Jeff Ream Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 (edited) I think there are quite a few things that people aren't thinking about when it comes to live-streaming finals online. Keep in mind that they already live-stream quarterfinals (I think, don't shoot me) at certain movie theaters around the nation (albeit, it's no where near the quality/volume that we would like), but for all we know, there could be a contractual stipulation with Fathom Events detailing the proprietary agency for live streaming any finals events. If this stipulation exists, they would probably be forced to wait until the expiration of the contract to negotiate a new one, et cetera, which could also explain another reason we aren't going to see any finals action on television any time in the immediate future. If it doesn't exist, I don't see why they couldn't charge live-streaming (from home) viewers the same (if not more) than they're making profit from the showings in theaters. BUT when you give people the option to spend $20 to sit at home, live stream, and order pizza rather than actually GOING to finals, I'm sure there is quite a bit of uncertainty from upper-echelon individuals in the organization as to whether or not they're going to be able to sell enough seats to create a worthwhile profit. Perhaps the worst part of it all is that the organization may not have the ways and means to research all of this (it can be done, for a price) to formulate a cohesive, mutually beneficial decision. quite honestly, there is enough of a market of people who aren't going for a variety of reasons ( hate the venue, city, prices, real life stuff) that would fork over enough to make it worth while. WWE holds Wrestlemania in 60,000+ stadiums every year. And, almost all of the seats are usable, unlike drum corps where at best, 40% of the venue is at least a passable seat. They sell it out every year...and a million people pay $70 to watch it on pay perview for HD. We are in year whatever of Indy. Attendance not counting wristbands still has not broken 20k for finals. There is no substitute to being there live. The people that want to go are going to go. if anything, the concerns over Indy ( acoustics, same place til death, etc) has actually helped Allentown's attendance....and I know at least 50 people that go to Allentown, that have no desire to go to Indy, that pay to go to the theater Thursday, and would still pay to see finals streamed live. edit: we still had higher attendance at finals when finals was shown on live TV Edited June 3, 2013 by Jeff Ream 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 why is DCI forcing me to buy it if I don't want it? I *do not* want the physical media. I *do* want access to the finals VODs. Why does DCI not understand that? I would suspect, to answer your question, that DCI is worried that their highest-selling ancillary product would suffer diminished sales if they streamed Finals w/out purchasing the Blu-ray or DVD. Here's my question: what if DCI charged the same amount for streaming Finals (after the fact), and said that you "got the DVD as a bonus?" And then you could "add $20 to upgrade to Blu-ray" for the privilege of streaming finals. I know of splitting hairs, and I get being upset having to pay for media you're not interested in. But I guess DCI is ###### if they do, ###### if they don't. People would complain if they didn't stream Finals at all, people complain that they stream Finals but only for people who also buy the DVD's/Blu-rays, etc. DCI as a non-profit has to at lest pay for the service so they're breaking even: I suspect they actually would prefer to make profits. I understand that they are probably hesitant to change anything that they fear might jeopardize revenue generated from DVD & Blu-ray sales. What is a little frustrating to me, though, is why they haven't been able to figure out a way to stream finals while feeling secure it won't screw up revenue from live ticket sales and/or DVD's/Blu-rays. I guess maybe not enough people from the survey expressed interest in paying extra for Finals stream, or something, but surely there is a way to financially work things out so DCI feels OK financially, fans benefit from the service, DCI make EXTRA revenue from customers like me who have zero intention of attending DCI Finals but would gladly spend extra for a Live stream, and we all live happily ever after Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 They fully understand it. However, the business model of no-physical won't support a 12-camera HD truck shoot. You may not like it, but it's done to make sure that they sell enough to cover production costs. If it's such a pain in the arse, you can always sell your unopened copy on ebay for a decent subsidy, and consider the difference the "cost" of getting finals VOD. Oh, I know that the costs to shoot and produce are high. I get that. But let's be honest, it's not like DCI is trying to find ways to add value to the package for folks who don't give a crap about the physical media. I stopped buying the DCI DVDs a couple of years ago when I realized I wasn't watching them. I have three years worth in a box with the shrink-wrap still on them. In the last four five years or so, the only drum corps physical media I've bought and actually watched didn't even come from DCI...it came from a corps. It's like Jeff has said repeatedly...add