BRASSO Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 (edited) For those who attended all three contests in MA this year, was the ages of the audience similar to Lawrence? (Only one little line and I still have to edit it!!!) Quincy and Lawrence were about the same age demographic.... not sure about Lynn, 'didn't go to that one, Ghost. A few of the older BAC Alums ( from 50's, 60's, etc ) come out, because they want to support the Crusaders Corps, so that skews it up a bit re. the age at Boston area shows. And some of the Alums from many of the Corps that once flourished in this region also come out to the shows, and they are older now too. The audiences for DCI shows in New England tend to be older than other regions of the country for the other reasons already mentioned above on this thread too. It is an older audience. A long time loyal audience. But their dollar bills are still the same shape, size, age, weight, and color of all the other DCI audiences dollar bills from around the Country, Ghost. Edited August 17, 2011 by BRASSO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srsadersnare Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 I've been involved with competitive bands for 30 years, and I've never seen Londonderry, NH at a show....ever. Where do they perform? Certainly not in NESBA, MICCA, or MBDA. http://www.londonderrynh.net/tag/londonderry-marching-band Unfortunately, they don't compete. They perform at football games, the Salem NH band show...the Rose Bowl parade quite frequently...the St. Patrick's Day parade in NY just about every year. The drumline performs at Celtic games at halftime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 It is an older audience. A long time loyal audience. Maybe the corps needs to choose another site once the contract, if there's one, ends in Lawrence. Maybe get the folks who run band camps to hold their camp the same week BAC holds their contest and BAC moves their contest to a stadium near the camp(s). Rotate the venue each year to a location close to these camps. Helll, you do that around the country in those regions with lower HS band interest, in do time there might be some more interest in DCI. But, as mentioned previously, you need a strong football interest. Somehow, your message BRASSO about it's the youth who have to save/build drum & bugle corps, is spot on and time will tell if d&bc survives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kac Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 http://www.londonder...y-marching-band Unfortunately, they don't compete. They perform at football games, the Salem NH band show...the Rose Bowl parade quite frequently...the St. Patrick's Day parade in NY just about every year. The drumline performs at Celtic games at halftime. And just because they don't compete doesn't mean that they shouldn't be a focus for recruting kids into corps. Like I said earlier, it just means they don't compete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srsadersnare Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 (edited) And just because they don't compete doesn't mean that they shouldn't be a focus for recruting kids into corps. Like I said earlier, it just means they don't compete. Not saying good or bad...wish they did compete...they are very good, but it would be nice to get some of these kids involved in Drum Corps. They have Spartans literally a stone's through away. The area also has Pinkerton Academy, Salem NH, Alvirne HS. The comment about them not competing was in response to craiga saying he has never seen them compete. It is because they don't. Edited August 17, 2011 by srsadersnare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kac Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Maybe the corps needs to choose another site once the contract, if there's one, ends in Lawrence. Maybe get the folks who run band camps to hold their camp the same week BAC holds their contest and BAC moves their contest to a stadium near the camp(s). Rotate the venue each year to a location close to these camps. Helll, you do that around the country in those regions with lower HS band interest, in do time there might be some more interest in DCI. But, as mentioned previously, you need a strong football interest. Somehow, your message BRASSO about it's the youth who have to save/build drum & bugle corps, is spot on and time will tell if d&bc survives. From my experience, it isn't easy to have bands move their band camp. We have one week that we are allowed to use the stadium because it is booked the rest of the month. The other fields are booked too. School starts on Sept 6th. Guess when band camp was? August 8th! There's no flexibility with this- every available space is booked after August 12th. Doesn't school still typically start after Labor Day up there? Most of the band camps when I lived in MA were held just before school started and after DCI was over. Not sure how anyone could persudade a band director to move his camp up by a month just for a DC show..... Does the Lawrence show have group tickets for students? If so, what is the minimum number for a group? What is the cost for GA seats? Perhaps marketing to the band directors that they could buy $10 GA seats for their students with a minumum # of tickets of TEN (rather than 25) could get students from some of these smaller non-competing bands into the seats. Here's what we do to get kids to a DCI show even though our camp is a different week; maybe it would work up there also: Firstly, we start talking up the show in May/June when the DCI tour has been set. A notice goes out on the band website with the info about the show a few weeks before the date. We pick a spot in the GA section to meet up and everyone finds their own way there. $10 and a 20min drive is do-able for our students. We also are not making it a school sanctioned event, nor are we paying transportation costs to the district for buses from our band budget. It works. We had 20 kids out of our band of 65 there this year. The upperclassmen bring rookies because they know that most of them have $10 to spare, just not a ride. The first time we did this was last year. After the band to the show last year, we had two kids decide to march with Surf this summer. In November we are sending 5 more kids to audition for next year. Potentially 7. From our little band of 65! That DCI show is how we rope them into the activity. We would have a much more difficult time sending kids to Surf if the WC show was cost prohibitive for students. Anyway, that's what probably needs to happen with the schools up north of Lawrence..... get a drum corps person on staff to see if the band director can loosely organize a non-school sanctioned meet up in the General Admission seats. However, if there aren't GA seats in Lawrence at a reasonable student rate (or really low minimums for group tickets) then that could be a deterrent for kids. There are a lot of things I don't like about the West Chester show, but I will say that one of the things they do right is pricing for the GA tickets. $10 is affordable for students, and anyone under the age of 12 gets into GA for FREE. Does the Lawrence show do anything like that to encourage students to purchase tickets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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