dstemet Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Garfield, a further question, if I may... The first time I ever saw a corps, they were sleeping on the gym floor of my high school when I and other marching band members arrived at 9 a.m. for our own rehearsals. The corps had arrived in the wee hours of the morning. (I think this was August 1, 1988, and I know the corps was the Garfield Cadets. Although looking at CorpsReps, I'm puzzled by their late arrival, since they had a day off following their previous show, which was less than a five-hour drive away. Maybe it was July 31 and they stayed two days? I can't remember.) The show, however, was in a different school district than ours. I know your show is run in a district with three high schools, so perhaps you're able to host them all under one authority. But just as was the case in 1988, it's obvious from the lists of housing and rehearsal sites I see mentioned on these forums that often the housing sites are scattered over multiple districts. Are you or other TEP's therefore renting space from other school districts? A further note on the current situation in Mississippi: there has been a short follow-up article, which indicates that the school assigned the best rehearsal space (the stadium) to the corps that called them first to ask for it. I am a TEP writing this on my husband's account. We just had our show here last week and ours is a little different than Garfields so thought I'd throw out how we do it. Our show is at a college stadium that we pay for the use of. None of the corps that come to our show stay at the college, so we must find housing for all of our corps elsewhere. I do not use the district that the college sits in because they want to charge us too much money. Therefore I actually use 8-10 districts around our city in neighboring towns, (none further than a 40 minute drive from the stadium) and a local private school. The band directors from these districts all host the corps and we typically use the facilities for free. The band directors get to watch the corps in rehearsal and most have their students come out and watch as well - so their principals (some of which have become fans over the years) are cool with the arrangement. If we have to pay, it is usually a small fee which really just pays for toilet paper and paper towels! Also whenever a corps has asked to stay an extra night or two, I have always been able to provide free housing at these same schools! (so far at least) I provide the directors with great tickets for them and their friends/families for the show and they all have a great time. This year so far, I've had 4 (of 6) of the corps email me or tell me in person how wonderful their accommodations and hosts were. (One even said it was their best facility on tour so far:) I decide where each corps stays after I have the appropriate number of housing sites secured. Sometimes the band directors will ask for specific corps and if so I give them to them. Corps that return for multiple years I will try and place in the same school if I can. Otherwise I try to put the corps going on first in our show the closest to the stadium and so on. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Garfield, a further question, if I may... The first time I ever saw a corps, they were sleeping on the gym floor of my high school when I and other marching band members arrived at 9 a.m. for our own rehearsals. The corps had arrived in the wee hours of the morning. (I think this was August 1, 1988, and I know the corps was the Garfield Cadets. Although looking at CorpsReps, I'm puzzled by their late arrival, since they had a day off following their previous show, which was less than a five-hour drive away. Maybe it was July 31 and they stayed two days? I can't remember.) The show, however, was in a different school district than ours. I know your show is run in a district with three high schools, so perhaps you're able to host them all under one authority. But just as was the case in 1988, it's obvious from the lists of housing and rehearsal sites I see mentioned on these forums that often the housing sites are scattered over multiple districts. Are you or other TEP's therefore renting space from other school districts? A further note on the current situation in Mississippi: there has been a short follow-up article, which indicates that the school assigned the best rehearsal space (the stadium) to the corps that called them first to ask for it. Our host district has only seven schools, but we have 8 corps at our show. So we contract with another local school to take the overflow. We are always prepared to pay the school out of our show budget but, thankfully, the director there is a drum corps freak like us and he arranges for his school to offer their facility for no charge. Again, the little things that local hosts do to further the activity and promote the tour. Garfields_kid and I make a fun night out of meeting the arriving corps as they come in. We're usually up in the wee hours of the morning (it's the most fun we have, believe me) and the corps arrive usually in a loose caravan. This year we have 3 corps arriving 2 days prior to our show. We put them up - no charge - and take the school facilities cost out of our budget. Again, we want the corps to love us so they come back, and so they know they can count on us. The actual schedule the corps run, in travel and arrival time, is strictly based on corps desires. If they can stay at a nice facility an extra day after a show they usually do. Or they drive to the new location early and get some needed practice time without packing and moving. It all depends on the corps' schedule and tour manager, and every corps is different. Last year, all eight of our corps arrived in about a four hour window in the middle of the night. This year they straggle in over three days. No rhyme or reason except what the tour manager needs to do to accommodate the director and his needs. It's for this reason that I don't blame George for his choice to move his kids' practice site. I only chastise him for not keeping his mouth shut in public. He should have called DCI. