Official DCP G7 Proposal Discussion Thread

[garfield]

Incorrect.

No where in this document does it state this is (a) an ultimatum (b) the final version of the proposal. .

page 48:

"AND … we are agreed that in 2011 these new events need to occur; we will act as necessary to enable a change."

[SDBassCreature]

And now that its public... boom goes the dynamite.

Which still begs the questions......who leaked it?

[mobrien]

I've been (and continue to be agnostic) on the proposal, but on looking at the PPT, a few bells are going off that should be highlighted. I'll say all the all of the following is simply thinking aloud, so take it for what you will...

1). The current DCI competition model isn't working. Rather than DCI being a merit-based fraternity made up of the exclusive 12 corps who made Finals the year before plus some associates (and not worrying at all about everyone else), DCI has become the power center for the entire activity - something it was never designed to do. This proposal, in many ways, is a "roots movement", scaling the size of the group considered "the major acts" to something commensurate with the overall size of the activity. I proposed here a few years ago that the "Top !2" be reduced to a "Top 9" in keeping with the need to retain SOME exclusivity, and was told I was being "elitist", but the truth is that if over half of the World Class corps can attain the ultimate achievement of "Finalist", hasn't Finals already lost some its lustre?

2). As stated in their proposal and generally acknowledged by the cognescenti, Blue Devils, Vanguard, PR, Crown, Cadets, Cavaliers, and (to a lesser extent) Bluecoats are the marketing engines that drive most of the bigger shows these days. Is there a reason why these 7 shouldn't be in line for a greater share in the revenues they create? Let's call things what they are ; if everyone else was able to get into the ring with these guys and STAY in the ring with these guys, the activity would be a lot healthier - but with the exceptions of Crown and Bluecoats, the other 5 have been playing their own game for most of the last 25 years, some even longer (with obvious incursions from a few others over the last 10 years). To an extent, the rest of the activity has let these guys dictate what happens by failing to step up to the plate and swing well enough to score.

3) If the non-7 corps feel a door slammed in their face by the G7 proposal, they have to remember that there are a lot of doors in the hallway. This could be a chance for them go off on their own and actually get MORE creative than the big guys can be in terms of programming, marketing, and rules. If the Big Guys are zigging, that gives everyone else a chance to zag off into a direction these guys can't follow because they're too heavy. Not to stick with the boxing analogies too long, but if you have a larger, heavier opponent, sometimes you can still win by being more agile and quicker on your feet. If that means more "fun" corps made up of weekend warriors, with a scoring system that rewards spectator appreciation over designer frou-frou, then that's what they SHOULD do. But, if the other corps feel that they don't have the courage to go off on their own and take the DCI organization with them, or think they don't have the resources to promote the activity without the G7, then they are as much as acknowledging the central point of the original proposal; that these7 really ARE the muscle in the activity.

There are enough smart promoters in the non-7 ranks to come up with their own alternative league of drum corps, if they wanted to. They'd just have to come up with some visionaries of their own, some guys who are willing to acknowledge that this is an opportunity for THEM to manage their own destinies the way the original founders of DCI did back in the early 70s.

4). That being said, there's a bit of ideological dishonesty in the 7 trying to tell everyone else to worry about themselves and managing their own tours, after many of these 7 (or their representatives) were instrumental in destroying the regional associations that used to be there to promote the smaller corps. They would do well to acknowledge their complicity in driving DCM and others under by working with the non-7 corps to reconstruct non-profit orgs that could manage shows for the non-7 corps, with an emphasis on looking for ways to co-ordinate with DCA in setting up the non-7 attended Friday and Sunday night shows.

5. They would REALLY help themselves out if they pledged to remain brass and percussion only in perpetuity. Yeah, ain't gonna happen, but it would be a good PR move.

6. I'm not sure where they got any market research that makes them believe that they should become "more accessible" to high school band kids in order to be more popular. Make what they do even MORE "band nerd friendly", and they've cut their cool factor by half. The job of the "elite" in any activity is TO BE ELITE. It should be the job of the non-7 corps to be more fan friendly, giving the fan base two complementary but competing personae to choose from.

Unlike most here, I'm actually more prone to thinking this idea is one whose time has come and should be negotiated with rather than disparaged. But all the players on both sides of the fence would do well to keep this pithy quote in mind

"...rigorous skepticism is a creative force because most of the damage is done by overconfident people who thought they knew the answer when they didn’t. "

Edited May 25, 2010 by mobrien

[JimF-LowBari]

This is gonna be like reading the Bible. People will find lines here and there that they think support their pre-conceived ides/opinions. And those lines will be the nub of the whoooooole enchalada.

Time to nuke the popcorn.....

[corpsband]

This is gonna be like reading the Bible. People will find lines here and there that they think support their pre-conceived ides/opinions. And those lines will be the nub of the whoooooole enchalada.

Time to nuke the popcorn.....

The document itself doesn't help matters -- it is not very well put together (it seems to contradict itself in some place).

Putting on hat -- it's a powerpoint slideshow which was originally presented with a live person explaining / refining all the content therein. (Yes I did say that Hop is actually alive and not demon spawn)! So the slideshow is very incomplete (especially since none of the speaker notes (if any) were included in the PDF).

[bawker]

Oh, and for us alumni and old people, this nugget from Slide 23: "creating an audience or building an audience is NOT something to be directed to the public." It's for high school band kids. OK, that settles that.

I was extremely disappointed to read that.

Lots to take in here and think about; however, the parallels between this proposal overall and the 1997 "supercorps" concept that Hop floated are clear.

[Jocko the Wonder Llama]

Noted on page five:

Poor attendance, high overhead, and a base of more corps than the organization can support, has put the organization’s continued existence in jeopardy

Gee, what happened to the assertions that ticket sales were good?

"As much as the “G7” are proud members of Drum Corps International, we believe that change is necessary to assure our continued service to our students and our communities."

Am I the only one who sees this as really saying: "...change is necessary to assure our survival..." In other words " If you're not one of us, to hell with you."

[AlexL]

Gee, what happened to the assertions that ticket sales were good?

Exactly. Maybe its time to reexamine some of the changes made the past few years if ticket sales are suffering. And maybe even reexamine the premise that we shouldnt be trying to build an audience through the general public.

How many of these 'high school band kids' leave band after high school, never think about band again, and because of that, leave drum corps behind as well?

[Brad T.]

I love the voting procedure proposal. The AAA Class corps will have twice the voting power of AA corps, and A and Open Class corps have no vote.

Therefore anything that the G7/AAA corps want, they get. No matter what. Completely and totally unfair, at least in my opinion.

[cybersnyder]

So they're really proposing this for 2011?? There's no way in hell they'll get everything together in time to make a major change like this for 2011. They can't even put together an clean slide deck. The only thing worse than this being attempted is this being attempted in a half ### manner.

Thanks to whoever leaked the document. You did the right thing.