cixelsyd Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 More attendance means more people buying tickets to drum corps shows, means more t-shirts being sold, means more people saying "I'm going to the drum corps show tonight," means more people talking about the product that DCI is there to sell. If more people are paying to see what you do, even if the overall gross doesn't go up, you would still count that as a win, because the ancillary benefit of having more overall butts in the seats is a good thing. And here's your hypothetical for a hypothetical; would you rather have DCI sell 15,000 tickets to Finals at $75 each, or 30,000 tickets to Finals at $37.50 each? If the 30,000 seat venue costs more, the former would be preferable. But I agree with your premise that it is better to have more fans. I would rather have DCI net $2 million profit from 2 million fans at $1 profit each, vs. 2,000 fans at $1,000 profit per fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 The size of the company is irrelevant, it is their actual level of engagement that matters. Who cares of a company is a multi-billion dollar company if they pony up less than $50,000? The multi-billion dollar company cares. And evidently, they must think others will care, or they would not pay to have their logo all over DCI in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 Then they should all stop competing. If it's just about the experience, then the contests mean nothing, and those kids are wasting their time bothering to perfect what they've been given. Why would anyone care? Just show up. Cut everyone a $100 check for their corps' appearance, and everyone meets down at the Dairy Queen for sundaes. But you and I know that the members really do care about competing. Watch the kids in your favorite corps when the kick the __ of another corps that they've been trailing all season long. There's blood in those voices. They like to compete. And that's great, because the competitive aspect of the activity is one of the things that really makes it useful in teaching those life lessons. I agree. In this sport, the only way to win anything is to prepare to win, and preparation, and the ability to perform under presssure, are the elements that separates the greats from the also rans. Except that if we did away with the current preliminary format, we would separate the greats from the also-rans in advance, denying them the chance to compete. English soccer league viewership around the world is bigger now than it was 20 years ago. The multi-league format hasn't made anything smaller; just the opposite. Premier league gets a lion's share of the notice, but the other leagues get corporate sponsorship and tv ratings too, and when a team gets promoted to Premier, it's a very big deal for their fans. You are mistaken. The whole principle of the Premier League was to make the top tier smaller. English clubs had lost ground to their European rivals because most European top-tier leagues had 20 teams, while England had 24. As a result, the top English clubs had eight additional matches on their schedules, plus the usual dividing-the-pie-into-smaller-pieces. Formation of the Premier League permitted them to ramp the number of clubs down to 20, divide the pie among fewer clubs, and not long after, regain their competitiveness with the rest of Europe. This sort of situation might have been useful to refer to back when top DCM corps were pushing for a pay raise. There, you had an analogous higher level of competition. For DCI, the only analogous feature is how the pie is sliced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 Because DCI is so desperately broken that if there is not a drastic change, within the next 8 months or so, it will likely cease to exist in any form near the current level. Why? What happens in 8 months? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 Again, most of the contributions to DCI were connected with ticket sales and are not actually contributions in a true sense. Sorry, but when someone pays $100 and gets $15 worth of stuff in exchange, the other $85 qualifies as "contributions" in my book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 DCI is an events and marketing company FOR youth organizations, not a "youth organization" themselves. IF DCI's leadership feels the corps' products aren't sellable enough to the fan base, then it seems to me that onus would be on them to stand up and say "here's what we think; the surveys say this, and you guys need to address this." If the corps directors refused to go along, the only real course of action would be to throw in the towel and leave the corps to wallow in their own mess. There are some strong personalities involved in this activity, but the only way some of them will give you respect is if you show them you won't be pushed around. Given a popularity contest among various directors. it's unlikely Dan A would lose to a few of the loudest voices in the room, so there's no reason for him to be shy about standing up for more populist, more sellable shows, IF that's what he really thinks DCI needs in order to grow their fan base. A company called Vaticinate was hired to survey marching members to find out why they march (in addition to identifying other data points about the activity). It's called Project Persona, and I have a copy of the survey results (you can find it buried in DCP, I believe). The results of that survey were contrary to the notions that the G7 were promoting. When the results were presented they were ignored and lampooned, and the company was chastised and its owner was, essentially, tarred and feathered and run out on a rail. When asked on what basis the results were inaccurate, do you know what one G7 director responded? "You asked the wrong people." Again, DCI has no control over what the corps put out as a salable product but, worse, they have very little control over some key aspects of their own bottom line. Which makes fulfilling their mandate to return 'X' profits to the corps regardless of their fiscal situation. But one example (of many) is judging. The cost of flying judges around the country is a variable that is controlled by the corps via the judging system and committee. A small change in airline ticket prices magnifies the variability of those costs, and DCI has no control what-so-ever over that expense. Yes, the personalities at the top of the activity are strong, but Dan would win an argument with them if he had the backing of the other directors on the BOD. Problem is that when those strong personalities don't get their way, they meet in secret, form their own organization, then hold the rest of the activity hostage under a threat of exit, all the while claiming over and over again, with NO actual evidence, that they are the draw and that the rest of the activity will fold without them. DCI, thankfully, hasn't thrown in the towel to allow them to wallow in their own mess (which, not-coincidentally, would give the Seven the exact vacuum they want to swoop in and take control), but every time the other directors push back, the leaders of the Seven renew their threat to take the ball and go home. Again, where is the problem with DCI? Just look at my signature down below... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Sorry, but when someone pays $100 and gets $15 worth of stuff in exchange, the other $85 qualifies as "contributions" in my book. I agree with you point, but it's actually more the other way around. For each $100 given there's only about $15 worth of actual charitable contribution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 A company called Vaticinate was hired to survey marching members to find out why they march (in addition to identifying other data points about the activity). It's called Project Persona, and I have a copy of the survey results (you can find it buried in DCP, I believe). The results of that survey were contrary to the notions that the G7 were promoting. When the results were presented they were ignored and lampooned, and the company was chastised and its owner was, essentially, tarred and feathered and run out on a rail. The questions were very poorly formed and often leading. Was not a useful survey at all. I received it. My last company actually built a market research platform that was used by groups like GMI and TNS-Gallup and internally for loads of multi-national brands. I lived this stuff and the Vaticinate stuff was weak. Again, where is the problem with DCI? It is a company that turns over $10M a year, that could do $30M if focused right and operates more like a booster club for a hobby group than a multi-million event production company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Why? What happens in 8 months? The current situation is simply a temporary compromise to see if the marriage is worth saving. There needs to be some considerable change moving forward for DCI to remain both a viable and profitable vehicle. The situation can only be solved by viewing and acting more objectively and taking emotion out of the decision-making process. Again, this is why I am a very strong advocate of engaging a top-tier consulting firm that would perform an objective analysis of the situation complete with recommendations. This would then be used to recruit the sort of management team that could take this to the next level, that could bring in the team members, capital and partners necessary to truly grow the activity. I do not see any scenario in which DCI continues to exist (let alone thrive) if it remains a non-profit activity and within the current structure. The current model is not sustainable and is decades out of date. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 I'd suggest that it's not always necessary to identify "a problem" so much as to ask some basic questions the same way every healthy business does. Are we as successful as we could be? funny, I was thinking this very thing when I read the post you are replying to...if an organization waits until there is a 'problem' then they are more likely to make a quick, knee-jerk reaction. If they plan ahead and make reasoned decisions then they are morelikely to make wiser choices, IMO. I hate these sorts of things...but in this case it does seem to fit... "If you fail to plan you will plan to fail." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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