Official DCP G7 Proposal Discussion Thread

[BigW]

Instead of adding lasers, smoke machines, Taylor Swift videos and text voting to make the event more exciting why not make the individual shows more exciting? Stop writing for the judges and write the shows for the people in the stands. Even if you line up all the Hooters girls along the sideline, you're not going to get people to attend that have no interest in drum corps or marching band. It's a limited, fickle market so listen to them and if you give them a good, solid product they will come. They will buy your souvenirs and send you money during your donation campaigns. But if you shaft your loyal base, don't expect mainstream America to come and replace them in the stands. They don't care.

I and olhers have been saying this- falls on deaf ears.

[MikeN]

But on the other hand, the framers of this had to anticipate the radical reaction it would receive, even within the DCI fraternity. I would have dotted all my i's and crossed all my t's before submitting this proposal for a vote or a review.

On that I totally agree - that's what I've been coming back to this morning. We're not the audience for this, clearly, as it is/was a private document. However, if you expect to sell this to your peers, whom you're asking to give up money, voting rights and exposure, you'd #### well better have your ducks in a row, and that was sadly lacking here.

Mike

[BRASSO]

Wish I was as optimistic as you , I just don't see it. This was an outright declaration of war between Hopkins and his supporters and Acheson and his. IMHO this will lead to an eventual split and the activity will suffer for it.

I'll take a stab at how I see this being played out within the year :

1) George's-7 have their closed door sessions, and after dotting the " i" and crossing their " t's ", they bring it to DCI

2) the Non G-7 Corps tell George's -7 that while they like a few concepts in it, as written it's a non starter with them and to a) go back to the drawing board, or b) drop the proposal, or c) put to a vote a few concept elements that might meet with majority support and could pass.

3) George says that's not an option, vote it up or down in total.

4) George's -7 Proposal is put to a vote, and is voted down.

5) George-7 then huddle to decide to leave DCI or stay under the current system.

6) Some of George's -7 opt to stay with DCI.

7) George and perhaps 1 or 2 others of George's-7 decide to leave DCI and form an alliance with another organization afiliated with marching bands that will allow their group to implement some or all of George's ideas.

But that's just my speculation here in May of 2010.

Edited May 25, 2010 by BRASSO

[AlexL]

On that I totally agree - that's what I've been coming back to this morning. We're not the audience for this, clearly, as it is/was a private document. However, if you expect to sell this to your peers, whom you're asking to give up money, voting rights and exposure, you'd #### well better have your ducks in a row, and that was sadly lacking here.

Mike

Agreed.

Very poorly handled... sure gives you a lot of confidence in some of the bigwigs running things at the 'g7'

[BigW]

2) Enjoy this year. I think its very clear there goal is to merge with the band community

Drum corps will be finished soon.

DCA will still be around. There's still a place to go and enjoy things the way they were meant to be enjoyed.

And hopefully, if some of these smaller corps get shoved out the door by the G7, maybe some of them might explore being a part of it. I think they'd find welcome arms.

[BigW]

No, there is not. People go to DCI shows to see a contest, not just individual corps.

Thank you. Wasn't able to articulate this cleanly. DCI is NOT NASCAR, and I think the G7 may be using it as their model.

[audiodb]

Well... yeah, except for the "suck" part. That language is unnecessary. It's probably not seven, and we can argue the merits of including this corps or that corps... but at that point we're just haggling over where the line should be drawn.

You can't draw a line without consensus on where to draw it. Helps to have a discrete criterion you can point to as justification. Where is that criterion?

Most participants in this discussion have already conceded that there are corps who take more from the activity than they earn.

I beg to differ.

They've conceded this point with every protest than Corps X cannot survive without the support the G7 corps provide. An organization with limited resources cannot maintain that dynamic for long and expect to survive.

I beg to differ there too.

I read the proposal in full this morning, and I'm amazed how closely my posts in the past week have mirrored what was actually said. I have concerns about the proposed show format, but the first half of the proposal makes a lot of sense to me. The problem of limited resources must be confronted. DCI cannot be all things to all corps. It seems many on here want DCI to be able to provide for every corps' every need, and that simply cannot happen. So instead we have to make decisions about how to allocate the resources we do have. The fact of limited resources requires that we make trade-offs. None of us are going to be able to get everything we want moving forward.

In other words, you believe DCI can't sustain 23 corps, and should pick some lesser number? (It's OK, you are entitled to your opinion.)

Now, if you wanted to sell the activity to someone new, would you do that with the Cascades or the Blue Devils?

I'd sell it to the corps that meet DCI's world-class evaluation criteria. All categories....financial, organizational, ethical, competitive, and so on.

So the Blue Devils should be your priority.

Why? Just because of competitive placement? Have they undergone a full DCI evaluation? If we have limited resources to invest, let's make sure we're investing in corps that will still be there two or three years from now.

All this talk of brotherhood and camaraderie is nice, until there's not enough revenue to cover the costs incurred by all corps. At that point, what right does Pacific Crest have to revenue pulled in by the Blue Devils?

Please identify which revenue the Blue Devils brought in. Oh, that's right....you can't.

What right do Open Class corps have to resources paid for by the G7 corps? An appeal to resources based on need alone does nothing to sway me.

I guess I'm misinformed. Are open-class events being paid for by checks written against the accounts of YEA!, Carolina Crown Inc., and BD Performing Arts?

