Note from Exec. Dir. of Music City

[MusicCityDrumCorps]

Hello drum corps fans! This is Keith Hall, executive director of Music City Drum and Bugle Corps. The announcement concerning the folding of Music City can be found HERE.

After reading some of the posts on a couple of threads here I thought I should offer the following. It is very expensive to operate a drum corps. Music City received a couple of small grants this year and a smaller amount in appearance fees. The corps' expenses not covered by these and the membership fees were covered by a VERY small circle of individuals. Music City has no debts. We tried to time the announcement the best we could for the sake of the members. By the way, I'm the same Keith Hall as The Band Hall which provided all uniforms, flags/guard equipment for the corps.

On a sidenote, I do not think the open class system is serving the activity well. Certainly the elite corps should receive tons more compensation and receive far more performance opportunities, but the current arrangement is not going to grow the activity. I would like to add that I believe Dan Acheson is providing the best possible leadership for the activity. He has a great vision for the future of drum corps. His hands are unfortunately tied it seems by the unfortunate need to "get along" with certain others. The unflattering posts I've seen here regarding Dan Acheson are unfortunate and uninformed I believe.

I invite everyone to support the corps or corps (plural!) of your choice. Make a donation, buy a t-shirt or best of all, help them raise money, LOTS of money. Today would be good!

[DonR]

Thanks for your note, Keith. I hope this calms the waters a bit.

I saw Music City for the first time in Indianapolis, and I thought the group looked and sounded terrific.

I think you could be helpful with the experience that you have been though, to guide and advise this group (and hopefully the larger drum corps community) on some of the points your raise. Can you expand on:

1. "The current arrangement is not going to grow the activity". What do the open class/smaller corps need to be sustainable? Cash, obviously. But what rules changes need to be made to provide the necessary support?

2. Should Dan Acheson have the power of a "commissioner" with the ability to interpret rules and make accommodations without detailed approval by the BOD?

[lastknight]

Thanks for your note, Keith. I hope this calms the waters a bit.

I saw Music City for the first time in Indianapolis, and I thought the group looked and sounded terrific.

I think you could be helpful with the experience that you have been though, to guide and advise this group (and hopefully the larger drum corps community) on some of the points your raise. Can you expand on:

1. "The current arrangement is not going to grow the activity". What do the open class/smaller corps need to be sustainable? Cash, obviously. But what rules changes need to be made to provide the necessary support?

2. Should Dan Acheson have the power of a "commissioner" with the ability to interpret rules and make accommodations without detailed approval by the BOD?

It used to be enough fir the corps to be the best marching unit in the local parades. The majority of their activity was local and/or regional. If they brought back accolades it was great but they were still "our kids".

No diss on DCI, but losing the regional associations made the local corps unsustainable. Until a "local" corps has places to play and kids have a local corps to get their feet wet in, growth is a perilous peoposition.

[Lansing R. Dimon]

Hi there.

This is my $0.02. No one elses.. since it was brought up.... ;)

Keith... it's sad to see your post and the decision. I've seen the group a few times on our tours and it was a welcome change in the activity.

On your comments and the questions from it...

I'll go further and state that it doesn't feel like the current system is serving not just the open class corps, but any corps under the top 12. In the past, when there were regional circuits outside of the DCI umbrella, the issue of money was lessened by the amount of numerous local shows with local corps, so travel expenses were minimal until the larger DCI shows. Now, since those were all forced to extinction, so too did those corps go the way of the dinosaur. SoundSport is old wine in new bottles -- we already had plenty of div II/III now open groups to create this culture... now it's recreating what was already there. It's interesting that the other drum corps circuits easily fall into SoundSport (SDCA, DCA, Mini corps, etc.) -- why recreate the wheel?

The majority of revenue is rewarded to the top 12. There's one issue. And, too... so is the promotion. Simply putting audition dates and a few 1 minute clips back to back with the top 12 is not smart marketing if you're trying to "grow drum corps". Many students go into open and the #13-? corps to get experience so they too can eventually march a top 12 corps that has been promoted heavily already. Let's think about this: do BD, Cadets and most of that top 12 "really NEED" the promotion? Meanwhile, there are some great shows happening in Open and mid to lower World that are largely ignored. I had a blast watching Legends all summer... Oregon... Mandarins, BDB, SCV Cadets, Gold and a host of others had some great shows... but I think that most people hardly know this. Did THEY get shown in the Theater event? Nope. So... when are people going to see them?

