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So fans only care about arbitrary DCI rankings, not excellence and quality of performance?

Nope.

However, IMO, once the MIM-Good Times-Up with People Express pulls out, I'm pretty sure they're going to have to do something to differentiate themselves from DCI: so, they'll probably be more free-form, and add some woodwinds or strings or something. Maybe not, but I doubt they'll just be content with 11 minutes of brass and percussion. There has to be some way to sell it against DCI, and changing the rules is the path of least resistance.

Last survey I saw, most DCI-age people interested in the concept of drum and bugle corps weren't feelin' the idea of woodwinds or the like.

So, in a few years (maybe sooner), the kids that want to knock out triple-Zb's will be tempted to head to Madison instead of BD (and so on), so the "quality increase" will come soon enough.

Winning the annual MIM-Gold Cup probably won't have the same draw as winning a DCI championship, even minus seven groups. I'm sure there will be a disparity at first talent-wise, but once the waters calm down a bit after this occurs . . .say, 2016 . . .we'll see where the chips fall.

Anyway, if we finally get rid of the back and forth arguments these seven groups have caused in the past few years, then I'll take a few years of "lesser" quality DCI in the process.

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Undoubtedly true. But how much of the increase in travel costs is due to a national touring model?

Let's evaluate the costs to dispel this myth, shall we?

Housing - If you are not touring, you still have to house the kids. When you are not touring and performing, housing is not provided to you (the show sponsor is required to provide each performing unit with a free night of housing). So if you are not performing, you are on your own to find housing. if you cannot find it for free (VERY difficult these days), you are paying for it. So touring reduces housing costs.

Food - Whether you tour or not, you have to feed the kids. The only impact that touring may have on food costs is regional differences in costs, which even out over the course of the summer. So touring does not really impact food.

Insurance - Whether you tour or not, most of your insurance must be maintained. The only potential cost savings is that if you are not leasing vehicles, you do not have to insure them. For example, if you only tour for part of the season, rather than the whole season, you will not need to rent a tractor trailer to haul the equipment trailer or kitchen trailer. If you are not leasing that vehicle, you do not need to insure it. However, if you are not touring, you are not earning performance fees or receiving free housing. you save money on insurance (a few thousand dollars), but incur losses of revenues and increases to other expenses that more than offset this savings.

Instruction - Whether you tour or not, you must still have a staff to teach the kids. Traveling or stationary, their pay is the same. Some staff may fly in and out a couple of times over the course of the season to fulfill other commitments. Which city you are flying in and out of may impact flight costs, but this difference is not all that significant in the grand scheme of things. Bottom line, instruction costs do not change.

Bus lease - this one is a bit tricky. If you are not touring, meaning you are staying in one location, you do not need the busses. However, if you do not have busses under lease, you have no way to move the corps around. No local performances or parades (unless they are within walking distance from your housing/rehearsal site), no shows (unless they are at the housing site, and I hope there is a laundry mat within walking distance or it may be a long time until the kids get to do their laundry. If you want to perform in a show, even if it is within the region, you need the busses. It is far more expensive to lease busses for a day, a couple of days, a weekend,etc. and just lease periodically all season long, than it is to lease the busses for the duration of the tour. You need to lease the busses in blocks of time - first tour, break, second tour, or all season long. While national touring essentially means you lease the busses for the duration of the season, it is actually LESS expensive than leasing periodically all season.

Fuel - Fuel costs are directly impacted by the distance driven. The average World Class corps has 7 to 8 vehicles in addition to the busses. I would wager a lot of money that oat, if not all, corps include the cost of fuel in their bus lease. This locks in the price for the season, so the bus company bears all price risk. For the remaining vehicles, the corps pays the cost of fuel. These vehicles average 7 to 8 miles per gallon, so for each mile driven, the entire fleet consumes 1 gallon of fuel. Take total mileage for the season times the price of fuel, and there if the fuel cost for the season. So the less miles traveled, the lower the fuel costs. Less touring would likely reduce fuel costs. But as noted above, less touring means lower performance fees, and higher housing costs.

The way regional touring or limited touring saves costs is if the corps owns their own tractor trailers or busses. This increases insurance expense and maintenance costs, and in the long run, is not a wise move. Most corps figured this out long ago, hence why almost all lease their busses.

Ways to reduce costs include eliminating equipment that corps must pay for out of pocket (i.e., electronics, multiple guard uniforms and flags, props, etc.), changing the length of the season (either limiting the amount of time corps can spend in spring training - impossible to police - or limiting the length of the season by cutting off time from the end of the season), or reducing the size of the corps.

