Tyler C. Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 But that is just it. Corps have been climbing ever higher mountains all through time. Drum corps competition has driven these people to these extremes both on and off the field. As it gets more difficult, we may well see corps drop out. Others will view that as an opportunity to enter the competition (or move up, if already in it). Maybe the net effect will be less corps, but they will not all evaporate in 5 years like some say. I am not kidding about 1920, by the way. Travel was far more challenging back in the 1920s and 1930s, yet dozens upon dozens of corps from all over the country piled on trains with all their equipment and found their way to nationals back then. The activity continued undeterred through a full fledged economic depression. It may have been more miraculous back then. Maybe the explanation is that the governing organizations back then, AL and VFW, had a strategy for developing and growing the activity from top to bottom. They organized contests at the local, state and national levels. They developed guides for how to start a corps, and distributed that information to their posts all over the country. They published other promotional materials to encourage the creation of more corps. And their conventions even provided the audiences whose ticket purchases subsidized this wave of growth. Since DCA and DCI have taken the roles AL and VFW used to serve, there has never been a comparable strategy formulated and executed to grow the activity. For 40 to 50 years, drum corps has continued on without a strategy, and it is still here. It will still be here in another 5. And imagine if DCI and/or DCA developed a strategy. Bingo. I think either DCI or DCA needs to reach out to smaller organizations like SDCA and DCNA and aid their efforts to get local drum corps back in communities across North America. DCNA in particular is structured with cooperation between corps in mind. Also, with all the active church youth groups I see down here, I wonder if church-sponsored junior corps could make a comeback, if only at a local level. How would this help current DCI/DCA corps? Well, maybe it wouldn't directly help, but I think it would help bring drum corps much closer to mainstream America than it has been since the AL/VFW days. I've recently been amazed by how many friends I have who have a grandparent or great-grandparent who marched drum corps in their youth (I'm 20). My girlfriend has a grandfather who marched with the Bridgeport PAL Cadets in the early 60's, first on snare, then on sop. He aged out in '64, which from some digging on CorpsReps.com looks like the high-water mark for that corps, edging Troopers and Madison Scouts to make Finals at the World Open Championships and just missing Finals at the VFW Nationals. As someone who has only followed drum corps since 2006, it's really cool for me and my girlfriend to see Chicago Cavaliers, Garfield Cadets, Boston Crusaders, Phantom Regiment, Casper Troopers, Madison Scouts, and Racine Kilties in the same lineups as a corps someone in her family marched with. I can't wait to talk to him about it. I think it would be wonderful to get local drum corps back to a point where state championships are possible. Then, DCI's claim as marching music's major league would actually have some weight to it, since there would be a much stronger "minor league" system to support it. Sure, there's high school marching band, but in my experience with a small band program with mediocre resources, it was fundamentally different. Some of my teaching experiences since then reinforced that. We have to remember that BOA is the circuit of the few... Most high school programs I've seen struggle to compare to BOA, much less to drum corps. It seems like the values and lessons drum corps can teach would be especially applicable in a world where sometimes the only thing needed to keep kids on the right track is a good use of their free time. The obvious challenge is money, but who says these local groups have to tour or even compete? There's an effort to get a corps off the ground here that would perform at arena football games. I know, I'm a dreamer, but if the golden days of drum corps where when corps were as common as a church in the Bible Belt, I think a serious effort needs to be made to recapture that. Much like the major symphony orchestras in America, we can't keep depending on our oldest generations to keep the music alive, because in reality those folks aren't going to be around for very much longer (relatively speaking). It's up to their sons and daughters and then down to my generation to find new ways to bring in the resources to keep this activity alive, and then, accomplishing that, to help it grow again. New resources could mean branching out through the use of local corps to make drum corps more prominent in the average American's life and in turn find new financial supporters of the activity. That's just my favorite brainstorm. Whatever we do will need to be organized and will have to make good use of the technologies available to us (namely, social media). The Internet has driven us even further into our niche and has hidden us away from public view. I would love to see more local news coverage of what corps are doing for our youth... What's your idea? /ramble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler C. Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Wondering if that helps DCA find places to host Finals weekend as it brings in a lot more money to the local economy. IIRC corps would roll in Sat AM and leave Sun night after Finals for a whole one night at a hotel. And some fans would do both Prelims/Finals by a o'dark 30 drive to the field Sunday AM and o'dark 30 Sunday night drive home (or few hours of sleep in the parking lot before going home). And just where in the Hades did people eat at during the few hours between Prelims/Finals? Sister and I used to drive to Allentown for Prelims only and remember people b-wording about finding food in between. LOL - at Annapolis was talking to some corps members (can't remember which corps) at Bob Evans near BWI morning after Finals. After Finals their corps went back to the hotel to clean up and sleep. After breakfast they would ride back home. Told them about our days of going off the retreat field after Finals, change at the bus and ride home all night nice 'n... well... smelly.... They treated it like a BITD Horror Story which I pretty much agreed with. Just wish I remember which corps it was as we had a great talk considering the range of age and eras... Yikes... With CV, we pay for an extra night at the hotel just to be able to go back to shower and relax some before hitting the road o-dark-thirty Monday morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Windish Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Tyler, thanks for your thoughts. From a publicity standpoint, the amount of local coverage DOES increase where there is strong evidence of participation by local residents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 It has. show attendance is not the issue. Finding new funding sources is the problem for corps like the Glassmen. show attendance is an issue Mike. for every fan gained, you've lost at least one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 not really liz.. but the tone coming from john is. an the way he posts. and lets be honest there are others to. knowing John as I do, if he was bashing, you'd really know. In a lot of ways he's like me...blunt trauma honesty is mistaken for bashing 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 (edited) Here's where we are today . . . Less competing corps Smaller competing corps Smaller crowds Higher operating costs for participants and audience These are HUGE hurdles to overturn. We can all agree, changes are necessary. Keep the ideas flowing, but leave your egos at the door. are corps smaller though Fred? I mean really, until the 70's, most corps didn't have 100 total member, and even then, just many did as did not Edited January 8, 2013 by Jeff Ream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Now then, could this help . . . Limit maximum corps size to 80. Benefits include. . . Reducing back to 2 buses required. Lower equipment costs. Smaller staff. A more level playing field. and tell 20-48 people in a corps you now have to potentially travel a whole lot of hours to somewhere else if you want to march Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Unfortunately a lot of what he posted is true and people don't want to hear it. The Alumni Spectacular does not bring in more people than DCA prelims or finals, despite the proclaimed love of the show. yeah, a lot of the people, at least in Rochester I noticed were not at all 3 shows...and many of those in the stands for the alumni show didn't go to prelims or finals Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 I do not miss those days. LOL. One of DCA's best moves ever was going to the two-day format in 1989. well technically it was supposed to happen in 1988, but early morning rain that dissolved into a gorgeous Saturday kept that from happening Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 show attendance is an issue Mike. for every fan gained, you've lost at least one. No, for corps budgets it is not really much of a factor. Outside of the shows at huge NFL stadiums, show sites where I have gone can't really hold many more people...they are sellouts or close to it. That has been primarily DCI shows, of course, not DCA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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