DCI Competition Participation Requirements

[PR ROCKS]

Blue Devils received 27 scores this year and finished 1st overall.

Jersey Surf recieved 17 scores this year and finished 20th overall.

Additionally, Seattle Cascades, Mandarins, Pacific Crest, and Pioneer all had fewer shows than the Blue Devils, yet none of these corps made Finals.

Just because a corps does not enter a show a night during tour does not automatically mean that said corps has any sort of competitive advantage, other than perhaps less fatigue on the members. There are a lot of other factors to consider when trying to determine how many shows a corps should do. I am 100% against DCI legislating a minimum number of appearances for a corps in World Class, as this would not only effect the Blue Devils, but also the corps mentioned above, many of whom choose not to do full tours to remain responsible to their fiscal means.

Not arguing a point either way, but for the record, here's the number of shows I found for each corps in 2012 (excluding rainouts):

Corps Shows

Academy 26

Blue Devils 24

Blue Knights 26

Blue Stars 30

Bluecoats 28

Boston Crusaders 30

Cadets 35

Carolina Crown 33

Cascades 24

Cavaliers 34

Colts 26

Crossmen 32

Glassmen 25

Jersey Surf 17

Madison Scouts 29

Mandarins 18

Pacific Crest 20

Phantom Regiment 31

Pioneer 20

Santa Clara Vanguard 29

Spirit of Atlanta 29

Troopers 28

[skywhopper]

Again, I point to my earlier post. BD had more shows than 5 corps that didn't make finals (one didn't make semifinals). This should remove any consideration of your correlation theory. While the idea of more rehearsal days = higher scores may make sense in the big-picture view, there is a LOT to be said about multiple reads by judges and multiple performance opportunities. Rehearsal time alone does not make a DCI champion.

It makes no sense to compare BD to the bottom-scoring corps in World Class in this regard. If BD got an advantage from more rehearsal days, it wasn't in their spread over Cascades.

I don't think every corps should be required to do the same number of shows or 30+ shows or anything, but BD's schedule was extremely light this year compared to the corps in the top ranks of World Class. This isn't about money: BD has more of that than any other corps. It's not about location or miles travelled: BD played fewer shows out west than Boston or Phantom did.

[AlexL]

It looked to me like the NCAA droppped a pretty big hammer on Penn State in July though.

They did, but held back from dropping the death penalty on them like many on the NCAA board wanted them to do.

Its also the first time they actually did something.... ever... because they basically had to.

[AlexL]

It makes no sense to compare BD to the bottom-scoring corps in World Class in this regard. If BD got an advantage from more rehearsal days, it wasn't in their spread over Cascades.

I don't think every corps should be required to do the same number of shows or 30+ shows or anything, but BD's schedule was extremely light this year compared to the corps in the top ranks of World Class. This isn't about money: BD has more of that than any other corps. It's not about location or miles travelled: BD played fewer shows out west than Boston or Phantom did.

Agreed. Lets look at the 2 that mattered this year (from the numbers in the post above):

Blue Devils 24

Carolina Crown 33

Would 9 more full rehearsal days instead of show days (since you tend to lose about a half a day's worth of rehearsal days, lets say this was worth about 4-5 entire days of rehearsal) have meant a difference in their scoring margin?

Edited August 16, 2012 by AlexL

[Kamarag]

Would 9 more full rehearsal days instead of show days (since you tend to lose about a half a day's worth of rehearsal days, lets say this was worth about 4-5 entire days of rehearsal) have meant a difference in their scoring margin?

Maybe, but look at it this way. The Blue Devils have historically rehearsed LESS during the summer tour than every other corps in DCI pretty much since their inception. Back in the day, the corps was rehearsing less than half as much as their competitors. Even in the last ten years, they have rehearsed for fewer hours than the field (we can discuss the hows and what-fors in a different thread).

So, what caused the shift? Their commitment to the System Blue music camps they run, primarily in June and early July. The corps' involvement in those camps is substantial, and the campers participate alongside the corps. It's not the typical "let's go watch Corps X practice" type clinic.

On the other hand, I think the Blue Devils are entitled to a bit more rehearsal time if they want to use it. They could rehears 24/7 every day of the summer and it would take them 20 years or more to catch up to the total time a corps like Cadets has put in since the early 80's.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Kamarag

[OrlandoContraAlum]

It makes no sense to compare BD to the bottom-scoring corps in World Class in this regard. If BD got an advantage from more rehearsal days, it wasn't in their spread over Cascades.

I don't think every corps should be required to do the same number of shows or 30+ shows or anything, but BD's schedule was extremely light this year compared to the corps in the top ranks of World Class. This isn't about money: BD has more of that than any other corps. It's not about location or miles travelled: BD played fewer shows out west than Boston or Phantom did.

I wasn't speaking to this as a direct comparison to BD. What I was pointing out is that, if fewer shows = better competitive placement due to increased rehearsal time, then perhaps those 5 corps should have placed higher than they did, but they did not. By the way, SCV had 2 more shows than BD, while Phantom had 4 more. I wouldn't call that "extremely light" in comparison to BD.