The positives and negatives of finals week 2011

[btracht]

Friday was one of my favorite drum corps days EVER in 35 plus years of viewing drum corps. Top to bottom, the performances were so strong. Many finalist level performs below the top 12 finishers! I was entertained by most. I had lots of goosebumps: my true drum corps satisfaction indicator! Those who didn't come to catch the early corps on Friday missed out.

Loved the Friday format (and the full prelims on Thursday). Wished I had been able to be there Thursday to see more Open Class corps!

Was glad to see the return of the parade and enjoyed it (thought it we well attended!).

Was impressed that with the bad weather Saturday Night that all corps made it safely inside and the show proceeded as planned (except for what seemed like a few retreat line-up issues likely caused all the corps being inside).

While on Friday my seat was on the 42 yardline, 23 rows up, Saturday I only had a wristband so I sat in one of the empty seats in sections 148 and 132 (except for watching the Bluecoats - Thanks Oldbandguy for the seat!) and enjoyed watching how the crowd reacted to the corps. I found the place to be as alive as I have witnessed a drum corps show. The reactions by the fans to many of the shows alone caused goosebumps and made me smile! Despite rumors to the contrary drum corps is alive and well, entertaining, and in many ways just as drumcorpsish as ever!

Even though it was crowded in places, I like the placement and the energy of the souvie location.

Wished ushers exercised more control over people movement during corps performances and that all fans exercised proper during performances etiquette (some people really need to learn to not talk out loud during a corps' performance, to not come and go during a performance, and make sure if they text during a performance that they hold their phones low enough so the phone doesn't turn into a mirror reflecting the lights of the stadium, not talk on their phones during a performance, and turn off their ringers!).

While I love drum corps outside in great outdoors stadiums, I have really come to love what Lucas Oil Stadium and Indy has to offer.

Thank you corps and DCI for a very memorable DCI World Championships experience!

[mendy328]

It would be wonderful if DCI would make announcements at the beginning of the show and at intermissions regarding the above suggestions...just like at a live theatre. Some of the audience are just newbies/parents that are so excited for their kids and don't know the proper etiquette, but would probably oblige if instructed.

[wcmello09]

Remember ##### in the seats don't equal paid customers. Lots of freebies and wristbands last year made the number look bigger than what actually paid

it could equal more customers at the souvie stands, maybe

[perc2100]

While I love drum corps outside in great outdoors stadiums, I have really come to love what Lucas Oil Stadium and Indy has to offer.

This is such an important observation conclusion: Finals held at Lucas Oil Stadium indoors might not be the best option, might not be the worst option, but it has plenty of great benefits for all. To me, it's like the difference this year between Blue Devils and Carolina Crown. Both shows had incredible aspects about them, both shows had deficiencies, but both shows were great in different ways.

[corpsband]

While I love drum corps outside in great outdoors stadiums, I have really come to love what Lucas Oil Stadium and Indy has to offer.

Thank you corps and DCI for a very memorable DCI World Championships experience!

Well spoken!

Nice to see the positives get a little air time on DCP.

Is there another venue where the weather had (for all intents and purposes) NO impact on the event? Being able to divert warmups to the convention center and then transiting directly to the dome is pretty freakin' awesome.

[skeptic]

+ Thunderstorms finals night but the show went on.

Say what you want about indoor drum corps but Im sure glad I didnt lose out on a $130 ticket.

[Grumpy]

Thoughts and prayers go out to those who were at the State Fair Saturday night when those thunderstorms rolled through and were involved in the stage collapse...this was one instance where I was glad we were inside.

[Grumpy]

It would be wonderful if DCI would make announcements at the beginning of the show and at intermissions regarding the above suggestions...just like at a live theatre. Some of the audience are just newbies/parents that are so excited for their kids and don't know the proper etiquette, but would probably oblige if instructed.

There WERE announcements made that you shouldn't enter or leave the stands during a corps performance...normally, during championship week, this isn't an issue as those of us who "know better" help to self-police and quickly teach unknowing ushers as to proper etiquette. One problem we had in our section on Friday, was that a janitorial staff member with an obviously limited command of the English language came along cleaning the stairs during the middle of one of the corps' performances and continued even after being quietly admonished by audience members.

[Tito John]

One other negative, for the people who actually attend the show, it would be nice if they would put the commentary from the theatre events online, even if they don't show the entire production. I would love to what Delucia, Rondinaro, and Cesario have to say.

