"Tour of Champions" 2013

[Stu]

BTW - you have mentioned 501c3 over and over and over in these forums and still don't seem to grasp what it is (even after repeated explanation).

It is simply a tax designation.

Also, DCI is not categorized by the IRS as a youth activity. Their categorization is A6C (Music Groups, Bands, Ensembles).

501c3 is a tax designation which allows the entity to be tax exempt and receive tax delectable donations. You have even maintained that DCI is 'just a kids marching band' activity. And, by the way, DCI is 'registered' as a youth association with the IRS. Move DCI to the status of the PGA (a governing body organization which is 501c3 yet the players/groups are for-profit adult professionals) and I will change my tune. Until then, all corps within DCI owe some sort of service to all youth within DCI.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Stu

[danielray]

501c3 is a tax designation which allows the entity to be tax exempt and receive tax delectable donations. You have even maintained that DCI is 'just a kids marching band' activity. And whether or not DCI is 'registered' as a youth association it 'is' a youth association via it's own rules and bylaws. Move DCI to the status of the PGA (an governing body organization which is 501c3 yet the players/groups are for-profit adult professionals) and I will change my tune. Until then, all corps within DCI owe some sort of service to all youth within DCI.

The amount DCI would have actually paid in taxes would be negligible.

DCI receives about $350k/year in donations... which is kind of tricky as the bulk of these donations are really just ticket sales masked as donations, rather than straight ahead donations.

Even still, $350k out of a $10M budget doesn't really justify remaining a non-profit entity. In fact, it could be actually costing them more money to be a non-profit entity (they could have taken quite a lot of write downs over the past several years, limits partnership/investment potential, etc.).

[Slingerland]

And whether or not DCI is 'registered' as a youth association it 'is' a youth association via it's own rules and bylaws.

DCI does indeed classify themselves as a "youth organization" (I just checked their 990s), but it's misleading. They're still really a business co-op set up by a bunch of other youth organizations. Since they don't directly provide services to the kids in the corps (the members pay dues to their corps, not to DCI, and DCI doesn't pay for instruction, food, or transportation), it's a bit of a stretch for them to call themselves a youth org (IMHO, of course).

But... you do not see any other 'youth' 501c3 co-op, not a single one, not even the Little League World Series, in which the strong within the organization desire to spit so much on the weak in the name of feeding the strong

That's a characterization that doesn't sound like anyone I've ever met in drum corps.

Look, purely from a business standpoint, DCI isn't working as well as it could. My position is that this is because DCI is trying to be everything to everybody, when it wasn't originally designed to do that, and has never really built a financial infrastructure to support that notion. It was built to give drum corps who were good enough to make Finals (or at least come close) a chance to compete at big shows, set their own rules, sell tickets to the shows and recordings of their work, and collect the cash at the end of the season, pretty much in that order. At the time, they probably figured that the other corps would keep doing things they way they'd been doing things; focusing on doing parades to make money and doing shows for fun, but the rest of the activity didn't necessarily decide to do that. And with the collapse of the veterans orgs as drum corps sponsors (something that would have happened anyway), DCI ended up having to take on more responsibility for junior drum corps than they were built to handle.

Well either the business model would need to be radically altered to accommodate that extra load, or the business model needs to be modified to allow the two different worlds of junior corps to do what they do as efficiently as they can. You can do a lot of things in the real world, but turning back the clock is a hard one; trying to make it so that every drum corps survives on local members only, and spends no more than $200-300,000 a year isn't likely to happen, simply because doing so would make the product less impressive, hence less appealing to the core audience, and even less appealing to any potential audiences. So you can move forward, and look for ways to grow the revenues, and pay the performing units an amount closer to what they're worth, or you can watch as everyone gets burned out and decides to just stop, since it feels like they're working harder and getting less return.

There's a lot of potential out there for community drum corps, but it doesn't lie in the national touring model. The sooner that community corps focus on putting together a competitive format and creating associations that benefit themselves, rather than waiting on table scraps from DCI, the sooner those directors will be free to unleash their own creativity, free of feeling like they're supposed to be competing with the corps at the top. You can still leave avenues open for the most ambitious OC corps to move up to national touring, but that should be seen as an option down the line, rather than the goal of any OC corps.

In short, there IS a future for all of this, but being honest about the different needs and goals of the two different types of junior drum corps would be the first step toward taking the right kinds of steps to make sure the overall activity can remain viable.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Slingerland

[cixelsyd]

My support for the idea of aligning drum corps whose managements don't have the inclination or ability to raise a million dollars a year to run a national touring operation with OTHER drum corps whose don't have the interest in doing a national tour is driven by simple fact-based rationality. If you have a drum corps league out there that is geared toward limited touring and lower-budgets, than it makes sense to have those drum corps whose managements want to run those kinds of corps go compete with their peers in that league. I realize that strikes some people (it sounds like it strikes you) as "elitism", or whatever you want to call it, but it's really just looking at a situation dispassionately, and pointing out an obvious opportunity.

Okay, now you want to separate the corps who do not tour nationally. There are only a few of those left, all on the west coast.