I realize that it's a dog eat dog world in drum corps... but when you're the last dog standing as it looks like is going to happen in the future, it might be time to rethink how we do this, and not with reinventing things that are already out there or with changing rules for higher membership numbers and woodwinds. I mean, those thoughts are so self serving it's sad that the activity is being bullied to accept that as a norm... and for some it's not a matter of IF but WHEN those changes come. I don't want to see more people on a field - it's challenging enough to recruit - and part of the beauty of the activity is that self imposed limitation that was 128 (then 135, then 150 if I recall right). The great part about watching corps was "they did all that... with ONLY x amount of people". Less sometimes IS more.

And to be clear, I don't think the majority of the BOD is the issue. It's a few individuals... some who might not even be ON the board.

[garfield]

Hello drum corps fans! This is Keith Hall, executive director of Music City Drum and Bugle Corps. The announcement concerning the folding of Music City can be found HERE.

After reading some of the posts on a couple of threads here I thought I should offer the following. It is very expensive to operate a drum corps. Music City received a couple of small grants this year and a smaller amount in appearance fees. The corps' expenses not covered by these and the membership fees were covered by a VERY small circle of individuals. Music City has no debts. We tried to time the announcement the best we could for the sake of the members. By the way, I'm the same Keith Hall as The Band Hall which provided all uniforms, flags/guard equipment for the corps.

On a sidenote, I do not think the open class system is serving the activity well. Certainly the elite corps should receive tons more compensation and receive far more performance opportunities, but the current arrangement is not going to grow the activity. I would like to add that I believe Dan Acheson is providing the best possible leadership for the activity. He has a great vision for the future of drum corps. His hands are unfortunately tied it seems by the unfortunate need to "get along" with certain others. The unflattering posts I've seen here regarding Dan Acheson are unfortunate and uninformed I believe.

I invite everyone to support the corps or corps (plural!) of your choice. Make a donation, buy a t-shirt or best of all, help them raise money, LOTS of money. Today would be good!

I'm very thankful that you decided to post your thoughts and explanations here, Keith. I hope you feel unencumbered enough to continue to add your thoughts here among, arguably, the most ardent fans of the activity.

I'll be very interested to read your thoughts and answers to questions posted here.

[Chris Cartwright]

Thanks so much for personally posting your thoughts, Keith. It's nice to get a different perspective than the concrete announcement of Music City's folding. I really liked Music City's show this year and last year. It's great what you guys have done with Music City, and we're sad to see such a nice corps fold.

[rayfallon]

Hello drum corps fans! This is Keith Hall, executive director of Music City Drum and Bugle Corps. The announcement concerning the folding of Music City can be found HERE.

After reading some of the posts on a couple of threads here I thought I should offer the following. It is very expensive to operate a drum corps. Music City received a couple of small grants this year and a smaller amount in appearance fees. The corps' expenses not covered by these and the membership fees were covered by a VERY small circle of individuals. Music City has no debts. We tried to time the announcement the best we could for the sake of the members. By the way, I'm the same Keith Hall as The Band Hall which provided all uniforms, flags/guard equipment for the corps.

On a sidenote, I do not think the open class system is serving the activity well. Certainly the elite corps should receive tons more compensation and receive far more performance opportunities, but the current arrangement is not going to grow the activity. I would like to add that I believe Dan Acheson is providing the best possible leadership for the activity. He has a great vision for the future of drum corps. His hands are unfortunately tied it seems by the unfortunate need to "get along" with certain others. The unflattering posts I've seen here regarding Dan Acheson are unfortunate and uninformed I believe.

I invite everyone to support the corps or corps (plural!) of your choice. Make a donation, buy a t-shirt or best of all, help them raise money, LOTS of money. Today would be good!

Keith,

Great post - really eloquently stated. I'm curious about one part of the Open Class (or even WC) which is setting and working to a budget. Can you speak to the difficulties that seem to result each year in corps being out on the road with no visible way of getting through the year, or get the kids fed, or get them home? We seem to see this at least once per season and I usually read "unexpected expenses" but can a business the size of a drum corps afford to have deficits this size that were completely unexpected?

I hope no one reads anything besides curiosity into this. I'm genuinely impressed with Keith's candor and admire Music City's success this (and other) years.

