Side discussion re: Corps in Trouble

[Gary Matczak]

Maybe find music that doesn't cost a fortune in royalties. Most SINGLE songs from Hal Leonard cost over $600, maybe find a new piece.

For example, I wrote a marching band show this year using Sweeney Todd. The band used 5 songs. They paid $3,000 in royalties. Is that something that HAS to be done?

eh,..........3k out of a million dollar budget for a rep is 3/10ths of a percent of the budget,..............even if you could cut that in half playing less desirable tunes, not much impact on the budget,................now, if your budget is 100K like a weekend only corps, 3K is very significant,............but still, an amount you might pay for the rep you want,................

[Gary Matczak]

Now we need to remember that in those days, most if not all of the members were actually Marion and/or Bellefontaine residents,

"Public Relations" is pretty much understood to be advertising you don't pay for. Maybe the more successful corps can share what they do...

I believe many corps types ignore the above two statements in terms of how they interrelate,...............if there was a WC corps in my city that brought in 90% of the membership from outside the community, all of the public relations in the world would not make fund raising on the local level any easier,..............now, if the majority of the members were local/regional, the possibilities really open up,............

[elmhurstmusiced]

eh,..........3k out of a million dollar budget for a rep is 3/10ths of a percent of the budget,..............even if you could cut that in half playing less desirable tunes, not much impact on the budget,................now, if your budget is 100K like a weekend only corps, 3K is very significant,............but still, an amount you might pay for the rep you want,................

Good point. But if you're struggling financially, maybe pick a rep that you can afford. Especially if we're begging for assistance.

Any little bit helps in my opinion, and this is a no-brainer to me.

[Danielle]

Some posts have been removed. Please keep politics out of the discussion, as seen in the DCP Community Guidelines.

[contraBand]

I know Thunder draws their staff almost exclusively from a few high schools in the Spokane area and a few in the Tri-Cities area, these staff recruit heavily at their respective schools which results in an extremely high proportion of local representation. This is reflected in the number of volunteers we would get for camps and even on tour, many of our cooks, uniform volunteers, etc. were parents of marchers that lived quite close to the school that we rehearsed at.

EDIT: Perhaps I should specify, Thunder is located in Spokane, WA and the Tri-Cities to which I refer are Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco in southeastern Washington, where I am from.

Edited October 26, 2012 by laser.lemon

[corpsband]

I believe many corps types ignore the above two statements in terms of how they interrelate,...............if there was a WC corps in my city that brought in 90% of the membership from outside the community, all of the public relations in the world would not make fund raising on the local level any easier,..............now, if the majority of the members were local/regional, the possibilities really open up,............

Disagree with this POV. You can spin a huge amount of community interest stories over just *one* local; most corps should have no trouble finding a local angle. Recruiting efforts should make sure those local stories can continue. Not really that hard to do.

IMO the real key to building local support is creating and maintaining programs and outreach in addition to the WC touring corps. If you're always looking for chances to "give back" , the local community will be much more likely to reciprocate.

[Grandpa]

I agree. Many Drum Corps need to have local ties.

I feel like a good compromise would be to start a feeder corps for each corps that doesn't have a considerable member or alumni base in and around their town.

We are doing this right now in Cambridge Ontario with a youth corps in the Scout House organization. Yes it's difficult but a little help from the "big corps" goes a long way.

I strongly urge this for all DCI and alumni corps. Get a new, local generation in the door.

[Pete Freedman]

I believe many corps types ignore the above two statements in terms of how they interrelate,...............if there was a WC corps in my city that brought in 90% of the membership from outside the community, all of the public relations in the world would not make fund raising on the local level any easier,..............now, if the majority of the members were local/regional, the possibilities really open up,............

But of course the reason drum corps bring in people from around the country in the first place is that the talent in the local pool is insufficient to support the performance levels the corps wants. Of course if Johnny next door is a star player, they are not going to exclude him to fly someone in from Montana. You seem to actually be suggesting that the corps should effectively lower its performance level in order to increase the local fundraising effort.

I'm not disagreeing that there is value in having all those local parents and connections. But the performance levels of any local players has to be up to the standard of the other players or it's not going to be much fun for them. And I would think it would create a class distinction within the corps that would be extremely unhelpful. They should recruit aggressively locally, but the selection process should be fair across the board. And I haven't heard that they don't recruit locals aggressively.

In fact, according to this article in the Toledo Blade, the Glassmen performed a pair of concerts in January. That suggests a strong local base, contrary to the assumptions here.

According to this one, the corps raised money for a local charity just recently.

And the corps gets a fair amount of press (in the Blade, anyway), not so much the tv station from what I can see on the Googles. Anyway it does sound like they are trying to do the local PR thing, but maybe they could be better at it.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Pete Freedman

[contraBand]

But of course the reason drum corps bring in people from around the country in the first place is that the talent in the local pool is insufficient to support the performance levels the corps wants. Of course if Johnny next door is a star player, they are not going to exclude him to fly someone in from Montana. You seem to actually be suggesting that the corps should effectively lower its performance level in order to increase the local fundraising effort.

What's wrong with flying people in from Montana, hm? ;)

[Pete Freedman]

What's wrong with flying people in from Montana, hm? ;)

I was originally thinking of someplace like LA or New York, but then I decided a top player could come from any state, so how about Montana? So it's good. I think.