When you run your corps in such a way that you depend on other corps for survival, then you've intentionally set your corps under the whim of the larger corps. If that corps decides that the benefit to them no longer justifies the costs incurred, then the onus is on your corps to do something about it. It might be a sink or swim approach, but by definition a corps that cannot swim on its own is a drain on the activity. Resources that could be used to grow the presence of the G7 corps on a national stage are instead sunk into keeping many corps afloat. I'd love there to be hundreds and hundreds of active corps, just as everyone reading this thread I'm sure would agree. But DCI cannot fund those hundreds of corps alone. This proposal acknowledges that, and if nothing else pushes DCI to refocus its mission. The crude way to phrase it is 'shedding dead weight', but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

So "suck" wasn't OK, but "dead weight" is?

The priorities of the Blue Devils and Revolution are vastly different. Let's recognize that, and allow corps like Revolution and Oregon Crusaders find a business model that works best for them.

Can't they find that model in partnership with DCI? Oh, that's right....someone decided DCI must be less than 23 corps. Sorry.

In all due seriousness, you raise a potentially valid concern....but you don't connect all the dots. Maybe, in a financial crisis (which has not been established), it might become very difficult for DCI to maintain the present operating model with the present number of corps. The idea - reduce the number of corps. But rather than just continue balancing DCI's budget and let natural selection do it's thing, you want seven corps to decide who lives and who dies. And these lucky seven are either self-appointed, or picked based on competitive placement alone....an archaic, 1972-era concept.

You insist that corps deserve more money solely for placing higher, an archaic 1960s-era concept....but you can't quantify their value as a portion of DCI's collective value.

You insist on drawing a line and excluding some corps, an archaic 1920s-era concept....but you can't say where that line should be drawn.

Think outside the box. If anyone (you included) were that serious about sustainability concerns, the sensible solution to that concern would be to address it head-on, corps by corps. Take one of DCI's recent innovations - the evaluation process - and use it. Evaluate all DCI world-class corps. Maybe you'll find some "dead weight" on the financial/organizational side....organizations that can't even sustain one competing corps, much less add value through producing events, staging clinics, marketing and merchandising. Perhaps that step alone would achieve the necessary downsizing ("right-sizing") to float DCI's boat. If not, the evaluation criteria can always be tweaked to yield the desired number of qualifying corps, if that is your goal.

Otherwise, don't you think it is silly to claim the model doesn't work anymore, but suggest solutions based on 40-year-old principles?

[bawker]

However, he rarely fails to give us something to think about and to talk about and he's been courageous in stepping forward and offering ideas that no one else is willing to do. He has the body armor of an armadillo and you're not going to hurt his feelings by disagreeing with him.

He's given us absolutely nothing new from 1997. Same AAA/AA/A classification system, same "super corps" concept, same presentation, tweaked a bit to get buy-in from BD and a few others. He doesn't give us anything new to think about, Mike . . .he only offers "band, band, band" as his steady refrain. There's nothing new to think about, unless you haven't been a student of his proposals over the years and the "cloud of chaos" he enjoys operating in is new to you.

It is my belief that once all this dust settles, we're going to be a healthier activity and just about everyone is going to be happy with how things turn out. How will it all turn out? I don't know. But I do know that those deeply involved in drum corps are resolute in their desire to see something good come from all of this. I wish them all luck. And, selfishly perhaps, I hope to continue to be a part of it all.

You read the proposal; people with very real jobs and very real family expenses are threatened to be cut from DCIs payroll in order for a few corps to take over administrative duties so those corps make more money. As a kind of employee of theirs for some years, I'd think this would hit home for you moreso than the rest of us.

[BigW]

Know of anybody who walked away from watching Drum Corps and came back after a couple of years? Only person I know is me and only competition I watch is DCA Weekend. And if I wasn't with my parade corps group I might go every other year or so if that.

What people don't realize is when you stop following corps, other things come up to fill in that time. And if you even thing about getting involved again, those new other things will interfere. And believe me, it don't hurt to quit going, I missed it at times the first summer but barely though of it after that. Only came back because of a few co-incidences and the desire (and spare time) to play again.

Sound bite: Easy for 'em to leave, #### near impossible for 'em to come back.

True. I try and go to the QF simulcast, it may conflict with the IRL/ALMS weekend at Mid-Ohio, which my Dad and I look forward to. We have a great time together- he walked off from DCI about 10 years ago with the exception of PR.

I got to Scranton-DCA last year, had a wonderful time. Didn't care it comflicted with DCI East. All I know is that if I don't order tickets on day one for East, I end up on the 25. Maybe now if the attendance is declining, I might be able to get real tickets, huh!?

Been trying to hit Lewisburg DCA when I can, etc. Almost all local DCI shows are all YEA! events, which leave me rather underwhelmed and really not caring to go. Read the hype, see the prices, I don't think it's worth my effort and money to support them. The loss of the Hershey Spectacular was a real kick in the &*#%$ for most corps fans in this area.

So yeah, once you get out into the real world, very hard to come back, especially once you get your eyes opened to the reality of a lot of what's going on.

[BigW]

I've gone back and forth on him and his shows over the years as well, mainly opposing his burning desire to fill the field with voices, saxes, clarinets, and flutes. But now, faced with the choice between continuing on in the status quo, and doing Blast! and clinics, Hop has said the former is not financially or creatively viable in his view, and he wants to take the Cadets and as many other top corps as he can in a new direction. The changes he has brought about have not advanced the ball, in my view, and therefore, I don't trust him to reshape drum corps' future. I hope he will go with our blessings. We will miss his creativity, but he is divisive, self-centered, and not helpful overall.

Preach on.