Why is DCI so unknown by almost everyone?

[FHdork]

For most Americans, two pieces of music with EXACTLY THE SAME MUSIC...but different WORDS (lyrics) would be viewed as two completely DIFFERENT pieces of music. I think this is the root of the problem, both for DCI, and also for Orchestras and Bands, etc. - the fact that so much of American requires a lyric to understand anything about that music.

I have some experience with symphony orchestras, and they (in general) spend a great deal of money in marketing - far more than DCI spends - and they spend that money on the 5-10% of Americans statistically willing to attend a classical music event. There are huge zip code areas where NO direct mail or telemarketing will ever happen on behalf of an orchestra. Why? Because there is no history of arts purchases or of particular answers to arts surveys.

DCI's only hope is to similarly target specific groups of people, pitching their message to those folks over and over. OK - I take that back...it's a job better left to the individual show sponsors...I don't think DCI can do this nationally. They're too small...too poor. However, I don't believe the show promoters will do this, either. Their focus is on filling the seats at their particular show(s). Once they're profitable, or confident that they will fill close to their capacity - no more need for marketing! No need to spend the huge amount of money it would take to get someone with no touchstone in drum corps (FMM, or parent/relative of current-former MM, or somehow introduced to drum corps by someone else...) to pay money for something they no NOTHING ABOUT.

At least with orchestral music, people think they know what it is - even if they're usually dead wrong (many think an orchestra concert means one or two kinds of music: intricate baroque music that 'motors' on and on and on through key changes they cannot hear anyway...or dense, dissonant, dischordant music that only a troll or Mordor would enjoy...). With DCI, the ONLY frame of reference...which will spring to mind ONLY after a great deal of very quick mental connections, is marching band.

I'm sorry - 99.99999999999999999999999% of marching band is terrible. And everyone (we here at DCP do not count as 'everyone'...sorry!) knows it. The .000000000000000000000001% of marching band that's cool and amazing...well, no one sees that at their football game on Friday night.

Too high a hurdle - so imo, the only effective marketing strategy: grassroots 'bring friends' campaigns -

[ahquad]

I'll accept that challenge. I'll win. You are finding things to support your opinion instead of looking at the big picture. Forest for the trees and such. Just because you don't find some of the things entertaining doesn't mean everyone else doesn't also. Of course there is the argument that there are so many more like you. But that is because you associate with people like yourself.

My argument is that corps will never be mainstream or interesting to the general public in today's world, regardless of what is being done on the field, and regardless of the implement/instrument used.

Now i challenge anyone to find more than 100 people like that at a show.

Edited September 27, 2010 by ahquad

[Jeff Ream]

i wont disagree with you on that. but in the past, it was more accessible to the non band/corps people.

I just do not agree with that statement on a general level. Drum corps has always been a niche activity.

[Stu]

1. Fahrenheit 9/11* (2004) -- $119,194,771

2. March of the Penguins (2005) -- $77,437,223

3. Earth (2009) -- $32,011,576

4. Sicko* (2007) -- $24,540,079

5. An Inconvenient Truth (2006) -- $24,146,161

6. Bowling for Columbine* (2002) -- $21,576,018

7. Oceans (2010) -- $19,422,319

8. Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) -- $15,012,935

9. Capitalism: A Love Story* (2009) -- $14,363,397

10. Religulous (2008) -- $13,011,160

etc...

Nice try, but it needs the following information as a point of reference (and I will even use Fahrenheit 9/11).

Note: this is in World Wide Figures since that is what you used

World Wide reported Gross Receipt Sales:

Avatar ($2,776,083,041);

Fahrenheit 9/11 ($119,194,771) 4% the amount of gross revenue as Avatar

World Wide estimated number of Tickets Sold:

Avatar: (306,890,700)

Fahrenheit 9/11 (17,274,600) 6% the number of people compared to Avatar

However that is not the real crux of the matter. The two issues here that would relate to the subject that a DCI Documentary would possibly bring in more interested non corps people to live DCI events: 1) The overwhelming majority that go see documentaries already have a passionate interest on the subject matter; and 2) Only a very, very small percentage of the viewers ever change their opinion after seeing the documentaries. Docs are meant to rally the troops, not gain new membership.

[dustyboo]

Earlier this week at my work, we were asked what some of our favorite hobbies were. There were about 30ish of us in the room and as we went around the circle various answers were given like video games, football, basketball, running ect... It got to me and I said exercising and drum corps. Everyone looked at me with that "deer in the headlights" look and asked what drum corps was. They each said they had never heard of it and passed it off as some kind of "lame marching band thing".

