"Tour of Champions" 2013

[Stu]

You still haven't answered the question.

So, Dan Acheson flat out lied when he maintained that the Drum Corps International Mission Statement claims to be "a cooperative fraternity of its member drum corps"? This statement of his echos the very fabric of what a 501c3 is supposed to do on multiple levels concerning internal groups being responsible to help each other; especially the strong helping the weak.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Stu

[Michael Boo]

So, Dan Acheson flat out lied when he maintained that the Drum Corps International Mission Statement claims to be "a cooperative fraternity of its member drum corps"? This statement of his echos the very fabric of what a 501c3 is supposed to do on multiple levels concerning internal groups being responsible to help each other; especially the strong helping the weak.

It helps to remember that as a kid, Dan earned money by walking all his neighbors' cats at the same time...without leashes.

[Ghost]

It helps to remember that as a kid, Dan earned money by walking all his neighbors' cats at the same time...without leashes.

That's because they were all trained by Cesar Millan.

[Slingerland]

This statement of his echos the very fabric of what a 501c3 is supposed to do on multiple levels concerning internal groups being responsible to help each other; especially the strong helping the weak.

I'm curious, not being argumentative, but is that exact language, or language similar to it, in DCI's actual mission statement, or written into their IRS classification statement as one of their purposes? If not, then I'm not sure anyone should be assuming that it's implied, since DCI isn't a a charitable organization designed to provide services to the community, but a non-profit sports league/co-op, there to provide financial return to their members.

And co-ops deliver return to their members at different rates all the time, so there's not necessarily a promise in there that simply appearing on DCi's list of 'members' guarantees everyone the same payout.

I don't know much about the "firing Dan A" elements of the backstory, but I'd agree with Danielray's assessment that DCI, if they want to grow, will probably have to start looking up the corporate ladder at one point or another. If they commit themselves to becoming a larger organization overall, they'll want executives who already have experience working on a larger level - perhaps not the top dog at an existing sports or event promotions company, but someone who is right near the top, and has both the experience and the connections to know how to build an audience. I'd strongly disagree with those who say you can't change public perceptions about what drum corps could be; if they think it's nothing but marching band, then maybe drum corps would have to evolve to offer them something that was clearly NOT marching band, and not 1960s drum corps either.

I have a feeling he's not a popular guy here, but I'll go a step further and also agree with Danielray that an outsider might have a better eye toward what would have to happen to grow the organization. Going back to my post about passion vs business sense, growing DCI wouldn't be about loving drum corps; you have to like it, of course, but the more important element would be the competitive strive to make it bigger than it is. Pete Rozelle came to the NFL as a public relations and marketing guy; George Halas and his fellow coaches and owners may have started the NFL, but it took a guy who'd never played the game (and wasn't an athlete at all) to turn them into a real business and make the the game more popular than it was.

The current DCI team appears to have been brought in to repair a problem back in the 90s, but it could be that they're not the team you need to design and implement the next step of the growth process. That's not a reflection on them as not being competent or good, but recognition that executive teams at any company are always a case of horses for courses; if you know you need to accomplish certain things, you go out and hire the 'horses' who know how to get those things done. And again, from the outside vantage point, it appears that the primary - probably only - goal of DCI right now is to rapidly expand their market and radically grow the overall revenue pie.

They probably don't need slow and steady so much as hard and charging, but in order to get that done, they'll need someone who can bring a killer list of corporate contacts with her (or him) to support a new audience-building offensive. There are probably a dozen or two folks out there who might find this kind of challenge enticing enough to come on board, but they're not going to be cheap ($250k and up for starters, plus performance bonuses for an early to mid-career star in the field), so the co-op members will have to be willing to put up some cash to help make the change, and be willing to take direction from their new CEO, not the other way around. I'm not sure that even the Blue Devils people are willing to go there.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Slingerland

[HockeyDad]

Wow. Pages and pages of "is too!" "Is not!".

How about this - for a stable financial future, spend less than you take in. Thank you. Maybe I'll write a book.

DCI is nothing new or unique, these directors are following the well worn path of all professional sports teams in ramping up the spending arms race. Apparently all these brainiacs aren't smart enough to stop the merry-go-round and back off. It seems to me that the Gee-7 want to increase their own revenue, so at least they have figured out they need more money. Unfortunately they seem willing to take food from their own siblings to feed themselves, rather than find more income from external sources. Perhaps they have given up on that possibility. Maybe everybody has.

So that brings us to the other side of the equation, how can expenses be reduced? Shorten the touring season? Smaller staff size (oh no, that might mean less "excellence". So what?). Compete regionally with one out-of-region tour on the last couple weeks? Rent out a cheaper facility? What's DCI finals attendance dropped to lately? Can it be moved back to Whitewater? Would that be a cheaper venue?

Who knows? I read endless thoughts about how to bring in more revenue, and it doesn't ever seem to happen to the point desired. I don't read much at all about cutting costs. How about some exploration in that area? And if the answer is..... if you cut costs you jeopardize the product.... I'd have to throw the bullspit flag on that one. Excellence being such an ill-defined idea, anyway.

[Fred Windish]

HockeyDad -

Help me out here. Are you commenting on drum corps, or the American political scene?

