If Music City gave up

[N.E. Brigand]

I think it takes an understanding that Drum Corps is a money toilet that constantly drains money and never stops. It seems that having a support business like the Bus Company Star of Indiana had really helped sustainablility. Cook or whoever was running Star lost interest in the DCI game. They had a good model.

I also think a Corps staying power is dictated by the Board of Directors who often lose interest, faith or whatever and end up folding corps. It takes a great deal of tenacity to keep going year after year. If the person or people running a corps get a weak stomach that will finish a Corps. It's a long term commitment and it's not always going to be a fun time.

Many non-profit performing arts organizations cannot pay their bills with ticket income alone and therefore depend on other income streams, usually fundraising. In theatre often as much as half the annual budget is paid by donors. (The core of those donors is often the board of directors, whose stated responsibilities normally include the requirement that they "give or get" a certain amount of money, i.e. donate themselves or bring in new donors.) The 50% of income not derived from ticket sales typically comes from multiple sources: board donations, other individual gifts, corporate support, foundation support, government support, and special events. Drum corps is not identical to theatre or other performing arts, of course, but certainly not alone as an activity in which money must continually be raised.

[Stu]

Ok, staying on the specific line of thought requested by Garfield. Patience to accomplish slow progression, Tenacity to stick with a project, Work Ethic to the point of blood seeping from the hands, Qualified people in the right places, Reality only takes place at the point of action, and Acceptance for the way things are with mighty attempts to get them to where you want them to be, that is it in a nutshell. As for the belief that drum corps is a money toilet; if the revenue is more than the outlays, honorable and noble things are supported by that revenue, and the organization stays in the green, it is 'not' a money toilet. Moreover, if you consider a DCI corps as being a 'money toilet' then so are most, if not all, of the plethora of other of non-profit youth organizations apart from the drum corps activity. As to why would someone desire to build a corps? Either ego, as some have said, or the desire to build something wonderful out of nothing. And as for structure to accomplish the corps moving through the ranks of DCI...

IMO (for those who might blast me) IMO there is, or should be, a separation between the Corps Corporate side (the Board, the Executive Branch, and the Development Branch) and the Corps Performance Side (Program Director, Design Team, Caption Heads, Techs, Food Crew, etc...). The Corporate side should focus strictly on organizational stability and taking care of the corporation. Yes the Corporate side should hire and oversee the Performance side and make sure the staff is in line with the mission of the organization, but the focus of the Corporate side must be strictly on corporate stability. The first way to accomplish this is to never over-extend beyond revenue streams; and if that means 'staying local' for a while during the building process, or backing off from tour if revenue projections are not met, then so be it (The Academy, for example, did both of those). The second, and I have placed a lot of thought into this, the second is that revenue must come from the drum corps corporation generating it's own revenue with diversified business ownership. Crown with Crown Tickets and Crown Store; BD With System Blue and BD Entertainment (the last of which is supplying performers for TV commercials); and (if) the Band Hall, for example, had been turned over to the MC Corporation where the Band Hall was owned and operated by MC with Kieth Hall receiving a Salary as Executive Director; this, again imo, is the way to finance drum corps in the new era. Does that take a lot of time, sacrifice, work, and energy to procure a few business as the corps grows to support operational costs, or take someone who owns say nine franchises willing to donate one of those franchises to the corps for the corps to run instead of donating a large amount of capital, yes to both. But, as I see it, that is going to be the only way in the future for a corps to sustain in the realm of DCI (unless DCI drastically changes its structure).

Edited September 5, 2013 by Stu

[CrunchyTenor]

I agree with the concept of separating the financial side (BoD) from the performance side (director, captions and staff) as far as their focus and responsibilities to the organization.