Needless to say this saddened me to no end. I knew that drum corps was not very popular in america, but this kinda opened my eyes more to see just how little the activity is known. No one at my work (about 100 people) had ever even heard of the activity. It was so disheartening, to not only have all of these people not even know what the activity is, but then go on to say that it is just some "foot ball half time show lame thing".

I know DCI does not have loads of cash, and advertising is expensive but to me, DCI has changed my life and what I enjoy watching. Why does no one else even know about it? I feel that if more people could just be sat down and watch some of the best DCI shows in history they would become immediate fans and we would have more people coming to shows. More fans = more money. More money= more shows. More shows= More corps. Why doesnt DCI do more in the advertising department? Why is it still such a little known activity?! It seems that even swimming now is more understood and popular after the 2008 olympics than DCI is! (not dogging on swimming at all I love that sport) But this is just saddening.

What is up with this!?

I'm sure there are other activities out there that other people enjoy that you have never heard of either.

[N.E. Brigand]

For most Americans, two pieces of music with exactly the same music, but different words (lyrics), would be viewed as two completely different pieces of music. I think this is the root of the problem, both for DCI, and also for orchestras, bands, etc. -- the fact that so much of American requires a lyric to understand anything about that music.

Yeah: according to wikipedia, from 1961-1985, sixteen instrumental recordings reached #1 on the pop charts, an average of one every eighteen months. None has done so since. Another 29 instrumentals reached the top 20 in the same period (I think it was actually more than that; at least one Herb Alpert recording is missing from their list), but only three have done so since, and none in ten years.

[ahquad]

i wont disagree with you on that. but in the past, it was more accessible to the non band/corps people.

And in the past, the band programs were bigger, and there were fewer entertainment options for them to explore other than drum corps. In addition, there was a time when kids focused on band. Now, they want to do everything extracurricular.

And we mention how it's tougher financially to take a family to a show these days. But yet I can buy a guitar at Toys R Us and build a recording studio in my bedroom very cheaply with the capacity to outperform the pro's studio 20 years ago.

We're in a different world now. So many more options, so much more technology, and fewer people in the education programs to spread out to those options.

[N.E. Brigand]

Nice try, but it needs the following information [comparison to fiction films such as Avatar) as a point of reference (and I will even use Fahrenheit 9/11).

I wasn't "trying" anything. Everyone knows that documentaries make very little money compared to fictional films, which is just what the list I posted shows: only one documentary has earned more than $100 million, and very few others have even brought in $10 million. The question was: have any documentaries, other than those made by Michael Moore, had "millions" of viewers, and the answer is yes. Does that make much difference to your point? No.

[mlubandgroupie]

Be careful of the "I-am-educated-so-I-get-it-attitude." Make sure your attitude doesn't turn any potential future Drum Corps fans away. At times it can seem that there is a preconceived idea among some music majors, if it "doesn't have lyrics" or played on Top 40 radio, the general public can not or is not willing to "get it".

After, watching Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" I told a music major aquaintance I wanted a tee-shirt saying "I survived Tristan und Isolde". He preceded to tell me that Wagner is "high music" and I just don't get "high" music due to my lack of music education.

His snobbery did not turn me away from opera...just from discussing any music related art form with him. Some times such attitudes do turn listeners/viewers away. I'm proud of your knowledge and you should be too, but if one does not have the same knowledge as you and/or does not appreciate the same art forms as you - does not make that person any less intelligent.

The way to educate someone about an art form is to NOT make them feel ignorant...

I work with a former member of Grambling State band. I made the MISTAKE of saying that GSU wished they were as good as a top 12 DCI corps. Guess who will never watch a drum corps show.

Edited because I can't spell "intelligent" among many other words...Oh the irony...

Edited September 27, 2010 by mlubandgroupie

[bawker]

After, watching Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" I told a music major aquaintance I wanted a tee-shirt saying "I survived Tristan und Isolde". He preceded to tell me that Wagner is "high music" and I just don't get "high" music due to my lack of music education.

" . . .but apparently you think all music must leap out of the wall and shake the listener to his very intestines. Only then do you consider music effective, but on whom are such effects achieved? On the mass, on the immature, on the blase, on the sick, on the idiots, on Wagnerians."

- Friedrich Nietzsche on Richard Wagner

. . .once again, proving that all art is subjective, not matter what the music majors, Nietzche, DCP, your mom or anyone else says.