a finals live stream to that physical media package and I'm in. Yes, I understand I am the minority. But there's a funny thing about minorities...they can very easily become the majority in very short order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 quite honestly, there is enough of a market of people who aren't going for a variety of reasons ( hate the venue, city, prices, real life stuff) that would fork over enough to make it worth while. WWE holds Wrestlemania in 60,000+ stadiums every year. And, almost all of the seats are usable, unlike drum corps where at best, 40% of the venue is at least a passable seat. They sell it out every year...and a million people pay $70 to watch it on pay perview for HD. We are in year whatever of Indy. Attendance not counting wristbands still has not broken 20k for finals. There is no substitute to being there live. The people that want to go are going to go. if anything, the concerns over Indy ( acoustics, same place til death, etc) has actually helped Allentown's attendance....and I know at least 50 people that go to Allentown, that have no desire to go to Indy, that pay to go to the theater Thursday, and would still pay to see finals streamed live. The confounding thing to me is comparing DCI to its like-activities. Comparing DCI to MLB, WWE, etc. is difficult at best, as it really is apples & oranges. A more apt comparison is comparing DCI to WGI & BOA: * WGI live streams Finals ($80 for everything streamed live & archives, but they streamed by-the-day Championships, with $30 for Saturday, $25 for Friday, $20 for Thursday) * BOA live streams their Finals ($60 for live streaming everything, including finals, +archive) Arguably both BOA and WGI attract more people to their large/sponsored events and can afford to stream Finals. Heck, WGI Percussion sold out a week or more before Finals in 2013, so they couldn't sell more tickets if they wanted to, thus making live-streaming icing on their cake. I don't know as much about BOA other than the broad public claim of "More than 50,000 participants and spectators attend the event (Championships) annually." which sounds like it could be comparable to DCI's public claim that The attendance for the three-day event (DCI 2012 Championships) totals 36,494, which does not include thousands of corps and staff members who entered the stadium after performances with wristbands or staff/VIP credentials.http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=777ac5ef-235a-4f86-896d-70392b372660#ixzz2VB75T7Xt It's frustrating to me as a fan who doesn't have the means to travel cross-country for DCI Championships to see that both WGI and BOA have seemingly figured out how to deliver live-streaming to fans, yet DCI continually fails. I am literally WANTING TO GIVE DCI MORE OF MY MONEY, and they seem to willingly not want to take it. Surely there is a way for DCI to figure out what BOA and WGI have been doing for quite awhile now AS WELL AS bring in more revenue for DCI and its member corps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trh Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 The confounding thing to me is comparing DCI to its like-activities. Comparing DCI to MLB, WWE, etc. is difficult at best, as it really is apples & oranges. A more apt comparison is comparing DCI to WGI & BOA: * WGI live streams Finals ($80 for everything streamed live & archives, but they streamed by-the-day Championships, with $30 for Saturday, $25 for Friday, $20 for Thursday) * BOA live streams their Finals ($60 for live streaming everything, including finals, +archive) Arguably both BOA and WGI attract more people to their large/sponsored events and can afford to stream Finals. Heck, WGI Percussion sold out a week or more before Finals in 2013, so they couldn't sell more tickets if they wanted to, thus making live-streaming icing on their cake. I don't know as much about BOA other than the broad public claim of which sounds like it could be comparable to DCI's public claim that It's frustrating to me as a fan who doesn't have the means to travel cross-country for DCI Championships to see that both WGI and BOA have seemingly figured out how to deliver live-streaming to fans, yet DCI continually fails. I am literally WANTING TO GIVE DCI MORE OF MY MONEY, and they seem to willingly not want to take it. Surely there is a way for DCI to figure out what BOA and WGI have been doing for quite awhile now AS WELL AS bring in more revenue for DCI and its member corps. DCI has a lot more to lose than WGI. As far as we know, a couple "really bad" years for DCI could mean the death of the organization, and, perhaps, the activity as a whole. WGI and BOA don't have this kind or magnitude of risk simply by the nature of those activities itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 Oh, I know that the costs to shoot and produce are high. I get that. But let's be honest, it's not like DCI is trying to find ways to add value to the package for folks who don't give a crap about the physical media. I stopped buying the DCI DVDs a couple of years ago when I realized I wasn't watching them. I have three years worth in a box with the shrink-wrap still on them. In the last four five years or so, the only drum corps physical media I've bought and actually watched didn't even come from DCI...it came from a corps. It's like Jeff has said repeatedly...add