[garfield]

I'm watching my 2012 Finals BluRay and I paused on the list of corporate sponsors to drum corps. I dawns on me what should be obvious, that there are some pretty heavy hitters that back our little niche:

ProMark

Jupiter

Majestic

Woodwind and Brasswind

King

Sony

Pearl

Yamaha

DeMoulin

Indy

FJM

Blue Man Group

WeScanFiles.com

Mapex

Stanbury

Zildjian

NaMM

Evans

After looking at the list on the screen I've come to one conclusion.

The directors should sell DCI to the Marines.

[Slingerland]

Hockey Dad, I think it's pretty clear that there's a difference in perceived excellence between the smallest and most frugal organizations and the largest and biggest budgeted, so I'm not sure that part of the argument holds water.

What DOES make more sense is for everyone to agree that, as with football, there are different levels of achievement that are out there, and that the best course might be to recognize that the capacities, needs and interests of a small corps on a limited budget are very different from those at the top, the same way that high school football is different from the NFL. They both exist, quite happily, in the same world, both of them relying on each other to help keep the overall public interest in the game going. There's no reason to assume that the two types of drum corps - community based vs international brand - can't have the same type of relationship.

It IS probably a stretch to think that one organization can effectively manage both elements, however, without letting their overall position in the public eye become badly muddled. From that standpoint, DCI would probably do well to split off the smaller, community based corps into their own separate league, or negotiate with DCA to have all weekend only drum corps going under the DCA aegis.

There are costs that could probably be cut from some of the biggest corps, but reviewing the 990's thread, it doesn't appear that any of them are spending extravagantly on staff or management, and almost all of them are within a few percentage points of each other, with the exception of a few who are sitting in the bottom third of the World Class group.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Slingerland

[BRASSO]

In order to effectively market drum corps to a wider audience, you need to view it as they view it... which is why it is best to bring in those with very little knowledge of the activity to present in a way that will resonate with others that are similarly unaware.

So much wisdom in these short few words in my opinion. If DCI brought in an outside management consultant firm to do a detailed analysis of what it would take for this actvity to grow a wider audience ( thereby increasing revenues to Corps ) they may very well come back with a suggestion on "the product that we sell" that many in our very small niche activity may not want to follow in recommendation. Anybody that is familiar in the business world and with what management consultants do with ailing organizations know that they tell that organization even before the scrutiny bregins is that they'll be some toes stepped on regarding people and product and that while some will say they are " for change ", when that change that comes forth recommends a massive change in product and/ or people in the organization there will be strong resistence to implementing the change the " outside " management consultants will recommend. As mentioned earlier, DCI matkets currently to mostly music majors... to students and schools. This is their " customer " that pays for their services, which is primarily education, ie instruction. Their primary customer is not the public. As such, trying to grow a wider audience with " the public " will require fundamental changes that perhaps quite a few are not prepared to make. Which brings us right back to square one, and right where we are today.

For better or worse, DCI early on decided to change its product to more effectively cultivate its new customer base it saw as its future... the music student in the schools. This is a noble and worthy endeavor. The product became more professionalized and glossed and shined up and made much bigger, and larger. And DCI did effectively become much better selling its new and improved product to its new customer... the parent of the student. But of course, the public didn't respond any better than it did in earlier eras. No surprise here as the public was not involved, and nobody from DCI asked them what they wanted in DCI's " product ", and the scoring sheets were altered over the earlier years to actually diminish the public's feedback in their response to the product they were paying for with their ticket purchase.

So now we arrive at a place where some on DCP want to know how we can grow a wider audience base with the public. Well, again, this might very well require fundametal chaanges in both the product and the judging sheets that many may not want to adopt. This is because up to now, the non student music major's input has never been properly valued at all, nor implemented. Absent fundamental chsanges in THAT approach, then we are just going to continue to market this product to the parents of music students in the schools and somehow hope continuing to do this will somehow bring in thousands of new fans... if we could just "get business people involved from outside", and just "learn to market this product better" to the public as they'll love it as much as we do here "if they could just see it and hear it". Well no. The first thing you do if you are REALLY serious about increasing the want and desire and need for your product with the public is to find out what they want and give it to them. Sounds simple. But some people make big bucks getting people to grasp and implement this simple business principle #1

Edited February 24, 2013 by BRASSO

[Slingerland]

I'm watching my 2012 Finals BluRay and I paused on the list of corporate sponsors to drum corps. I dawns on me what should be obvious, that there are some pretty heavy hitters that back our little niche:

ProMark

Jupiter

Majestic

Woodwind and Brasswind

King

Sony

Pearl

Yamaha

DeMoulin

Indy

FJM

Blue Man Group

WeScanFiles.com

Mapex

Stanbury

Zildjian

NaMM

Evans

Most of those are relatively modest, privately-owned specialty brands, or have individual divisions that are interested in being seen with DCI, but don't necessarily bring their entire corporate heft to the table (Sony and Yamaha). What D'Addario (Evans) sells in a year is Target's gross revenues for a day, and it's the Targets and CocaColas you need to provide the kind of money that it'll take to establish better public awareness of what DCI offers.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Slingerland