Garry in Vegas

[normy diploome]

The separation proposed of the corporation and the performance unit seems prudent. However, I would venture that more drum corps folks would have energies and plans to develop the performance side of the balance with its responsibilities than they would be energized to focus on the corporation side of the balance with its responsibilites. The second mentioned might overwhelm the instinct to start the first although they cannot be solo. Most who accent dbc as a youth development opportunity or a music/fine arts opportunity would be prone to accent the first not the second wherein lies the demise of too many units.

[garfield]

Sometimes the biggest asset organizations lack are people. Not enough volunteers, donors etc and the corps key folks just get drained and more drained over a few years

"oh I'll be there to help" and then nada

Just my take on the situation.

I experience this even in just running a show, and it's a very tough problem.

Has anyone here ever counted? How many volunteers does it take to run a corps?

[garfield]

To answer the title question: Ego. Ego drives certain people to try, no matter what. Someone out there is thinking "if only *I* had the resources of MC, *I* would've done better. I know I can do better."

Is ego necessary, then?

What if someone with means has only altruistic notions of starting and running a corps? Is that enough?

[garfield]

Found this while looking for the MC thread (posted by Rufus67):

If I recall correctly from a rather extensive article about Mr. Cook, his emphasis was on running the organization as a business with the entire proceeds/profit of that business being sunk back into the running/operation of a drum corps. There were three financial pillars that he set up to make that happen at least a year before they started thinking about putting anything on the field:

• Bingo - called it the "life blood" of drum corps
• As others have mentioned the charter bus service (believe it was more common back then for corps to own their own buses? In any case, needed to do something with them out of season)
• They also operated at least one FBO (i.e., airport)

I think that's the model that would need to be used today in order to replicate the success of Star - start supporting companies first (that may or may not have any direct relation to anything drum corps) and get them successfully generated a steady flow of cash that would then go into operating the corps.

I'll see if I can find a link to the article and post it.

It seems to tie in here because of what's missing. Bill Cook certainly (from my understanding) got involved with drum corps for altruistic reasons; he didn't need money or fame. But what he had in addition to the above brilliant business plan was a monthly income from his day job that was more than most people couldn't hope to make in a year or two or five.

Also, something about his business day allowed him to spend hours on the phone, out of the office, in meetings on an activity that had nothing to do with his "real job".

What I'm getting here is that only rich people with lots of time to spend without destroying that which made them successful should start drum corps.

And be prepared to lose money.

And maybe have an ego.

[Jeff Ream]

On the larger topic at hand I agree with Buckner8, to which the logical response is to swallow your pride and just. Go. Local. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. See: Impulse, Thunder, Gold.

I begged and pleaded with Music City on numerous Facebook posts to not give up. I'm hearing rumblings that not everyone has lost hope. Incidentally, there's a group called Music City United Drum and Bugle Corps that has well over 1k likes on Facebook and have stated their desire to be a DCI Open Class group. It has no intention of giving up.

https://www.facebook.com/mcuopen

only problem is, unlike Cali, there isn't much local for them to do. drawing kids doing a season of maybe 6/7 shows isn't going to work. The better option would have been to look into going DCA

[garfield]

only problem is, unlike Cali, there isn't much local for them to do. drawing kids doing a season of maybe 6/7 shows isn't going to work. The better option would have been to look into going DCA

Music City Legend was a DCA corps that folded as the DCI corps was being formed.

Would you suppose they would still be alive had they stayed in DCA?

[Stu]

Is ego necessary, then?

What if someone with means has only altruistic notions of starting and running a corps? Is that enough?

As much as people want to say that Cook did what he did out of altruism, and he may well have said that himself, however he did not get to his position of multi millionaire business ownership status then in turn develop Star with altruism, but it all was accomplished with shear ego. Altruism tends to lead to 'We have to do this for the kids... even though it may leave them stranded on tour without buses we have to do this for the kids'; Ego, on the other hand, leads to 'By d*** this thing is not going to fail, not on my g** d*** watch'. Give me someone with ego to 'run and manage' an organization any day over someone with altruism.