks worse? When I suffer from CRS (Can't Remember S###) or when I CAN remember S###?

Actually kinda fun reading the Junior boards when I come from the All-Age/Alumni side. Get a slant on things Junior-only people don't have.

[perc2100]

I think that the only way to have helped most of the corps who folded is for a LOT of people who won the lottery to give generously. From what I know from "insiders," the majority of the corps that folded did so because of financial reasons. If we're really being honest, back in the olden days drum corps was run mostly with good intentions, and not enough business sense. People who run corps do so because they have a VERY strong passion. Now-a-days a lot of corps directors have business training, where as I think a lot of corps in the 60's, 70's, 80's, and even in the 90's were run by guys who wanted to provide a great performance experience for young people. I know of directors who personally paid for essential things for a corps just to keep them on the road (for example, a corps is not selling enough souvies and in order to fill up the fleet, or feed the members, the corps director would pay out of pocket to keep things going). As that is no way for a healthy organization to be run, when directors and staff can no longer afford to pay for the corps the corps has no choice but to fold due to no money. Now, I think many current directors no only have the love of the activity, the drive to bring a great performance/education opportunity to you people, AND business training.

Of course, sometimes corps have financial issues even when their directors has a business degree. There are TONS of alternatives to drum corps that cost a lot less for young people, and recruiting seems to be difficult for all but the most competitively successful corps. We can blame show design evolution, national touring model, out-of-town recruitment instead of local recruitment, etc, but the heart of this is corps that folded generally spent above their means and when they were too far in debt there was no choice but to fold.

I agree that we're well passed lamenting the loss of our favorite corps (for what it's worth, the corps that I marched with folded in the mid-00's), and should instead focus on keeping the corps on the field in healthy business shape. Donate and volunteer when possible: it's something fairly easy that most of us can do.

[JimF-LowBari]

Doug I ageree with most of your post. But there were corps that I know of who went under BITD due to financial reasons that were not due to mis-management or bad business sense. For these corps there was only so much money that could be expected from sponsors and/or the local community. When gas prices tripled and other expenses exploded there was no place to find the additional funding that was needed. Added to the problem were places that hit an economic down turn and even less funding could be expected. Not only less money but the local population was leaving town. Little hard to keep a Drum Corps going when downtown turns into a ghost town. Especially true for any inner city corps (or any inner city entity).

Edited January 11, 2010 by JimF-3rdBari

[audiodb]

You know, it could also be argued that membership is at a high right now, since most corps don't seem to have a problem filling their sections.

No. There were ten times as many corps back in the day.

[audiodb]

The truth, for me at least, is a lot more obvious than music played, Bb or G bugles, blah blah blah. The truth is that in the 60's and 70's (and much more in the 50's) Americans were a nation of joiners. There were three channels on the TV, if you were lucky, there was no Netflix or iTunes, or....you get the idea. All "joining" activities (church, Boy/Girl scouts, mainline churches, Rotary, Kiwanis, VFW, Elks) have experienced precipitous declines- you could look it up.

I guess you didn't look up youth soccer?

[mobrien]

Can we get a listing of the number of competitive high school marching bands now vs the number from 1970?

Some of us dinosaurs might not like it, but for better or worse, the role that was played by local corps 40 years ago has been taken over by school bands. If you're willing to allow that school band is the new "local drum corps", then you might find that the number of kids per capita who are competing in marching contests has stayed about the same or possibly increased relative to the overall high school population from 40 years ago.

Edited January 11, 2010 by mobrien

[audiodb]

Uh huh. Or it could just be shifting demographics (the baby boom peaked in the late 50s, with a requisite drop in available teenagers in the late 70s), greatly increased fuel and insurance costs, reduced numbers of active members in the adult service organizations that used to fund community corps, the introduction of other new activities for kids under the age of 20, the rise of competitive high school marching band, and the reduction in adult volunteers that went along with that reduction in teenagers.

Though you're welcome to believe that if drum corps in the 70s had just stuck with single tenors, valve/piston horns, and goal line entry and exits, that you'd still have a drum corps in every village and town.

Yours aren't the only eyes rolling at this point.

You make some valid points (the baby boom, for example)....but in the end, they are just excuses. All youth activities in the same era had to confront the same challenges, yet they didn't all shrink in number of participants. Some actually grew. Ever stop to think why that is?

Perhaps if the leadership of the drum corps activity had looked at the issues you bring up (like increasing transportation costs and decreasing pool of adult volunteers), and developed strategies to confront those issues (like focusing on operating models that are less travel-intensive and less demanding for volunteers), we'd have kept more corps around. Perhaps if they did this now, we'd preserve the few corps we have left. Perhaps that, combined with the marketing and recruiting strategies developed on DCI's watch the past dozen years, could even generate growth.

Or we could just make excuses instead.

[JimF-LowBari]

I guess you didn't look up youth soccer?

Is that still growing like it did in the 90s (only time I got near it)?

Nephews got involved in this back then and got told two reasons why it was expanding so much at the time. And I can see how this can be applied to DC.

1) Probably cheapest sport to put on the field. At the cheapest end the biggest expense are the balls themselves. Only other needed things are traffic cones or flags to mark field and goal boundaries and t-shirts to tell the teams apart.

2) Everyone involved and feels part of the team. Even if a kid stinks at sports they can be on the field and at least follow the mob. Compare that to best 9 or 11 kids in baseball or football and the sucky kids spend the season on the bench.

Biggest problem is finding volunteers for whatever is needed (can name a few other activities that died off or are dying due to this).

[audiodb]

Some of us dinosaurs might not like it, but for better or worse, the role that was played by local corps 40 years ago has been taken over by school bands.

Depends on how you define "the role". If "the role" is merely to educate X number of kids, then yes. If "the role" is to make programs available to kids in general (not just the ones in certain school districts), then not so much. If "the role" is to produce a marching music activity best suited for the field and most entertaining for the audiences, then no.

If you're willing to allow that school band is the new "local drum corps", then you might find that the number of kids per capita who are competing in marching contests has stayed about the same or possibly increased relative to the overall high school population from 40 years ago.

We will never have the numbers....but I think you could safely assert that more kids "march" today thanks to HS marching band. Which, of course, provides another example of a youth activity that has grown despite rising costs and declining youth population.