Significance of the new MiM ( aka DCI G7 corps) Fall shows?

[seen-it-all]

Well I wouldn't say "bad ones," but more like "not trained well enough." Too many shows, not enough resources to pull it all off with any kind of sustained consistency. This goes for event management as well as adjudication. I've been teaching bands in that circuit since day 1 when it was CMBC. You'll be OK if it's a championship event or high profile show (for the most part), but outside of that, roll the dice, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.

[Just A Fan]

Agreed, except (as MikeD pointed out), USBands provides the judges. If you want consistency in just about all things, go to BOA. The shows run on time, you'll get a very good to excellent panel of qualified judges, and a solid evaluation of your program. Yes, the warm-up situation can be a bit overly-regimented and restrictive at times, but at least you know what you're going to get and things are consistent.

At USBands, you can get a very good read at a championship event (though I have yet to attend a single USBands show in ten plus years that actually ran on time), but any other event is a roll of the dice. You might get four judges, you might get six. You might get experienced qualified judges, you might get, shall we say, much lesser than that. And if I recall, George more or less sets the range on what the scores should be each weekend. It's nice that they seem to be branching off into the far reaches of the country to hold shows, but the fact remains that USBands will never be anything other than a regional circuit, in spite of the grandiose wishes of their leader. They just don't have the far-reaching resources to execute the vision with any kind of consistent quality. There are simply too many shows on a given weekend, not enough volunteers, not enough office personnel to go around (they burn through office personnel like firewood at YEA), and most importantly, not enough qualified judges to cover the entire slate of shows on a given weekend outside of a championship event. And many bands are jumping ship to other circuits in the region because the hassle is just not worth the cost. After all these years, the state with the highest participation (by a wide margin) in USBands is still New Jersey, and honestly, that's not saying much. There are some good bands there, but few truly great ones.

I find some of the comments here very interesting, Not a single show on time in 10 years? really? I seem to attend 10 - 12 USBands shows a year and more times than not those shows are running right on time. Now there are always circumstances where times will be thrown off by issues such as weather, transportation problems, equipment issues, etc. Those things will happen in any circuit. The one thing that I do know is that USBands will not brow beat a band staff as they are trying to resolve an electronics issue to get them to stay on their performance time. If a band needs an extra 5 minutes to resolve an issue and insure that the students have a rewarding performing experience, so what if the show lags by 5 min. Are you judging the organization's success by whether they run a show to the minute or by whether they provide rewarding and valuable student experiences? I would take the latter.

As far as being a regional circuit, one just needs to look at the growth of the organization into other markets in the country (140+ events in 20 states) to realize USBands is anything other than a regional circuit. Growth like that only comes from building on successes of prior years. And that success comes from running good events with competent adjudicators and a strong office staff putting it all together.

To address your comment about some shows having 4 judges and some having 6.... that is not an inconsistency as you suggest, it is an option for the host band. Host bands have the option of running what USBands calls a Silver or a Gold show. The Silver Show consists of 4 judges - Music Individual, Music Performance, GE and Visual. The Gold Show has 6 judges with the 2 additional judges being for Color Guard and Percussion.

As for bands jumping ship... again I need to question the legitimacy of that claim. You certainly can't support the growth USBands is experiencing with band membership on the decline as you suggest. As previous noted on another post, every circuit experiences bands coming and going... its the nature of the activity. To hear that one or two bands are leaving USBands to test other waters is certainly not the end of the the world. I am sure you will see some new bands every year as well.

One other point you may want to consider regarding the health of USBands... Sponsorships. USBands enjoys some significant sponsorships from key players in the activity. With the sponsorship dollar being stretched in today's economy, you can bet that corporations are being very careful where they are placing their dollars. It seems to me that sponsors like Yamaha and Remo are supporting the USBands growth by placing their names on events in Texas this year. Something I am sure a sponsor would not do if they didn't think it would be a successful en devour. Again, just my opinion.

I hope this clarifies some of the issues you pointed out in your original post.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Just A Fan

[Just A Fan]

Well I wouldn't say "bad ones," but more like "not trained well enough." Too many shows, not enough resources to pull it all off with any kind of sustained consistency. This goes for event management as well as adjudication. I've been teaching bands in that circuit since day 1 when it was CMBC. You'll be OK if it's a championship event or high profile show (for the most part), but outside of that, roll the dice, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.

Again a lot of blather and non specific comments...

And I wonder why, given all your experience with the USBands organization, I have to explain to you in a previous post the difference between shows with 6 judges vs. 4 judges. Unless of course you are purposely ignoring the facts for the sake of trying to make the organization look inconsistent... just saying. :-)

Edited March 14, 2014 by Just A Fan

[seen-it-all]

I find some of the comments here very interesting, Not a single show on time in 10 years? really? I seem to attend 10 - 12 USBands shows a year and more times than not those shows are running right on time. Now there are always circumstances where times will be thrown off by issues such as weather, transportation problems, equipment issues, etc. Those things will happen in any circuit. The one thing that I do know is that USBands will not brow beat a band staff as they are trying to resolve an electronics issue to get them to stay on their performance time. If a band needs an extra 5 minutes to resolve an issue and insure that the students have a rewarding performing experience, so what if the show lags by 5 min. Are you judging the organization's success by whether they run a show to the minute or by whether they provide rewarding and valuable student experiences? I would take the latter.