At last year's semis (don't know about the other two nights), you could rent an audio gadget at LOS that gave you running commentary as the shows were going on. I didn't bite, and asked here about how it went for people who did. There were no replies, perhaps suggesting that it wasn't popular enough to do again this year?

[Grumpy]

By reading other's comments, I guess I'm in the minority...but I really didn't care for the Thursday format this year. I will be the first to admit, I LOVE drum corps...but 41 corps in one day, drum corps from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m., is a bit much even for me. I didn't even TRY to convince my wife, there are some battles that just can't be won. In addition, there is the cost and selection of eating for the entire day at the stadium (see below). We arrived in the early afternoon and stayed 'til the end. From my observation, we weren't the only ones-and the lack of bodies had a noticeable effect on the sound. This was also noticeable on Friday for the earlier corps-the place started to fill up after 6 pm or so, and the sound improved as the amount of bodies increased. This indirectly brings me to what I (and those who were with me) consider a negative, and that is the fact that in our section, there was little regard for whether someone had a ticket for where they chose to sit. I sat in Section 240-it is one of the "best" sections of the stadium, prime FDCI seats, right on the 50. We have sat in this section every year that we have been at LOS. Our first year there, there were ushers at the access points and if you didn't have a ticket for that section, you were not allowed in. For the last two years, I haven't seen an usher for that section AT ALL for ANY of the three nights. Those of us who pay (and VERY well) for the privilege of sitting there, are interrupted by staff members or corps members whose season has already ended climbing over us continually throughout the eveing to get to seats and then climbing back over us to move again when the rightful owner(s) arrive. These staff members also see fit to scream at the top of their lungs, and will applaud loudly and excessively with little or no provocation. YOU may have heard the passage 10,000 times-but I haven't, and I would like to hear it and enjoy it, thank you. The price of the food, the concession lines, and general concession service is a joke. On Friday and Saturday, it is next to impossible to obtain concession service within the span of the scheduled intermissions-it is inevitable that at least one corps is going to be missed if you intend to buy food. Whether condiments happen to be available for what you purchase is hit-or-miss and the food prices are exorbitent. I've eaten for less at Disney World-and THEIR food is expensive!

I give the location of the Marketplace this year mixed reviews. I really like the fact that it isn't located in a far off location as has been the case the past few years, but it really impedes traffic flow getting out of and especially into the stadium. I think it's great that those entering the stadium have the opportunity to pass the souvie stands and hopefully that will spur some "impulse buys" to help the corps down the road. Howver, on Saturday, it took me a good 20 minutes to navigate through the Marketplace on the way to our seats. I wasn't interested in visiting any of the booths on Saturday, I took care of that on Thursday and Friday. I would have liked to seen some kind of "express lane" that could have bypassed the Marketplace and brought us directly over into the seating areas. Since this was the first year for this, hopefully this can be tweaked in the future so that traffic flows a little more smoothly.

As for positives, on Saturday night for once I was glad we were inside, especially in light of what ended up happening at the State Fair. As for crowds, from my vantage point it was kind of hard to tell because we don't have a real good view of the upper decks, but it appeared to me that the crowd was pretty close to what it was last year. IMHO, as long as we're in Indy, the crowd will be pretty consistent-by now, there those who can live with it and will continue to attend, and those who have been and vowed that they won't return as long as it's indoors. The "middle ground" I think will remain pretty static-those that attend once every few years, those who haven't been before and want to experience it at least once, and the ever-changing friends/family of corps members. Crowd response seemed to be tied directly to the entertainment value of the program; those that were entertaining to the fans got the best response. The one thing that seemed to jump out at me this year was the emotion of the corps on each of the last three nights-Phantom in particular, that show just seemed much more emotional on Saturday than it was even on Thursday. All the corps stepped up their game from Thursday to Friday to Saturday for those that advanced, for those that didn't it certainly looked like they left it all on the field. I think the way the field cleared after retreat, before the encore was exceptional-many times, an announcement or sometimes multiple announcements have to made to "clear the field" but it seemed on Saturday that everyone left and did their visiting and farewells elsewhere. The biggest positive of all, is that there are thousands of young people who will take the lessons and the memories of drum corps with them for the rest of their lives, and tens of thousands of us fans whom they entertained with their exceptional skills and talents. THANK YOU to all the corps members and their staffs!