Should Music Scores Go Down from Allentown to Indianapolis?

[N.E. Brigand]

This year I attended Finals for the first time, which was also my first time seeing drum corps in a dome. Unfortunately, I saw no other World Class shows live this year (I went to Allentown the previous two years, and to local shows in earlier years), so I cannot make a direct comparison of the same performance heard indoors and out. I did attend two Open Class shows this year, so I ought to have been able to compare Oregon Crusaders' show at Lucas Oil to the their show at Michigan City, but as I mentioned in another thread, OC's exhibition performance at Finals unexpectedly started 10 minutes early, while I was still looking at souvenirs, so I had to settle for listening to them from the tunnel to our seating area. I have heard every corps' performance this year on the Fan Network, most more than once.

My seats were in section 543, which has a clear view of the field but sits on the left 15-yard line. For Blue Devils' encore performance, we moved across to the 500-level seats right on the 50-yard line.

In both locations, I found the sound far muddier than I had in this year's FN recordings or the past two years at Allentown. My question: is the experience remotely similar for the judges? Where do they sit? If they had heard what I did, I can't see how music scores could go up from the most recent outdoor show. (And bravo to DCI's recording engineers for cleaning it up so much for the past three years' recordings!)

One beneficial part of our audible experience, that I've mentioned elsewhere, was that bass synth was much less audible for us than on this year's FN recordings or in past experiences at Allentown. And BD's early French and German voice samples and Spirit's closing sample could hardly be heard at all.

(In attempting these shaky comparisons, I have ignored some further auditory challenges we encountered at Lucas Oil. First, our seats were on the aisle, meaning that during quiet passages we could hear noise from the crowd at the concession stands through the tunnel behind us. Second, again during quiet passages, there was a high-pitched whine audible somewhere behind and/or above us for most of the show -- from lighting instruments?)