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 I am a TEP writing this on my husband's account. We just had our show here last week and ours is a little different than Garfields so thought I'd throw out how we do it. Our show is at a college stadium that we pay for the use of. None of the corps that come to our show stay at the college, so we must find housing for all of our corps elsewhere. I do not use the district that the college sits in because they want to charge us too much money. Therefore I actually use 8-10 districts around our city in neighboring towns, (none further than a 40 minute drive from the stadium) and a local private school. The band directors from these districts all host the corps and we typically use the facilities for free. The band directors get to watch the corps in rehearsal and most have their students come out and watch as well - so their principals (some of which have become fans over the years) are cool with the arrangement. If we have to pay, it is usually a small fee which really just pays for toilet paper and paper towels! Also whenever a corps has asked to stay an extra night or two, I have always been able to provide free housing at these same schools! (so far at least) I provide the directors with great tickets for them and their friends/families for the show and they all have a great time. This year so far, I've had 4 (of 6) of the corps email me or tell me in person how wonderful their accommodations and hosts were. (One even said it was their best facility on tour so far:) I decide where each corps stays after I have the appropriate number of housing sites secured. Sometimes the band directors will ask for specific corps and if so I give them to them. Corps that return for multiple years I will try and place in the same school if I can. Otherwise I try to put the corps going on first in our show the closest to the stadium and so on. Excellent. Exactly. I just can't imagine why local TEP's get such little love from the governing body, when corps directors, generally, love the efforts of the show hosts. Thanks for your efforts. You know as I do the impact your show has on your community, your fans, and your corps. And I'll bet you'd bend over backwards to accommodate a special request, wouldn't you? Which makes Hop's public rant all the more cutting. I wonder what he'd do if a band came to a USBands competition and then complained publicly as he's done... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Thanks to both Garfield and dstemet's wife and all the other TEPs for all the work they do to make sure these shows go on. It's amazing how much goes into making this wonderful activity operate so (apparently) smoothly for all of us fans! Keep it up, please! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Since the webpage layout is the same wonder if this paper is owned by the same group that bought my local (Harrisburg) paper. Since the paper was bought it was reduced to 3 days a week and same thing is being done with another local paper (recently bought by the same company) 40 miles away. Bringing it up as multiple times the papers website has been accused of posting articles just to rile people up. Idea seems to be if a large comment total is rung up then that's good for the owners..... Notice I didn't say good for the area or news in general.... Forget to mention the crap load of pop up ads and advertising links all over the place (and you thin DCP is bad ). Think that's what hangs my PC for 5-10 seconds at a shot as I have virus checks up the yingee and my Gov't PC blocks a lot of content. So more controversy, more hits by readers, higher ad revenue? My local paper webbie is Harrisburg, PA for comparision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsefton Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 I think one point that is being overlooked is that the South is lucky enough to be able to enjoy a much lower population density than places like the north east, for example. This translates into fewer schools within a radius of a show site. There are often tighter restrictions for schools in the south, that make things a bit more challenging. On top of this, football tends to start earlier there since the school tends to start up earlier. Anyone that remembers finals in Jackson remembers trying to stay at schools that were already in session, often hours away from the show site. Anyway, there are a lot of unique factors in the south that make things a little less easy than in some areas of the country. None of this really has to do with the quality of the facilities (some of the best facilities I've even seen have been in the south) or generosity of the people. In some cases it even comes to to late or poor planning on the part of some organizations. The great thing about the South is that it is different and what a wonderful experience for kids from other parts of the country to go there. I went there several years ago as a cooking truck parent. No fancy stadium to rehearse in, just a field and a small bleachers but what charming and giving people. From the farmer who brought delicious watermelons for our parched kids to the young families and neighborhood folks who migrated in for the last run though of the day. This is what makes the drum corp experience so special in my opinion. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerriTroop Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 *snip* I still am a bit amazed that someone linked in this story from his personal blog. Seems like a violation of privacy, but that's just me. I find it very odd that there is a perception that a person can post something on the internet and it should be considered private. No matter what, if it's on the internet, there is no real privacy, nor any right to it. This is something we teach at our school specifically. No matter what "privacy" settings you use, once it's out there it's TOTALLY out there to anyone, even if you think you've covered your privacy bases. Any person in who has access to "private" information on the internet has the ability to copy and paste anything, and there's not a darned thing a person can do about it once that happens. Mr. Hopkins is no internet newbie, and I bet we can all agree that he is fully aware of this aspect of the internet. So, when he wears his frustrations on his internet sleeve the way he did this time, why would anyone be surprised or upset that there is backlash? It was inevitable, and fully understandable, given the nature of the comments. That's the way this was going to play out the minute that statement went on the internet. Period. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Thanks for the explanations of how housing works! Very helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fsubone Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Garfield, Do you know what kind of procedure there is for rehearsal days? When a corps doesn't have a show? Do they still need to go through DCI, or do they arrange that on their own? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Dixon Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 Garfield, Do you know what kind of procedure there is for rehearsal days? When a corps doesn't have a show? Do they still need to go through DCI, or do they arrange that on their own? they are on their own - DCI/show sponsors, alumni & their own network are useful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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