How do we save Drum Corps

[BRASSO]

(the?) Church and veterean orgs did not suddenly pull back support for corps, they just lost support from general public, which meant less ability to support corps. If they had the same proportionate level of interest and support that they did decades ago.... corps would still be well supported by these institutions.

Nonsense. The public did not give up their interest in Drum Corps and this is why the Church groups and Vet groups decided to pull back financial support. The Drum Corps early on were local youth groups where the vast majority of the marchers were members of the parish or at the very least lived in the community. The Corps rarely traveled outside of their geographical regions, except to perhaps a national Championship that perhaps 10% of the nation's hundreds of Drum Corps would elect to participate in. In the 60's as more and more Drum Corps decided to become more competitive, they began to become large units, and they brought in marchers from outside the parish and then outside of the communities. Increasingtly, more and more of the marchers in Corps were not from the parish, nor from the community. Thus, the local church's and local Vets Chapters saw this and naturally felt that these larger Corps were no longer from their Parish and community and so they began to withdraw financial support that more and more was being asked from them to be increased as the Corps got larger and as the costs to travel nationally increased as well.So this faulty notion of yours that the public lost interest for Drum Corps in not true at all. Drum Corps was always a niche activity.... but the loss of so many Drum Corps was not the result of lack of public's interest at all.. It was the lack of financial support for these Corps as they changed their focus, and the manner in which they did things. They no longer had the local roots community connections to parish and/ or local Vet Org. Chapters, and the major increased costs to support national travel and increased size of Corps was not something these parish's and Vets Org.'s could be expected to sustain.... and so they didn't.

Edited May 3, 2012 by BRASSO

[GUARDLING]

Nonsense. The public did not give up their interest in Drum Corps and this is why the Church groups and Vet groups decided to pull back financial support. The Drum Corps early on were local youth groups where the vast majority of the marchers were members of the parish or at the very least lived in the community. The Corps rarely traveled outside of their geographical regions, except to perhaps a national Championship that perhaps 10% of the nation's hundreds of Drum Corps would elect to participate in. In the 60's as more and more Drum Corps decided to become more competitive, they began to become large units, and they brought in marchers from outside the parish and then outside of the communities. Increasingtly, more and more of the marchers in Corps were not from the parish, nor from the community. Thus, the local church's and local Vets Chapters saw this and naturally felt that these larger Corps were no longer from their Parish and community and so they began to withdraw financial support that more and more was being asked from them to be increased as the Corps got larger and as the costs to travel nationally increased as well.So this faulty notion of yours that the public lost interest for Drum Corps in not true at all. Drum Corps was always a niche activity.... but the loss of so many Drum Corps was not the result of lack of public's interest at all.. It was the lack of financial support for these Corps as they changed their focus, and the manner in which they did things. They no longer had the local roots community connections to parish and/ or local Vet Org. Chapters, and the major increased costs to support national travel and increased size of Corps was not something these parish's and Vets Org.'s could be expected to sustain.... and so they didn't.

You are right BUT so is he...its one of those what came 1st the chicken or the egg....Churches and civic groups could barely keep themselves going let alone corps. Venues also realised they could get good money to use their ( church , local stadiums, schools ) and so on. I remember many shows BITD that locals had no connection to a corps other than it was a community event or the vets ran it so they went, that dropped off completely.

Some maybe for cost, some maybe because alot of kids werent local, some because lack of interest in the activity. In my experience from then to now, it was all of it and continues to be.

Times are different, kids wants and needs are different I think..Even the boy scouts are 1/2 the membership from 1972 ( not my statistic, theirs)

[perc2100]

I believe that we are asking to much of DCI. When most of us started we were just small corps doing local circuits and state championships. I believe we need to get back to this. We are asking new corps to jump in and compete at the DCI level. DCI should not control the activity. They should handle the judging and the regional championships and when a corps evolves to a point when they are good enough then they can go to the major championships. The first 4 or 5 years I was in a corps we never went to these big shows because we weren't good enough and didn't have the money. Any ideas ?

