Why is DCI so unknown by almost everyone?

[Gary Matczak]

I know I'm coming in late here, but after reading all your Posts, the one that rang truest for me was Kilties "bill" on Page 4. Community involvement used to be an integral part of Corps life. That's changed, and many MMs have no attachment to their Sponsoring town.

I don't remember who the OP was or which Forum, but the suggestion that a weekly reality TV show that followed Corps (and not just the "Big Guys") through the Season, "behind the scenes", practicing, traveling, performing, with all the drama that we know is a daily occurrence on the Road, i.e. The Cavaliers food truck fire & the response of The Cadets, Crown, and others, would open up OUR World to THE World.

IMO

Both are great thoughts........................

Has anyone ever thought of setting up the weekly focus show, and major open class events on pay per view TV?..............this with finals week broadcasts on pay per view could raise a ton of revenue,...................the whole beihind the scenes stuff could be fit in between corps...............

[Gary Matczak]

Both are great thoughts........................

Has anyone ever thought of setting up the weekly focus show, and major open class events on pay per view TV?..............this with finals week broadcasts on pay per view could raise a ton of revenue,...................the whole beihind the scenes stuff could be fit in between corps...............

or, how about one of those 1/2 hour infomercials that run on cable and PBS,............this could market the activity, ticket sales, video and audio sales, etc,...........................but if they can profit selling leaf blowers, wood chippers and yudus.................. so could drum corps

[hughesmr]

I'd say a Gold Bond tie-in would be money!

[Stu]

Both are great thoughts........................

Has anyone ever thought of setting up the weekly focus show, and major open class events on pay per view TV?..............this with finals week broadcasts on pay per view could raise a ton of revenue,...................the whole beihind the scenes stuff could be fit in between corps...............

Somebody or group has to cover the huge production costs for pay per view to work. Pay per view brings in revenue for things like Boxing because the organization can draw enough paying viewers to cover the huge production costs plus create revenue in the black (positive). There is not enough interest in DCI to even cover the high production costs, so they would go into the red (negative) every pay per view program.

[oldschooldbc]

Somebody or group has to cover the huge production costs for pay per view to work. Pay per view brings in revenue for things like Boxing because the organization can draw enough paying viewers to cover the huge production costs plus create revenue in the black (positive). There is not enough interest in DCI to even cover the high production costs, so they would go into the red (negative) every pay per view program.

Don't they already have the television and recording crews for the Fan Network-VOD broadcast, and for the DVD/Blue-Ray sales? Wouldn't the only incremental costs be the bandwith from the satellite and/or cable TV providers? That seems to be the only real obstacle for PPV to work.

This would cut into the Fan Network sales. But there are folks who will never pay for Fan Network, but may pay for Finals on PPV. Again, no one who isn't a drum corps fan will pay for the Fan Network, because they won't know what Fan Network is.

There is some really unusual content on PPV. You can get cricket matches on PPV. At one point, the only place to get soccer matches was on PPV. Now soccer is on multiple channels in the U.S. - Fox even has a channel dedicated to it. MMA expanded and grew in this country, until now it is a mainstream sport; this is largely due to PPV. People who have never seen MMA in person have become hard-core fans, because of PPV.

If neither PBS or ESPN are interested in renewing the broadcast contract, then I think we need to look into PPV. Again, if we never market or promote this activity to a wider audience, we will never expand the customer base. And if the existing customer base continues to shrink, then it can only mean declining revenues for this activity over time. And that could mean the death-knell for this activity.

[soccerguy315]

DRUM CORPS / MARCHING BAND IS NOT COOL PEOPLE!!! YOU WILL NOT GET A HUGE INTEREST EVER AGAIN... THIS IS NOT THE 40's 50's 60's or even 70's... Patriotism nowadays although rewarded is not a COOL concept and folks are not drawn to it in droves like they used to be... Watching your kid marching on a field isn't as cool as watching your kid score a goal (in many peoples perception) or watching them get a hit, or strike out... So we are honestly stuck with the fan base we have, and we should try to make them happier! I love new shows... but I get it when people talk about show accesibility as well.... There has to be a way that everybody wins because in ten years... It will be the same group of people worrying about DCI and we will have brought in a few new MM's and parents but not all that many...

I agree with almost everything you said... I just don't think that drum corps in 2010 is in any way patriotic.

