Stu Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 Unless you count gross receipts from bingo (which is not what I would call "stable"), And as it applies to bingo revenue the powers of BD apparently believe in a Monopoly and not Market Competition; didn't they scream bloody murder concerning another Bingo establishment potentially encroaching into what they claimed as just 'their' turf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted March 22, 2013 Author Share Posted March 22, 2013 Fill us in. What IS going on now? The Board now has the 8+1 model - has anything significant changed in the last few months? I am sure we will hear in a few more months. My point was that the 7 made it clear in their urgent January email that they could not stand being out of the kitchen a moment longer. They have had the opportunity to hire someone else to run the show for some time now, either via DCI or Music in Motion, Inc., but they never let go of the reins. I doubt they will be persuaded to now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 No one in the G7 would blanche at the idea of a strong executive team coming in who could expand the market for drum corps and help the activity find major sponsors. It's dumb to think they would. If Gibbs and Coates and Hopkins got bigger checks at the end of the season, because DCI was more successful at shaking money from the trees, then they'd give a #### about how it happened. it would free them up to worry about their local issues much more than whether DCI was going to be able to break even for the year or not. I beg to differ. For this strong executive team to work for the betterment of the activity it has to, well, work for the betterment of the activity not just for the best interest of the G7. To that end the best predictor of future behavior is to evaluate past behavior; so I contend that the G7 corps directors would throw a temper tantrum hissy fit if a strong DCI executive team concluded that it was better to market, promote, and supply both capital and services to the entire activity instead of marketing, promoting, and supplying most of the capital and services to just their glorious 7 above all the rest. I mean what if that strong DCI Executive Director determined that DCI would be better served by strengthening the field of corps; and he/she got flat got fed up at the G7 directors, and told Hop to sit down, shut up, and stop being such a self-centered whiner? Do you really think that Hopp would have a miraculous change of heart and follow the lead of that DCI ED? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 yes, but there's a finite number of kids that will watch Dan. We aren't football or hoops...we're band. We're punchlines in the American Pie movies. We aren't even Drumline the Movie. That is right...and with fewer corps to create 'legacy fans', the only real place to find audience members is within the scholastic music programs, as long as drum corps is structured as it is currently structured in what the audience sees adn hears. Unless it morphed somehow into something completely different, IMO the scholastic band crowd (HS and college) is where fans will be created and maintained. The good thing is that those participants are a constantly renewing source as students move through HS and college, to be replaced by new ones. One goal for DCI is to hang on to some percentage of those who graduate college and move on to 'real life', but IMO that will be a relatively low percentage in any case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
normy diploome Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 (edited) On page 41 of Volume I of this thread, White Dawn, Slingerland, Garfield, and I got into a bit of a related discussion that the inside costs of the DCI corps cannot be adequately assessed by a mere reading of the 990's as the services provided or not provided by said corps are not identical for each corps nor is there equality and uniformity in the the financial requirements and subsequent services charged to the marching members. A fuller cost-benfit-analysis is required to appreciate the solvency and maintenance of an individual corps relative to the other corps which may attract the same membership and commitment. White Dawn brought up Blue Devils diminishing costs for camps as the corps does not provide housing for members until just before tour. Therefore this cost is not reflected in the 990's but comes out of the pockets of the membership at their own conivance and creativity. I mentioned meal provision and transportation provision to and from camps and Spring Training as items which were not uniformly provided, if at all, by several World Class corps. The recent article this week about the bus fire experienced by the Troopers enroute from the Denver airport to camp in Wyoming seems a timely example of what some corps provide and others, like Phantom and BD, do not. Garfield was surprised, and with Slingerland, both asked for more current examples and other variances of this 990 cost differential analysis . Now I apologize that it has taken me a bit and this thread is closely approaching Volume II, but operating out of a hospital bed isn't always easy. So here goes. Phantom Regiment, unlike most DCI corps, diminishes camp costs to the corps but increases the same for the marching membership by not providing meals for members at camps and at times, spring training. Check this week's brass camp schedule (3/22/13) for Regiment if you need more proof. http://www.regiment....ampschedule.pdf This is extremely different from the gourmet meals provided to the Cadets by their organization and for instance, the corndog buffets and other popular foods provided to the enterprising young men in the Cavaliers, etc., etc. Plenty of marching madness around for everyone to consider. "A few dollars there, a few dollars here, is making marching drum corps more and more dear." (That's the refrain for my contribution entry to the Blue Stars' composition competition. May also work as a second refrain to the legendary "I march in Phantom cause...") Edited March 22, 2013 by normy diploome Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 Fill us in. What IS going on now? The Board now has the 8+1 model - has anything significant changed in the last few months? No one in the G7 would blanche at the idea of a strong executive team coming in who could expand the market for 7 drum corps and help the activity find major sponsors. It's dumb to think they would. If Gibbs and Coates and Hopkins got bigger checks at the end of the season, because DCI was more successful at shaking money from the trees, then they'd give a #### about how it happened. it would free them up to worry about their local issues much more than whether DCI was going to be able to break even for the year or not. I editedthis for you to reflect reality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 That is right...and with fewer corps to create 'legacy fans', the only real place to find audience members is within the scholastic music programs, as long as drum corps is structured as it is currently structured in what the audience sees adn hears. Unless it morphed somehow into something completely different, IMO the scholastic band crowd (HS and college) is where fans will be created and maintained. The good thing is that those participants are a constantly renewing source as students move through HS and college, to be replaced by new ones. One goal for DCI is to hang on to some percentage of those who graduate college and move on to 'real life', but IMO that will be a relatively low percentage in any case. however comma.....scholastic programs keep getting slashed. kids have fickle tastes, so the odds of keeping them for life is small. Drum corps has already suffered by churning more than it brings in. It can't keep doing that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Windish Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 Jeff, Just want to support your opinion that DCI programming HAS been a negative factor. There is NO doubt, the majority of shows, while beautifully performed, are much too subtle to drive "common folk" to want to see them again and again. Not nearly as many "jump from your seat moments" as there once were. Why not, of course, has been discussed over and over in other threads. With all this talent, crowds should be much larger. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fsubone Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 And as it applies to bingo revenue the powers of BD apparently believe in a Monopoly and not Market Competition; didn't they scream bloody murder concerning another Bingo establishment potentially encroaching into what they claimed as just 'their' turf. When it's your biggest funding source, you try and protect it. I don't think you could find any company out there that doesn't do that. Would you rather they had let them build a new bingo hall, and the most successful corps in DCI fold? Probably not. Last I checked, more corps folding isn't a good thing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HockeyDad Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 That is right...and with fewer corps to create 'legacy fans', the only real place to find audience members is within the scholastic music programs, as long as drum corps is structured as it is currently structured in what the audience sees adn hears. Unless it morphed somehow into something completely different, IMO the scholastic band crowd (HS and college) is where fans will be created and maintained. The good thing is that those participants are a constantly renewing source as students move through HS and college, to be replaced by new ones. One goal for DCI is to hang on to some percentage of those who graduate college and move on to 'real life', but IMO that will be a relatively low percentage in any case. MikeD, I agree with you (wow, what has happened to my world??!?). Anyway, I don't have large quantities of data, but I do have 3 children in a Big Ten college marching band. They tell me basically zero kids in that band are music majors. Is this typical of other university marching bands? I don't know. Maybe. And there are probably a few exceptions too. But, DCI seems to appeal more and more to music majors. This sets up a disconnect, then. Is it possible DCI's college target needs to be the symphony band students (i.e. the music majors), instead of the marching band members? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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