As far as I know, anyone can start a corps anyway they like. They can do small/regional shows and now attend Championships until they are competitive and have the financial means. Pacific Crest started like this, and so did AZ Academy.

Assuming you are 100% sincere regarding your efforts to change drum corps in a positive way, and not just posting words on a message board...

Replying to your pseudo-rhetorical questions, "How do we save drum corps," I would suggest that you personally do several things:

1) volunteer with your favorite local corps: as much free time as you can afford to volunteer. Help the organization out so they thrive. While you do this you can have plenty of chats with corps administrators and learn what it takes to run the corps from a business perspective

2) donate as much of your disposal income as you can to as many drum corps as you can. If you are as focused and intent on saving drum corps, you should poor all of your available resources into helping to "save" the corps we have now. On top of volunteering mentioned above, these corps need your financial support. Donate funds, supplies, use of any other 'things' a corps could use (practice facilities, housing facilities, vehicles, etc), etc. Donate to corps whom you believe most reflects the philosophies you hold dear to the activity, especially smaller corps that might be struggling.

3) start your own corps. Being a director or President of the Board of Directors for any corps would work for this, but I assume that would be out of your reach so the next best thing is to start up your own corps. You can run it exactly how you feel a corps should be run, you will be contributing to the solution in a major way, providing young adults the opportunity of drum corps, and setting an example for the rest of the corps to follow (once you are financially and competitively successful they'll take notice: just look at Star of Indiana).

Anything other than the three things mentioned above is just not going to be enough to enact the change you are seeking. Good luck with your endeavors, and I look forward to reading about and seeing your adventures improving the activity.

[BRASSO]

You are right BUT so is he...its one of those what came 1st the chicken or the egg....Churches and civic groups could barely keep themselves going let alone corps. Venues also realised they could get good money to use their ( church , local stadiums, schools ) and so on. I remember many shows BITD that locals had no connection to a corps other than it was a community event or the vets ran it so they went, that dropped off completely.

Some maybe for cost, some maybe because alot of kids werent local, some because lack of interest in the activity. In my experience from then to now, it was all of it and continues to be.

Times are different, kids wants and needs are different I think..Even the boy scouts are 1/2 the membership from 1972 ( not my statistic, theirs)

I do acknowledge... and said so above on this thread... that societal changes also impacted the loss of Corps.

That said, we have seen lots of Corps started up since DCI was formed, and most of them are gone now as well. We have lost more Corps in the DCI years than we currently have in the World Class Division. " Societal" changes as a reason for the loss of THESE Corps was a non factor. The loss of these DCI Corps was almost exclusively in the domain of the " financial " realm.

Edited May 3, 2012 by BRASSO

[GUARDLING]

I do acknowledge... and said so above on this thread... that societal changes also impacted the loss of Corps.

That said, we have seen lots of Corps started up since DCI was formed, and most of them are gone now as well. We have lost more Corps in the DCI years than we currently have in the World Class Division. " Societal" changes as a reason for the loss of THESE Corps was a non factor. The loss of these DCI Corps was almost exclusively in the domain of the " financial " realm.

Many corps in the past few decades were also formed by die hards who started some of these corps with alot of heart and not a good business head which business head is what drum corps needed as we left the 60s and 70s....now along with that double edge sword came many with no heart for the activity or true heart anyway. Im not saying there isnt those who had both but it certainly changed from the dad director who got paid nothing to baby sit some local kids with no experience and who provided a place for these kids to go to belong, grow and as I remember many saying, keeping kids off the streets.

Just so different now although corps still provide those things just in a very different and expensive way.

[JimF-LowBari]

I remember many shows BITD that locals had no connection to a corps other than it was a community event or the vets ran it so they went, that dropped off completely.

Was in a lot of local Sr side shows in the 70s and costs killed a lot of the shows and local (Sr) corps. The two main problems were a limited audience base in the area and rising costs to operate a corps. Especially after gas just about tripled ca 1976. As costs went up, the corps needed a larger amount of prize money in order to operate. This and other costs caused show sponsors to raise ticket prices which cut down on the number of people willing to attend the show. Hence profits started going down (if there were still profits). Shows not run by the corps or their sponors found better ways to make money and stopped hosting a show. (Kinda like PBS no longer showing DCI.) And corps running a show now find their income is way down and budget is shot to Hades.