[Gary Matczak]

Don't they already have the television and recording crews for the Fan Network-VOD broadcast, and for the DVD/Blue-Ray sales? Wouldn't the only incremental costs be the bandwith from the satellite and/or cable TV providers? That seems to be the only real obstacle for PPV to work.

This would cut into the Fan Network sales. But there are folks who will never pay for Fan Network, but may pay for Finals on PPV. Again, no one who isn't a drum corps fan will pay for the Fan Network, because they won't know what Fan Network is.

There is some really unusual content on PPV. You can get cricket matches on PPV. At one point, the only place to get soccer matches was on PPV. Now soccer is on multiple channels in the U.S. - Fox even has a channel dedicated to it. MMA expanded and grew in this country, until now it is a mainstream sport; this is largely due to PPV. People who have never seen MMA in person have become hard-core fans, because of PPV.

If neither PBS or ESPN are interested in renewing the broadcast contract, then I think we need to look into PPV. Again, if we never market or promote this activity to a wider audience, we will never expand the customer base. And if the existing customer base continues to shrink, then it can only mean declining revenues for this activity over time. And that could mean the death-knell for this activity.

exactly,.....................I would imagine that PPV for finals would result in substantial revenue,...............even to the extent where prices for tickets at the stadium wouldn't have to be so exclusively priced,...............

[N.E. Brigand]

Wasn't 1992 called the "Summer of Discontent" or something?

I thought it was '93, but I'm sure a lot of that had to do with Star winning.

Well, Star didn't win, but close enough. '93 seemed to be the year when more intellectual shows began popping up. As Dennis DeLucia mentioned in the 2005 Classic Countdown, the 90s saw more college music majors entering corps, and the shows began changing to the intellectual from the more mainstream entertaining. Back in the '70s and '80s, it wouldn't be uncommon for a pop tune to be part of a championship show. Now fast forward to 1993, and the winner is playing Holsinger, the second place corps is playing Bartok, and third place is playing Shostakovich and Ginastera. The times were changing, and I think it was for the better.

In "The evolution of musical and visual design", pp. 97-186 of A History of Drum & Bugle Corps (Sights & Sounds, Inc., 2002), author Rosalie Sward calls 1993 the "year of audience discontent" and "the height of audience dissatisfaction with esoteric drum corps programs" and not just because Star "pushed beyond the musical endurance of the audience" (while the Cadets "gave consideration to actually removing themselves from competition in order to experiment with band instruments"). She notes that "the dissatisfaction of drum corps fans went well beyond that one corps [star], so much so, in fact, that Drum Corps World newspaper was filled for months with distressed letters to the editor about the estoric music and abstract programs." Sward goes on to quote from her own 1993 letter, where she had mentioned the "agressive, disjunct, percussive and biting or even angry" music "with little melodic content that the ear can hold onto or harmonic content that is pleasing to the ear". Someone else wrote "Where is the music you can recognize? Where are the stirring moments? ... I can remember only one color guard routine from the top four corps -- the Cavaliers flag toss", and a DCW survey indicated that "95% of the people were not entertained up to the level of their expectations." The discussion of unhappy 1993 fans runs to more than 1,500 words, or more than a page of the essay.

Sward had made similar but briefer remarks on the 1991 season, which "became a summer of discontent, reaching a vocal pinnacle at the DCI Preview of Champions in Madison where Star was booed for winning over the Cavaliers. One of the complaints was that "they were not as exciting." And she went on, "By the end of the season, many fans were lamenting the direction the drum and bugle corps activity was taking, away from pure crowd excitement and toward a more abstract exactness. Some said it not only was not exciting, it was just plain boring." However, Sward argues that of the top 7 for 1991, three or four ought to have pleased the crowd: Cavaliers, Phantom Regiment, Madison Scouts, and perhaps Santa Clara Vanguard. The dissatisfaction resulted in a "Fans In Favor of Excitement" award being given to the most entertaining corps of 1992, the Velvet Knights.

But what really struck me is Sward's discussion of reaction to the 1985 season:

The "Jeremiah Symphony" remained a mystery to fans until the lat two weeks of the season when it was revealed that the intent of the show was to symbolize building up beautiful things and then tearing them down. This led many of the top corps to have symbolic meaning in future shows.

This piece also signaled the beginning of esoterica in drum corps, which became contagious even to the smaller corps. Since the champion usually sets the trend for the following year(s), it resulted in lower-ranking corps playing abstract music that was often over their heads, both in technical difficulty and interpretation.

