Minneapolis Corps Directors Meeting

[GUARDLING]

This doesnt really support anyones point here but the question that comes to me after I read this is...

What if modern DCI drum corps did not own $200K in pit equipment and another $100K in amplification equipment, $175K in horns, didnt design new uniforms every year, and didnt lease new busses for 2 1/2 months, and constitute a long caravan of expensive vehicles all needing fuel, and didnt need to have a rolling commisary with food and operators and didnt have "professional" staff instead utilizing people who were doing it for the love of the activity and didnt find it necessary to cross cross the country touring, and didnt compulsively rig the game to make sure all the competitive success stayed concentrated among a handful of groups thus slowly but certainly choking off the activity to all but a few?

What if the delusional power brokers in drum corps had realized years ago that drum corps they way the envision it will NEVER be more than a small niche activity? What if those same people didnt essentially use their drum corps to promote and market their personal skills to the wider marching band world for their own personal financial security? What if the so called stewards of the activity had actually done their jobs?

Perhaps there would be no need for proposals which concentrate more money and power into the hands of amateurs who brought the activity to this rotten pass in the first place?

Well thats alot of " WHAT IFs"....lol

[JimF-LowBari]

Exactly. With the existing rules why is a parade with more than two corps OK, but another "event" with more than two corps is not? If a corps wants to devote time to combined corps events outside of DCI, let them. They may make more money, but my guess it will show competitively.

Well a parade is OK but what about field exhibitions and stand still concerts?

Really wondering since my Senior corps hosted these events with DCI corps BITD which might be not allowed today.

[MikeN]

Personal attacks have been removed from posts in this thread. Please refrain from name calling.

Thanks,

Mike

[mobrien]

It occurs to me the kind of thinking that finds the G7 model persuasive seems to come from all the people who when they hear Dinosaurs become indignant about how DCI is ruining drum corps, point out that DCI is the corps. If money is going through DCI's bank accounts first it is because the directors of the DCI corps who as pointed out are DCI have arranged it to be so.

They have created their own problems (to the detriment of the activity as a whole) and now whine when things dont go as they envisioned.

The model that the founders envisioned clearly saw DCI as a tool to make sure that the member corps (those "elitists" who started it, plus whoever else earned membership in the club) got the money at the end of the day, not EVERY corps in existence. And for the first half of DCI's existence, that model worked. You made Finals, you became a member corps, you benefitted from your elite status. The "private club" model was what Bill Howard and Royer and Warren and Bonfiglio, etc, etc, put their personal guarantees on the line to create.

I've said numerous times - the bulk of the G7 proposal was short-sighted. Good thing that it's now a dead issue.

But the elements that allowed some corps within the DCI membership pool to work together to create events that they could use to profit off their own popularity among the fans seems fair and reasonable. In the same way that I thought the Boston/Madison contest was brilliant strategy, I'd see groups of corps - regardless of who they are - looking for inventive way to bundle and market themselves as good for the corps and good for the activity.

Edited August 5, 2010 by mobrien

[Tank]

Personal attacks have been removed from posts in this thread. Please refrain from name calling.

Thanks,

Mike

POOPYHEAD!!!!!

[Tank]

OTOH, if you had a C3 show the day after East, it would draw better than 1800 - the G7, like everybody else, have a much more compelling product in August than they do in mid-June.

So using this logic (and I realize you were just running with someone else's point), it sounds like the G7 Cirque du Whatever concept would likely draw the exact same (and same number of) fans into its fold (less any one alienated by the presumed G7/DCI split).

[ShortAndFast]

So using this logic (and I realize you were just running with someone else's point), it sounds like the G7 Cirque du Whatever concept would likely draw the exact same (and same number of) fans into its fold (less any one alienated by the presumed G7/DCI split).

My belief is that a G7-only show will draw fewer fans than a nearby DCI full regional would draw. But the disparity won't be as big as 1800 @ C3 vs 9000 @ East would suggest. For a late-season show, it will be more like the Murfreesboro/Atlanta disparity that we see today.

If the G7 intend to go their own way, and to rethink & repackage their product into Cirque du Marching Band, as some proponents on this thread advocate, I think the "season" is a big obstacle. On June 15th, neither the G7 nor anybody else have all that compelling of a product. By Aug 1st, they do. I haven't heard too many conversations like:

A: "Yeah, I went to see Cirque in June. Wasn't that great - pretty sloppy, and they didn't even have their final number done yet"

B: "Oh man, you should have seen them in August..."

[BOBSMYTH]

The model that the founders envisioned clearly saw DCI as a tool to make sure that the member corps (those "elitists" who started it, plus whoever else earned membership in the club) got the money at the end of the day, not EVERY corps in existence. And for the first half of DCI's existence, that model worked. You made Finals, you became a member corps, you benefitted from your elite status. The "private club" model was what Bill Howard and Royer and Warren and Bonfiglio, etc, etc, put their personal guarantees on the line to create.

I've said numerous times - the bulk of the G7 proposal was short-sighted. Good thing that it's now a dead issue.

But the elements that allowed some corps within the DCI membership pool to work together to create events that they could use to profit off their own popularity among the fans seems fair and reasonable. In the same way that I thought the Boston/Madison contest was brilliant strategy, I'd see groups of corps - regardless of who they are - looking for inventive way to bundle and market themselves as good for the corps and good for the activity.

To expand on the "private club" thought:

it is interesting that the number of groups allowed into the club has fluctuated over the years.

At first, there were 13 founding members. Then, it became the 12 who made Finals. Then there was a slight modification so that a corps who was a member did not stop being a member unless they missed Finals for two years in a row. Somewhere in the 80's, the membership in the club was expanded to 25. Then later it came back down to 21 - and even then you had to finish in the top 21 for three consecutive years in order to vote. Now, the club is the World Class. You have to go through an approval process and be voted in by the other members. (This is the process Teal Sound is going through now.)

This is relevant to the G7 proposal because that appears to me to be one of the fatal flaws in how this has played out for the G7. There were 7 members of the club asking the other 15 members of the club to either vote themselves out of the club (the class A corps) or to become second class citizens of the club (the class AA corps). In order for the proposal to pass, the 7 would have to convince, coerce or otherwise influence at least 5 of the other 15 to vote against their own corps' interest as a member of the club.

[audiodb]

Why not just change the rule that prohibits two or more corps performing outside of a DCI event?

Is there such a rule? I seem to recall lots of corps teaming up to do pre-season shows (BD/SCV, Cadets/Crossmen, Magic/Teal/Heat Wave, etc.), and there have been other events such as championship-week recording sessions and stage shows (i.e. Concord Pavilion). Not to even begin counting how many parades have two or more DCI corps in them....

[DAvery]

Is there such a rule? I seem to recall lots of corps teaming up to do pre-season shows (BD/SCV, Cadets/Crossmen, Magic/Teal/Heat Wave, etc.), and there have been other events such as championship-week recording sessions and stage shows (i.e. Concord Pavilion). Not to even begin counting how many parades have two or more DCI corps in them....

Does anyone know the exact wording of this rule? Is it that two or more DCI corps cannot perform in a non-DCI event? If so, what about parades? I do remember the Magic/Teal/Heatwave pre-season shows. How is that allowed. Maybe the rule states that two or more DCI corps can not perform in an event that conflicts with a DCI event? If that is so, then can they have a non DCI event with more than two corps in another city at the same time as a DCI event? Anyone know the specific reading of the rule?