Members do not pay even 50% of the cost of their participation, so increasing headcount increases costs. So long as their are empty seats on busses, the logic has been that filling them with members increases revenue. This is only partially true, and it is primarily due to bus leases of 55/56 passenger busses (the most expense). If we truly want to cut costs, reduce corps size so that the corps could travel on 44/45 passenger busses, which are MUCH cheaper. Further, the argument has been that if kids do not get a spot in the corps they tried out for, they do not march. This may be true, but increasing the size of corps to allow more of these kids to march has a very direct increase to the cost for the corps.

Reduce corps size to 128, so we can lease smaller cheaper busses, and shave the last week off the season to reduce costs - these would result in very significant cost savings to all corps.

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So a G7 show in June would not draw like a G7 show in August, then?

I'm inclined to agree with the above; most early season shows are less well-attended than shows later in the season. I also suspect a G7 in show in June would draw considerably better than a 16-23 show (all other things being equal).

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I'm inclined to agree with the above; most early season shows are less well-attended than shows later in the season. I also suspect a G7 in show in June would draw considerably better than a 16-23 show (all other things being equal).

Why 16-23?

And why is corps that was 8th pre-split suddenly the same corps post-split when the "name of the game" has changed, so-to-speak?

Edited by mingusmonk
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Nope.

However, IMO, once the MIM-Good Times-Up with People Express pulls out, I'm pretty sure they're going to have to do something to differentiate themselves from DCI: so, they'll probably be more free-form, and add some woodwinds or strings or something. Maybe not, but I doubt they'll just be content with 11 minutes of brass and percussion. There has to be some way to sell it against DCI, and changing the rules is the path of least resistance.

Last survey I saw, most DCI-age people interested in the concept of drum and bugle corps weren't feelin' the idea of woodwinds or the like.

So, in a few years (maybe sooner), the kids that want to knock out triple-Zb's will be tempted to head to Madison instead of BD (and so on), so the "quality increase" will come soon enough.

Winning the annual MIM-Gold Cup probably won't have the same draw as winning a DCI championship, even minus seven groups. I'm sure there will be a disparity at first talent-wise, but once the waters calm down a bit after this occurs . . .say, 2016 . . .we'll see where the chips fall.

Anyway, if we finally get rid of the back and forth arguments these seven groups have caused in the past few years, then I'll take a few years of "lesser" quality DCI in the process.

Agree - except I don't think it will take until 2016. I think it will be quicker. Those talented kids who have not yet auditioned won't go to an MIM corps, and some of those that are currently at MIM corps will leave sooner rather than later. I know members that have already told me they would. They want to perform in Lucas at DCI finals.

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Nope.

However, IMO, once the MIM-Good Times-Up with People Express pulls out, I'm pretty sure they're going to have to do something to differentiate themselves from DCI: so, they'll probably be more free-form, and add some woodwinds or strings or something. Maybe not, but I doubt they'll just be content with 11 minutes of brass and percussion. There has to be some way to sell it against DCI, and changing the rules is the path of least resistance.

Last survey I saw, most DCI-age people interested in the concept of drum and bugle corps weren't feelin' the idea of woodwinds or the like.

So, in a few years (maybe sooner), the kids that want to knock out triple-Zb's will be tempted to head to Madison instead of BD (and so on), so the "quality increase" will come soon enough.

Winning the annual MIM-Gold Cup probably won't have the same draw as winning a DCI championship, even minus seven groups. I'm sure there will be a disparity at first talent-wise, but once the waters calm down a bit after this occurs . . .say, 2016 . . .we'll see where the chips fall.

Anyway, if we finally get rid of the back and forth arguments these seven groups have caused in the past few years, then I'll take a few years of "lesser" quality DCI in the process.

So many unfounded speculations here. If I grant you all your assumptions, I agree with you.

I'm not so sure the G7 would be willing to start a circuit with just seven corps.

Nor do I think marching WW's are inevitable.

Nor do I think DCI will forcibly kick the G7 out of DCI.

IMO if and when the G7 breaks completely, they'd do so in such way that ensures the new circuit replaces DCI as the acknowledged center of drum corps -- not competes with it.

Edited by corpsband
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Again, they may have a few good years.

BUT

Check dci.org and then check blasttheshow.com.

See which of the organizations have current tour dates scheduled.

This is fallacy. Blast just finished a VERY successful *14 month* run in Japan. They'll fire up the machine again someday when they feel like it, not according to some annual schedule.

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Let's evaluate the costs to dispel this myth, shall we?

Housing - If you are not touring, you still have to house the kids. When you are not touring and performing, housing is not provided to you (the show sponsor is required to provide each performing unit with a free night of housing). So if you are not performing, you are on your own to find housing. if you cannot find it for free (VERY difficult these days), you are paying for it. So touring reduces housing costs.