I've also toured with a corps that literally ran out of money to feed its kids - 800 miles from home - and kept going on a stupid amount of charity and deferred (and eventually defaulted) obligations.

What's going wrong in budget world that this seems to occur again and again?

I'm not implying that this or anything like it occurred with your team. Just curious for your perspective given this year's "best of times, worst of times" experience.

Thanks!

[MusicCityDrumCorps]

In regards to some of the questions asked I'll offer the following thoughts and opinions. ALL corps (not just open class) need performance opportunities and as much compensation for performing as possible. In general I think it should be the goal of DCI to sell as many tickets at as many shows as possible so that the maximum amount of revenues can be shared with the individual corps as fairly as possible. Scheduling is an area that I think could use a fresh approach. For example it may or may not be the best plan to have 20-something of the nation's best corps in San Antonio on the same day. Scheduling possibilities leading up to and following such a day is limited. Corps not part of that scheduling (Music City for example) have no performance opportunities for several days, so are not able to help sell tickets to drum corps shows during that time period. Music City had to travel from Nashville to Oklahoma (too far to travel in one day) just to keep the performance drought at six days. So this was a very expensive trip (the corps received $1,000 to appear in the show), but otherwise the corps would have gone 9 days without a performance opportunity. Members and staff would have gone stir crazy.

For long term success of the drum corps activity, I think exposing as many people to the activity as possible is important. Putting together show line ups that smaller markets can support would be great. For example, if a wealthy music industry individual in Nashville had been exposed to the drum corps activity once a year when he/she was growing up in small town Tennessee, it would be far easier to seek their support of a drum corps in Nashville. Maybe he/she grew up in a town that could support (meaning the local high school band could make money hosting) a drum corps show consisting of 5 corps who in the previous year placed 5th, 20th, 25th, 35th and 40th. In general I think LOTS more drum corps tickets could be sold (and therefore more revenues generated) if the elite corps were willing to approach scheduling more creatively and be okay with performing for an occasional smaller audience than they're accustomed to. Music City has performed in open class shows where the stadiums were almost empty. That is not positive for anyone.

Speaking of open class, I don't think being branded "second class" benefits any corps. It is fine if show X in HUGE MARKET, USA includes only the top 10, 15 or 20 corps from the previous year, but the open class designation doesn't help anyone. The thought just occured to me that this thread appearing in the "open class" forum means far fewer people will even see it. On a somewhat related note, the whole notion of judging the open class corps on a different point scale is confusing to fans, members, parents and even the judges I would argue.

Regarding the role of DCI's executive director, I'm pretty sure Dan Acheson would not want to serve in a commissioner/dictator role. The G7 (I use the term fondly!) have mostly very valid concerns and good ideas in my opinion. They wouldn't field such great drum corps if they didn't have mostly great ideas. I think Dan understands that the best answers are usually down the middle of the road somewhere.

Lastly I'll add that it was my observation that the experiences of the Music City members were even more positive and they seemed to have more fun than I ever imagined possible. There is something inherently amazing about young people coming together to learn a drum corps show and taking it on the road. I hope the climate changes to one that encourages the growth of such a wonderful activity.

[KeithHall]

He's that Keith Hall and I am the other Keith Hall.

Keith, sorry to hear about Music City. You all will be missed in the activity!

[Toby]

In regards to some of the questions asked I'll offer the following thoughts and opinions. ALL corps (not just open class) need performance opportunities and as much compensation for performing as possible. In general I think it should be the goal of DCI to sell as many tickets at as many shows as possible so that the maximum amount of revenues can be shared with the individual corps as fairly as possible. Scheduling is an area that I think could use a fresh approach. For example it may or may not be the best plan to have 20-something of the nation's best corps in San Antonio on the same day. Scheduling possibilities leading up to and following such a day is limited. Corps not part of that scheduling (Music City for example) have no performance opportunities for several days, so are not able to help sell tickets to drum corps shows during that time period. Music City had to travel from Nashville to Oklahoma (too far to travel in one day) just to keep the performance drought at six days. So this was a very expensive trip (the corps received $1,000 to appear in the show), but otherwise the corps would have gone 9 days without a performance opportunity. Members and staff would have gone stir crazy.

Just curious, if you complain about a lack of shows, why not try and work something out with the other southern corps (Corpsvets, Carolina Gold, Sun Devils, TBT)? It wouldn't be the first time a junior corps has performed at a DCA show (Surf at Wildwood comes to mind).