Shows now further apart.... add in higher transportation costs... lower income for the corps budget... repeat few times as things get worse.... bye bye to local shows and the local corps....

Off the top of my head was at (non corps) sponsored shows by Ambulance Companies, local Bi-Centennial Committies (for some reason a bunch of these in PAs hard coal region), and part of Foremens Carnivals and town Anniversary where I work.

Edited May 3, 2012 by JimF-LowBari

[GUARDLING]

Was in a lot of local Sr side shows in the 70s and costs killed a lot of the shows and local (Sr) corps. The two main problems were a limited audience base in the area and rising costs to operate a corps. Especially after gas just about tripled ca 1976. As costs went up, the corps needed a larger amount of prize money in order to operate. This and other costs caused show sponsors to raise ticket prices which cut down on the number of people willing to attend the show. Hence profits started going down (if there were still profits). Shows not run by the corps or their sponors found better ways to make money and stopped hosting a show. (Kinda like PBS no longer showing DCI.) And corps running a show now find their income is way down and budget is shot to Hades.

Shows now further apart.... add in higher transportation costs... lower income for the corps budget... repeat few times as things get worse.... bye bye to local shows and the local corps....

Off the top of my head was at (non corps) sponsored shows by Ambulance Companies, local Bi-Centennial Committies (for some reason a bunch of these in PAs hard coal region), and part of Foremens Carnivals and town Anniversary where I work.

yup yup.....actually if you really look at it such a small activity like drum corps probably should have been gone years and years ago. So many nationally known and supported activities and dwindled down to nothing or gone completely. So just surviving the decades of world change maybe drum corps did ok, wheather some of us like the change or not.

[JimF-LowBari]

yup yup.....actually if you really look at it such a small activity like drum corps probably should have been gone years and years ago. So many nationally known and supported activities and dwindled down to nothing or gone completely. So just surviving the decades of world change maybe drum corps did ok, wheather some of us like the change or not.

LOL, my dad (not really a fan) is still surprised that DC exists in any form. And in the mid 1990s I predicted DCA would be gone by 2000 based on the 13 corps Prelims in 1992 or 1993 (forget which). That's why I don't get too wound about the changes as I'm glad the activity still exists. And if WC has shows that I'm not a fan of, it's no big deal. (Things would probably be worse if people followed my tastes. )

Edited May 3, 2012 by JimF-LowBari

[GUARDLING]

LOL, my dad (not really a fan) is still surprised that DC exists in any form. And in the mid 1990s I predicted DCA would be gone by 2000 based on the 13 corps Prelims in 1992 or 1993 (forget which). That's why I don't get too wound about the changes as I'm glad the activity still exists. And if WC has shows that I'm not a fan of, it's no big deal. (Things would probably be worse if people followed my tastes. )

lol..i hear ya.......sometimes one has to look at the bigger picture I think and not look how big the picture was. I would like to pay 40 cents for gas again but guess what!..lol

[BRASSO]

The problem with that concept to me is that hundreds of local corps that had almost nothing to do with DCI are the bulk of those that folded through the 70's and 80's.

If you look at 1975 Open class finals, of 12 corps...9 are still in existence. From 1980....8 of 12 are still around. 1985...9 of 12.

Once the DCI marquee Corps left the local circuit membership and marched under the exclusive umbrella of DCI, the local circuits Corps suffered financially as did the dozens of local and regional circuits around the Country.Those local circuits for the most part dissolved and the local Corps dissolved with them. As mentioned, in the DCI era, the nunber of Corps that started up, competed in DCI but then dissolved, exceeds the number of DCI Corps in the World Class Division of today. And lets not forget that a proposal was generated in 2010...thankfully defeated by more sensible heads.... that called for the elimination of approx 2 dozen DCI Drum Corps.

Edited May 3, 2012 by BRASSO