Food - Whether you tour or not, you have to feed the kids. The only impact that touring may have on food costs is regional differences in costs, which even out over the course of the summer. So touring does not really impact food.

Insurance - Whether you tour or not, most of your insurance must be maintained. The only potential cost savings is that if you are not leasing vehicles, you do not have to insure them. For example, if you only tour for part of the season, rather than the whole season, you will not need to rent a tractor trailer to haul the equipment trailer or kitchen trailer. If you are not leasing that vehicle, you do not need to insure it. However, if you are not touring, you are not earning performance fees or receiving free housing. you save money on insurance (a few thousand dollars), but incur losses of revenues and increases to other expenses that more than offset this savings.

Instruction - Whether you tour or not, you must still have a staff to teach the kids. Traveling or stationary, their pay is the same. Some staff may fly in and out a couple of times over the course of the season to fulfill other commitments. Which city you are flying in and out of may impact flight costs, but this difference is not all that significant in the grand scheme of things. Bottom line, instruction costs do not change.

Bus lease - this one is a bit tricky. If you are not touring, meaning you are staying in one location, you do not need the busses. However, if you do not have busses under lease, you have no way to move the corps around. No local performances or parades (unless they are within walking distance from your housing/rehearsal site), no shows (unless they are at the housing site, and I hope there is a laundry mat within walking distance or it may be a long time until the kids get to do their laundry. If you want to perform in a show, even if it is within the region, you need the busses. It is far more expensive to lease busses for a day, a couple of days, a weekend,etc. and just lease periodically all season long, than it is to lease the busses for the duration of the tour. You need to lease the busses in blocks of time - first tour, break, second tour, or all season long. While national touring essentially means you lease the busses for the duration of the season, it is actually LESS expensive than leasing periodically all season.

Fuel - Fuel costs are directly impacted by the distance driven. The average World Class corps has 7 to 8 vehicles in addition to the busses. I would wager a lot of money that oat, if not all, corps include the cost of fuel in their bus lease. This locks in the price for the season, so the bus company bears all price risk. For the remaining vehicles, the corps pays the cost of fuel. These vehicles average 7 to 8 miles per gallon, so for each mile driven, the entire fleet consumes 1 gallon of fuel. Take total mileage for the season times the price of fuel, and there if the fuel cost for the season. So the less miles traveled, the lower the fuel costs. Less touring would likely reduce fuel costs. But as noted above, less touring means lower performance fees, and higher housing costs.

The way regional touring or limited touring saves costs is if the corps owns their own tractor trailers or busses. This increases insurance expense and maintenance costs, and in the long run, is not a wise move. Most corps figured this out long ago, hence why almost all lease their busses.

Ways to reduce costs include eliminating equipment that corps must pay for out of pocket (i.e., electronics, multiple guard uniforms and flags, props, etc.), changing the length of the season (either limiting the amount of time corps can spend in spring training - impossible to police - or limiting the length of the season by cutting off time from the end of the season), or reducing the size of the corps.

Members do not pay even 50% of the cost of their participation, so increasing headcount increases costs. So long as their are empty seats on busses, the logic has been that filling them with members increases revenue. This is only partially true, and it is primarily due to bus leases of 55/56 passenger busses (the most expense). If we truly want to cut costs, reduce corps size so that the corps could travel on 44/45 passenger busses, which are MUCH cheaper. Further, the argument has been that if kids do not get a spot in the corps they tried out for, they do not march. This may be true, but increasing the size of corps to allow more of these kids to march has a very direct increase to the cost for the corps.

Reduce corps size to 128, so we can lease smaller cheaper busses, and shave the last week off the season to reduce costs - these would result in very significant cost savings to all corps.

If one went back to corps with primarily local membership (like most of DCM in the early-mid 80's), you don't need to house/feed kids during week because they are housed at the residence, which would presumably have a kitchen. You have practice in the evenings. You only need to rent the bus's for weekends.

I don't know if it would work today, but remember the old DCM adds on the back page of Drum Corps World, with about 60-80 shows over the course of the summer, some the same week as DCI finals were being held elsewhere?

It worked for us, and quite a few others. People seemed to think we were pretty entertaining. And I will guarantee that no one in ANY other corps ANYWHERE had more fun than I.

Edited by IllianaLancerContra
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I totally agree with your analysis. I never thought increasing the size of aa individual corps would lead to anything but disaster. More mouths to feed, equipment, gas, housing issues, uniforms, transportation.......

Lets add all the additional costs for synths, amps, pit banjos, speakers, guitars......

Writing was on the wall years ago.

He made this mess (I believe he did this intentionally to lessen the number of corps out there so he could get his own circuit), let him walk

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