You yourself say that Pioneer isn't competing with Blue Devils. Well why would a business that's supposed to be a league of equals/competitors want a situation in which some teams aren't really competitive with the rest of the league? More importantly, why would a corps director who really valued the experience he or she offered their kids want their kids to be competing in a league where they were all but sure to be clobbered every night? Why wouldn't they embrace an opportunity to put their kids in a situation where the best work they can do, at their level, gives them at least a fair shot of success against others who are at the same level?

Okay, now you want to separate Pioneer, and I suppose all of open class too.

The brightest, shiniest objects in the tool box are going to be the most marketable to a wider audience (and yes, that includes the band parents, who are going to be more impressed by PR or Cavaliers than they are with some of the smaller corps who are performing simpler, smaller shows).

Okay, now you want to separate smaller corps.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with community-based drum corps; I think you'd find that everyone who's ever marched would be in favor of finding ways to increase overall participation, but part of that process will be finding ways for give fledgling corps and younger members something realistic to shoot for within their budgets and programming capacities.

Okay, now you want to separate community-based corps.

Take the adult egos out of the equation, and recognize that some drum corps are there primarily to teach the members how to do drum corps and how to handle themselves on their own, and others are there to give the most competitive college-aged musicians the chance to compete on a bigger stage. They're both valuable, but they're not "the same."

Okay, now you want to separate corps who are there primarily to teach...

You really ought to decide just what or who it is you want to separate, because it is not going to be practical to impose as many separations as you have listed here.

[cixelsyd]

Maybe there is an opportunity to spin out a youth-centric weekend only circuit? I imagine if this existed, maybe Cadets2 would move over and maybe some DCA groups might shift to offering youth programs?

Maybe there is an opportunity to spin out a top-corps-centric, touring circuit? I imagine if this existed, maybe 7 corps would move over.

[soccerguy315]

So the real question is why are OC corps not splitting out and forming their own circuit tailored around their own unique needs? It would actually be a larger circuit in terms of numbers than DCI.

It does seem more logical for Open Class and some World Class corps to belong to a regional circuit that could be affiliated with or aligned with DCI, but not under the DCI org.

This makes more sense than splitting off 7 corps into another circuit and equally addresses all concerned.

Open class and WC corps 8-whatever leaving to form their own circuit sounds very similar to the G7 leaving...

funny that at the end of the day there is once again 7 and then all the rest

Edited February 24, 2013 by soccerguy315

[Stu]

DCI does indeed classify themselves as a "youth organization" (I just checked their 990s),

The DCI mission statement, as last posted here, reads:

Drum Corps International is a cooperative fraternity of its member corps.

We seek:

To promote, develop and preserve the operational and artistic standards of the competitive musical sport;

and

To provide organization and leadership for the activity;

and

To develop and successfully operate musical events for the participating drum corps community.

Drum Corps International is the promotional, educational and service arm of the drum and bugle corps activity...

Wow, let's not let the facts get in the way here!!!

[cixelsyd]

Very famliar, yes, thank you. DCA used to be "senior corps." Now it's "all ages." So, by definition it's open to junior corps. And their schedule is exactly the model that fits a junior drum corps that is locally based and isn't interested or able to support national touring.

No, it is not. Once again, junior corps are often made up of kids with free time, and therefore use weekdays to full advantage at times, both on and off tour.

Open Class isn't about the national touring model, and the membership is local rather than international, as with most of the WC corps.

Once again, most open class corps tour to a national/world championship. Their membership varies - some are local, some are international. (Membership in WC corps also varies in that regard.)

In terms of goals, budgets, etc, there's actually a lot more in common between Open Class and DCA than there is between Open Class and World Class. Aside from some adult egos being bruised by having to compete in a lower-profile circuit, there's really no logical reason why this sort of re-alignment wouldn't make sense.

Yes, there are. More than just the few I am presenting.

[Stu]

... That's a characterization that doesn't sound like anyone I've ever met in drum corps.

Politeness and in front of your face talk can be deceiving; read the G7 proposal to discover what type of real internal character some in drum corps actually have.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Stu

[cixelsyd]

Now the next question is whether we also agree that two items that are both important - to their patrons, and to each other - but also very different in their goals and abilities, should be promoted and sold by one managing organization, when their salient marketing points and organizational goals are so very different from each other. I would say that they don't; that the form has to follow the function, and that the needs of a high school-age corps who wants to focus on limited touring and limited budgets are different then the needs of an organization with older performers who are focused on doing national touring and competing at the highest levels..

There's a reason why the NFL doesn't manage high school football and why MLB doesn't feature any farm league schedules on their home page. Because those activities, while vital to the success of both leagues, aren't "the same" as their primary focus. That's not to say that both leagues aren't paying attention to the younger athletes who play their games, but that they recognize that they have a limited amount of bandwidth in the public consciousness, and that their best shots for promoting their sports as a whole lie in promoting the cool factor of their professional teams.

Once again, there is a far more significant difference between professional sports leagues and high school. DCI is just two subdivisions of youth drum corps, one of which tours more than the other.

What is the big fuss? How much of the DCI resources are consumed by open class, anyway? There is probably more money and effort expended by DCI on the bottom two or three WC corps than all of open class.

Why is it such a big deal that the two divisions are promoted by one organization? Frankly, it makes the top corps look that much more impressive, like they are king of the mountain instead of just king of the hill. But if it is that big of a deal, would a separate DCI-OC.org satisfy your concern?