Standing-O's for participating?

[3rd Glasgow BB]

From a members, staff or judges point of view, the show just marched may have been cr*p but to the audience it may have been the most entertaining thing they'd ever seen.

For anyone to dictate to me what does or doesn't deserve a standing ovation is the same as telling me what I should and shouldn't like.

[MikeD]

I've read complaints about overuse of the standing ovation in (professional) theatre dating back to at least the 1980s. Here's a recent blog post by the critic John Simon bemoaning the practice, which begins, "There should be a difference between a good performance and a great one. Sensibly, one applauds at the end of the former and rises to one’s feet for the latter." and goes on to consider reasons why the standing O has become ubiquitous.

But then again, in that same blog Simon also wondered why people love the music of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart.

I have no interest in music from before roughly 1840, and can only wonder at the adulation of, say, Bach and Mozart...

Also, IMO an audience reacting at a professional event, which is what Simon was discussing, is not the same thing as reacting at something like drum corps or even community theater.

[JimF-LowBari]

From a members, staff or judges point of view, the show just marched may have been cr*p but to the audience it may have been the most entertaining thing they'd ever seen.

For anyone to dictate to me what does or doesn't deserve a standing ovation is the same as telling me what I should and shouldn't like.

And sometimes knowing why a corps put out a "less than great" show is the reason for the standing O.

Usually knowing how close they came to not being on the field at all.... but that would be thinking about non-top corps mostly which lot of people never care about.

[barigirl78]

I'm not a fan of the "everyone gets a trophy" concept. It's not very good preparation for the real world these young people will graduate to. In the real world, people don't get promotions, bonuses, or acknowledgment unless their work is extraordinary.

In my years in corps, we got standing ovations when we did particularly good performances. It wasn't something we got all the time. The challenge was to repeat that type of performance. If we were getting them for average or mediocre performances, it wouldn't have been the feedback we needed.

It's also not the feedback the show designers need to improve the entertainment value of their shows.

Edited June 13, 2013 by barigirl78

[cowtown]

I do the standing-o after every corps mainly to stretch – stadium seats can be killer and since everyone else is doing it around me, no biggie

So, not sure if it’s really a standing –o then but those around me might think so

[bluecoats88]

there's a difference between a corps making you stand up with an incredible performance and people standing up to stratch as a corps leaves the field. I clap for all corps and will stand between shows because usually the seats are so #### uncomfortable at most stadiums.

[Plan9]

I agree that the Standing O should mean something. Standing for everything is trite and diminishing. On the other side of the coin....if you remain seated & silent in an attempt to make one point or another (i.e. the corps is beating your favorite; you simply hate them :huh:/>; they win too much; don't like the design; don't like the Director; don't like the city, fill-in-the-blank), but the corps just performed the #### out of it....yet you remain seated and silent....that is equally trite. The MM's on the ground deserve recognition for what they did, if indeed it was exceptional...they didn't design it, but performed it exceptionally.......standing and applauding is not much to ask.

Having said that, I'll just mention a moment that (for me) will always speak to the quality of the DCI audience as a whole: 2009 Finals....The Troopers are announced and enter the field.

Honorable mention: The endless O for SOI following their legacy performance at 2010 Semi's.....no way, you could not have chills and tears.

Finally...Ream is right..a leg stretch is a good thing in a crowded stadium!

[Quad Aces]

IMHO, if everyone gets a standing O, then it's the equivalent to no one really getting a standing O. Applaud, yes, but standing O for all? Again, IMHO, if everyone gets one, then it diminishes the value of what it really means.

Yes, I understand that everyone is working extremely hard, and I appreciate that as a fan. However, to bring it back to the sports analogy - the individuals who are getting the "participation trophy" are working hard too. If you don't equate drum corps to the participation trophy situation and say that drum corps is at a whole different level than that, then you are saying the the individuals who get the participation trophy aren't working hard.

Growing up playing little league baseball, basketball, and many other sports as well as competing in music for many years, I learned the value of the fact that despite everyone working hard, not everyone always comes out on top or performs the best. It's a fact of life, and it carries over into everyday life. It helped instill a sense of working even harder and competing at a high level for the end result.

Edited June 13, 2013 by Quad Aces

[perc2100]

On our local Saturday morning talk radio there is a sports-talk program that feeds the Ohio sports fans a steady diet of discussion and statistical fodder. Last Saturday the host, a well-known local sports authority, railed about the tendency of fans to give kids who participate in sports a standing-O even when they lose their game. The discussion drew several callers who disagreed, but most callers agreed with his viewpoint that standing-O's should be reserved for the exceptional performances only.

The sports program is usually just background noise for me while I work in the garden or around the house but, of course, I related it directly to our standard practice in this activity. At nearly every drum corps show I've ever been to over 40 years the audience rewards the performance of even the lowest-placing corps a standing-O when their performance is over.

Why do we do that? Are we just watering down expectation or, worse, diminishing the importance of the standing-O for the truly exceptional performance?

A few things:

1) who cares what other people do? Give a standing ovation if you feel the group of kids/members/sports team deserves it, regardless of outcome. It's not unusual for a pro team to lose a Championship and the have their fans give them huge support for their efforts.

2) in a youth activity, do you really think it's wrong to encourage participation & effort? I know that as a parent my feelings on youth activities have changed drastically over the years from when I didn't have a child. I personally think it does MORE harm to perpetuate a "you only get mad applause for winning!" and I think that could potentially ingrain worse tendencies than giving standing o's for participation and not winning. My son is eleven, and he gets VERY frustrated when he doesn't excel at something immediately. He's fortunate to be pretty intelligent so he does incredibly well in school with very little effort, but he is not athletic at all (like me: he comes by it honestly). When he was younger and tried organized sports it was a long process of teaching him not to flip out when he's not succeeding (or when others are better than him). There's nothing wrong with encouraging lower-achieving kids/teams/drum corps with applause for their efforts.

In the case of a drum corps, we are talking about kids who give up A LOT to perform for a crowd. Especially groups who don't score very high, where members don't get a ton of respect from judges maybe because of things outside of their control (poor show design, inexperienced staff who doesn't rehearse the group well, really good competition, etc), where is there harm in showing them the love and encouraging them? The 16 year old struggling on 3rd trumpet in Pioneer who isn't winning DCI might be the 20 year old trumpet soloist for Blue Devils if people foster her interest by encouraging her with applause?

Again, it's all about what YOU want to do. I don't go to many drum corps shows (I haven't been to a live show in a couple of years to be honest - I get most of my drum corps fix via Fan Network), so on the rare occasion I attend I tend to show appreciation to all. When I was going to several shows a summer, I tended to only give Standing O's to groups I really liked. It really is all about what you want to do, and if you feel only the top shows with the best execution and highest placements deserve your Standing Ovation, then cool

[ranintothedoor]

Standing O's, in my experience, are almost a given in a youth activity for all the above stated reasons. I've come to accept that even though I agree with many that they should be earned.

Soooo, my personal barometer for whether that Standing O is deserved or not really hinges on a couple things:

1) How long did they clap and cheer? Do I keep having to bow and smile and mouth "thank you... thank you"?

2) Was it enthusiastic? If the whole crowd jumps up, that's different from the dreaded "are we doin' this?" wave.

3) When there are giddy mouths open, and laughing and looking at the person next to you with wide eyes, you've earned it. When there's polite smiles and no hollering... well...