In future years, it would almost become a competition in itself to see who could play the most abstract piece of music. In the 1990s, both Star of Indiana and the Cavaliers would win the DCI Championship with complex musical and thematic offerings.

A Sample commentary on the "State of the Art"

While this new level of sophisticated music may have pleased some of the intellectuals in the audience, it also led to average fan-talk about the artsy level of drum corps, the lack of entertainment and cries for a return to the good old days.

For example, here is the opinion of one fan, writing at the end of 1985: "DCI Championship contests began with enthusiastic fan response. Thousands of fans filled the stands. The fans filled the air with thunderous applause and unstoppable standing ovations. They left the stands singing and whistling the repertoires of their favorite corps. The corps were entertaining and exciting. The shows were understandable.

"But something happened. Along the road to 1985, the word 'entertainment' was replaced with the word 'artistry'. Designers and judges have gone further and further to achieve the artistry that the current system calls for. Music is becoming incomprehensible and dissonant. Drills have become Rorschach test patterns that never seem to begin or end. Shows have become exercises in esoterica.

"Fans no longer whistle a corps' repertoire after the first hearing. They no longer leap to their feet spontaneously to react to the units on the field. Crowd reaction now comes from familiarity, not emotion. One applauds because 'it's the best they've done it so far,' not because it is thrilling or exciting in itself.

"This is not to say that drum and bugle corps is not a better product than it was when DCI started. On the contrary. Design, training and performance are far beyond that of 1972. One simply cannot compare a unit of 1985 with one in 1972. The latter would seem from the dark ages.

"But these points still remain. Corps are not as entertaining as they once were. They are not as entertaining as they could be.

"The quesions must be raised: What is drum corps' purpose? Where is it heading? If the activity is for the purpose of advancing 'art,' then it is on the right path to the future. Corps designs are certainly artistic.

"But if the activity is for the entertainment of those who pay to see it, then it is on the wrong path, for drum corps are not as entertaining as they have been in the past.

"No matter what the style, fans want to get goose bumps and elevated blood pressure so they'll stand up and cheer two or three times during a performance. Most fans want to experience a common type of emotional response to all corps performance -- excitement."

From George Hopkins

The Garfield Cadets' director, George Hopkins, explained the corps' philosophy in 1985 and it was very revealing concerning what has happened to the corps/activity in the intervening 10 years (into the 1990s): "We realize it has been difficult for the public sometimes to understand completely what we're trying to do, but we hope that, over time --much like Santa Clara did in the mid-1970s-- people will learn to broaden their experience, take a look at what we're doing and decide for themselves whether or not they want to expand their horizons in the fields of music and visual arts, because that's really what we've done over the last five years -- just completely taken everything we can and then put our own experiences back to the football field."

The more things change...

[oldschooldbc]

The more things change...

Fast forward to Finals 2010. BD performs an impeccable show on the field - executed and played flawlessly. They receive several perfect 10's on the judges' sheets. Yet they are booed by many in audience at the retreat, after Crocker announces that they have won. How is that even possible? That is almost inconceivable.

Surely some of the booing came from those who are jealous of BD's success; many are no doubt envious of their triumphs over the years. But certainly some fans were booing, because they didn't like the entertainment value of what they just saw. They can appreciate the artistry, but the miss the entertainment level that BD used to produce. If anything, the situation is even worse than the mid-90's, when this book was written.

Conversely, Madison shows up this year with an old-school show, with traditional music and design. They finish 10th, but get several standing ovations at Finals. Seemingly, Komnick and Mason are the only ones who get it. Fans want entertaining shows, and are willing to pay for it. Artistry is great, but it is not substitute for entertainment value, bottom line.

I have to say this to GH, in response to his comments from 1985: you were wrong. Fans don't want to you to "expand their horizons", or "broaden their horizons", George. I like my horizons just fine, thank you very much. I may be an ignoramus and knuckle-dragger from the "fly-over states", but I still support this activity, and want it to survive. If you continue to take drum corps in the direction that you have been leading it for 20+ years, it may end up in oblivion.

Edited October 3, 2010 by oldschooldbc

[dasboot]

I agree with almost everything you said... I just don't think that drum corps in 2010 is in any way patriotic.

What about Jersey Surf?