a finals live stream to that physical media package and I'm in. Yes, I understand I am the minority. But there's a funny thing about minorities...they can very easily become the majority in very short order. I stopped buying because the edits made it worthless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 The confounding thing to me is comparing DCI to its like-activities. Comparing DCI to MLB, WWE, etc. is difficult at best, as it really is apples & oranges. A more apt comparison is comparing DCI to WGI & BOA: * WGI live streams Finals ($80 for everything streamed live & archives, but they streamed by-the-day Championships, with $30 for Saturday, $25 for Friday, $20 for Thursday) * BOA live streams their Finals ($60 for live streaming everything, including finals, +archive) Arguably both BOA and WGI attract more people to their large/sponsored events and can afford to stream Finals. Heck, WGI Percussion sold out a week or more before Finals in 2013, so they couldn't sell more tickets if they wanted to, thus making live-streaming icing on their cake. I don't know as much about BOA other than the broad public claim of which sounds like it could be comparable to DCI's public claim that It's frustrating to me as a fan who doesn't have the means to travel cross-country for DCI Championships to see that both WGI and BOA have seemingly figured out how to deliver live-streaming to fans, yet DCI continually fails. I am literally WANTING TO GIVE DCI MORE OF MY MONEY, and they seem to willingly not want to take it. Surely there is a way for DCI to figure out what BOA and WGI have been doing for quite awhile now AS WELL AS bring in more revenue for DCI and its member corps. even comparing to WWE, there's some apples.We offer at best 40% of the seating as a good seat, and to be honest, the seats on the ends are over priced. but yes, WGI is a good comparison, which we discussed weeks ago. UD holds maybe half of what Lucas Oil does......it sells out....and people buy it at home. DCI should be able to see what WGI and BOA do easily.....the fan network is DCI's, the others just pay to use it. Even DCA is getting into live streams outside of prelims this year. Yeah, the cost is a little high, but they are slowly growing the business. If there is a circuit showing finals live on would hurt attendance, right now it's DCA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Freedman Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 5k So that's $345,000 if everyone has the non-media sub at $69, and $895,000 if everyone has the blu-ray at $179. I'm guessing closer to $345,000. Let's say DCI is grossing .5M on this. If the budget is around 13M (IIRC from "The Garfield Thread" ™ ?), then less than 5% of the DCI budget comes from FN, even assuming 100% profit. This suggests that unless DCI is on a more critical knife edge than usual, it might be more useful to not think purely in terms of what maximizes revenue, as you suggested they do, but to balance profit and promotions. I'm not talking about lowering prices or changing offers, but consider: Two kinds of free content. The current free stuff would be moved to a tab that existing drum corps fans could access; but the front-and-center free stuff would be one random full corps performance from the last ten years, with a bias toward the HD era stuff and toward top placing units. In other words, stuff that would attract new fans, such as high school band members eager to be blown away by Crown's A Second Chance or whatever. Only top-tier, general-public-impressing material. There is a principle in media marketing that you can give away content the customer can't control (and even pay to give it away) in order to promote the purchase of customer controlled content. Because the uncontrolled content does not cut into the costumer-controlled content profits. In other words, hearing a song on the radio does not decrease it's sales, it increases its sales significantly because the customer can't control it. The customer is really paying to be able to control the content. And more will pay because it is being promoted. Granted, this kind of discussion is common on DCP and the blanket argument "DCI considers all options and this is the best one. None of the others works. We will go bankrupt immediately if we do it any other way than we are doing right now." tends to be the final answer, but I can't believe that DCI really has good data on how many people would avoid subscribing just because some free content is available, versus how many they would attract. This is very difficult data to get right. You just have to do it for a year and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 5,000 subscribers. Say 2500 of them sign up and $25 extra to get finals. that's $62,500 in additional revenue....not counting those who would have to say pay $40 to buy it live without a subscription. Say 500 people make that impulse buy...that's another $20k. I'm guessing my estimates are low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Freedman Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 Slightly OT; how much does upgrading cost (from just Live to Live+Blu-Ray or Live+DVD). Is it just the price difference? I don't see that info on the site. Also, how does one do that? Call them? Thx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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