Jeff Ream Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 If I correctly understand some people on these forums, merely by mentioning that discrepancy, you're claiming that Major League Baseball is dying. well have you watched the Phillies lately? watching them, I'm pretty sure AA ball is hurting too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Well, I don't think anyone's been arguing that DCI has lied about its attendance figures at any time. Instead, the points that have been raised are these: --On some occasions, they've chosen not to release attendance figures publicly. --From one year to the next, they might release a different set of figures, making comparisons difficult. --For older figures, as for Finals held in Montreal in 1981 and 1982, which are widely held to be the highest-attended years, it's not even possible to point to a release from DCI in support of such claims. Are you sure about that last one? Est. 36,000 at '81 Finals, but 32,427 were " paid attendance " at Finals that year according to DCI official published results (Granted, I have asked BRASSO where this number was published, and not received a response yet... so if that goes unanswered, your point stands.) Meanwhile, while no one has said "DCI lied", there have been multiple inferences and loose language designed to dismiss any comparisons to data prior to 1995. Of course, the only reason I see anyone making such comparisons is to contend that attendance was higher at 1981 finals. So what is the argument really about, then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 But is it unusual for attendance at DCI finals week to be much less than what is announced? Isn't it reasonable that that's not the case? There are no "season tickets" in drum corps; the closest would be Friends seats, but the vast majority of those show up to every event. In fact, it's not usual at all that a ticket-holder for any drum corps show would not use it. There are the unusual exceptions, of course. And Ghost, we already know who gets free tickets to finals week, but the discussion is about paid attendance. I disagree. "Paid attendance" is where "paid" and "attendance" overlap. We only have numbers on "paid" in some cases and "attendance" in others, so the discussion has never really quite been about "paid attendance". That said, what kind of difference do we have between "paid" and "attendance" in drum corps? "Attendance" counts a certain small percentage of attendees who did not pay to enter. "Paid" counts a certain small percentage of tickets that remain unredeemed at the gate. Is this a distinction without a significant difference? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenoris4Jazz Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 I disagree. "Paid attendance" is where "paid" and "attendance" overlap. We only have numbers on "paid" in some cases and "attendance" in others, so the discussion has never really quite been about "paid attendance". That said, what kind of difference do we have between "paid" and "attendance" in drum corps? "Attendance" counts a certain small percentage of attendees who did not pay to enter. "Paid" counts a certain small percentage of tickets that remain unredeemed at the gate. Is this a distinction without a significant difference? That's why I made the reference to MLB. They have had, at times, significant differences between tickets paid for and people attending a game. The NFL has had that many times with the blackout rule hanging over a team. I don't think DCI has many people buying a ticket and not going to the event. If you're a fan of a baseball team, you have 81 games to try and attend, all at the same location. While there may be a DCI show near you every year, it only happens once a year, hence the idea that if you paid for a ticket, you went. I would be willing to bet if we had to choose which was more likely, higher paid or higher people at the show, I'd choose higher people at the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 the stadium officials admitted numbers weren't accurate back then. Did I say specifically DCI? No. I just said numbers. Could be baseball, could be the Olympics in 76, CFl games......because they used turnstile counts, and tursntiles don't=equal paid, there's now way of knowing if the numbers were 100% legit for any event. Example....in it's heyday, pre sky boxes, the Vet in Philly held like 63k for baseball...yet you'd often hear ( ok, for maybe like 4 years) there's 65,000 here tonight....so was that the paid? Was that how many people went through the turnstiles? Even know, you look at a Phillies game and see the Bank 75% empty, but look in the box score and they list paid, but not actual ##### in the seats. Why? because now, with technology as it is, they can truly track paid for tickets, regardless of who shows up. When the Phils played the Dodgers at home on 8/7, they announced paid as 26k.....no way there was 26k in that park. I see. So when you say "legit", what you mean is "paid". A turnstyle count can be a legitimate measure of actual attendance, but not a fully accurate reflection of ticket sales. But in 1981, they didn't and in many cases couldn't track paid like they can now, so they went off of turnstiles numbers. I've seen people on Facebook recently claim 40k in Montreal....so, ok, if it was 40,000, why was the 36,000 number flashed up on the board? Because it was not 40,000. Like the scoreboard said: Why would you entertain reports from random Facebook people 30 years after the fact, instead of this? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barigirl78 Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 A different type of "attendance". Here are the July numbers from Comscore on visitors to the DCI.org website. As you can see from the graph, July 2015 far exceeded July 2014 and even beat August 2014. Demographically, visitors skewed male and age 45-54: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Windish Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 (edited) I see. So when you say "legit", what you mean is "paid". A turnstyle count can be a legitimate measure of actual attendance, but not a fully accurate reflection of ticket sales. Because it was not 40,000. Like the scoreboard said: Why would you entertain reports from random Facebook people 30 years after the fact, instead of this? Glad you found that image! I was there, knew the number was high, but could not remember what the number displayed was. Thanks! My, repeat . . . My actual experience has been this . . . . . There is NO number, labeled as FINAL paid attendance, that is guaranteed to remain rock solid in any way, more than having just been designated as such. Things change, even days and weeks following an event. Even with today's technology, I can't have faith in anything flashed on a scoreboard, or stated, DURING an event. It's simply NOT that clean a process! I do believe ANYTHING officially stated has more credibility than one's eyeball assessment. Who could argue anything else? Over time, knowing 'truth' becomes even harder. Whatever number DCI designated and announced as FINAL is OK with me. It's just that I know stuff happens throughout the process and, at some point, you MUST run with a set number. It's not surgery. I have always had utmost respect for DCI and it's administrators. Similar organizations and events, who knows? Edited August 18, 2015 by Fred Windish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xandandl Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Rather than belabor comments about old men's baseball, here's a positive spin on the DCI attendance this year. Most National Hockey League arenas sit 20,000 for a game. Some are packed with waiting lists for tickets. Others struggle to fill with give-aways, etc. If DCI had a paid attendance of 22,000 and change and 8,000 free tickets, then DCI seated way more than the NY Rangers or Chicago Blackhawks (let alone those Canandian teams.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Sometimes our memories of things from back in the day can be a bit...uhhh... rose-colored, shall we say. LOL A few years ago on one of the FB groups, someone posted that attendance at a particular show, back in the day, was X thousands of people. Except the stadium where the show took place actually held less than that number, total... both sides of the stadium. OT a bit.... I attended a bunch of NJ Nets basketball games in the 1980s, when the team was struggling most years. During the games, we'd hear that "the announced attendance tonight is 10,000" or something like that... when the actual attendance seemed more like 300. You could fire a cannon across the upper deck and not hit anyone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Rather than belabor comments about old men's baseball, here's a positive spin on the DCI attendance this year. Most National Hockey League arenas sit 20,000 for a game. Some are packed with waiting lists for tickets. Others struggle to fill with give-aways, etc. If DCI had a paid attendance of 22,000 and change and 8,000 free tickets, then DCI seated way more than the NY Rangers or Chicago Blackhawks (let alone those Canandian teams.) And the members of DCI corps still have nearly all of their teeth by the end of their season. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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