I judge the organization's success on BOTH, as well as on a litany of other things which have an impact on the overall quality of that experience for the kids I teach. "So what" if the show lags by 5 minutes? Five minutes here, five minutes there, and those minutes add up, you know. As an educator, we try to make sure we put our kids in the best possible scenario to succeed. Part of that is making sure that we set our schedules according to the times we are given by the show coordinators. If we're running our warm-ups according to those times, and then we get told MULTIPLE times during that warm-up window that the show has been delayed (or sometimes NOT TOLD AT ALL of the delays...again, demonstrating that inconsistency), it has an impact on how we pace our warm-up so that everything builds to that one moment of performance. And if we manage to keep things focused and then get to the gate and get told AGAIN that the show is even further delayed (or that they've decided to add another intermission out of the blue!...yes, I've been through that as well), that complicates matters even further. There is nothing worse than getting your kids ready to perform and then having to STOP and wait around for another ten or fifteen minutes at the gate. These delays have happened more times than I care to count in my experience in that circuit. And if you don't think that makes an impact on the "quality of the student experience," you're deluding yourself. These things matter.

As far as being a regional circuit, one just needs to look at the growth of the organization into other markets in the country (140+ events in 20 states) to realize USBands is anything other than a regional circuit. Growth like that only comes from building on successes of prior years. And that success comes from running good events with competent adjudicators and a strong office staff putting it all together.

They are a regional circuit, holding the bulk of their events in the northeast, primarily in NJ, CT, and MD (they've all but completely lost their home state of PA). That they have branched out into other areas of the country is nice, but hardly indicative of having a stable footprint in those areas. To be fair, they do tend to send their best and most experienced office personnel and judges to those events in other regions of the country for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, back on their home turf, bands are sometimes left rolling the dice and hoping for the best. Again, I've experienced this first-hand many times.

To address your comment about some shows having 4 judges and some having 6.... that is not an inconsistency as you suggest, it is an option for the host band. Host bands have the option of running what USBands calls a Silver or a Gold show. The Silver Show consists of 4 judges - Music Individual, Music Performance, GE and Visual. The Gold Show has 6 judges with the 2 additional judges being for Color Guard and Percussion.

In the interest of providing the most fair and most consistent evaluations across the circuit, all shows should have the same amount of judges. I have the same complaints about DCI when they decide to use fewer judges at some of the June and July shows. I'm OK with doubling the panel at a championship event, but other than that, these circuits should provide the most consistency they can when it comes to the number and quality of its judges at any given show. And when you go to those smaller shows and get the less experienced judges, again, you wind up getting a very inconsistent evaluation of your group. (By the way, it's 2014 and they're still using cassette tapes???)

As for bands jumping ship... again I need to question the legitimacy of that claim. You certainly can't support the growth USBands is experiencing with band membership on the decline as you suggest. As previous noted on another post, every circuit experiences bands coming and going... its the nature of the activity. To hear that one or two bands are leaving USBands to test other waters is certainly not the end of the the world. I am sure you will see some new bands every year as well.

Question all you want. You haven't been in my shoes in the middle of that circuit for the past 25+ years. Yours is clearly a different perspective than mine, and that's fine. I've had lengthy discussions about this with many director colleagues over the years (and even those who work, or have worked, in the YEA office). It's an OK circuit that could be great, but their vision has become too large for their own resources to handle, IMO. The people who work there are very good people who have the best of intentions, but a lot of whom have been used up and burned out and wind up never going back to work or volunteer for YEA. I have a long list of very good friends who once worked or volunteered there and will never do so again.

If your experience in that circuit has been good, awesome. I'm happy for you. Perhaps we just have differing perspectives. And I realize that no circuit is perfect and things go wrong. But the things I've experienced and seen with my own eyes lead me to state that there is a pattern of inconsistency at play here which makes me believe and say the things I do. These things have happened every year I've come in contact with that circuit. If you choose not to believe what I've experienced, or write them off as insignificant, fine. But this is something I tend to get riled up about, especially when the kids I teach have been the ones caught in the crossfire of that inconsistency year in and year out.

[Jeff Ream]

That's a pretty big condemnation of the value of the O-15, don't you think?

I disagree. I think BOA would consider instruction and guidance from even the lowly Madison Scouts as quite impressive and useful in promoting corps-style band competitions.

In fact, I would think that BOA would consider Surf as a very worth "high-level" goal for many of the kids in their competitions.

Further, there are 15 of the Others and 7 of the G's. While it would be much better by factors for the 22 DCI corps to work in the DCI/BOA partnership, even if the 7 refused to participate to promote only YEA! (why would they do that?), there's still plenty of bodies and talent that DCI could contribute to the major regional BOA shows.

Finally, if DCI actually thought that BOA wouldn't go for such a deal because it's "only" the O-15, they could turn that into their favor by simply pricing accordingly their costs to provide those corps staffs, and offering similar service at a cheaper price. But again, they would only do this if they believed that the average band directors at a BOA show would NOT find valuable a day of instruction from corps like BlueStars, Blue Knights, Crossmen, BAC, Madison Scouts, etc.

I think more likely that the average BOA band director would love to have instruction from those corps because they are DCI. I don't think those band directors would view only the "top" corps worthy of paying attention to.

If I were DCI, I'd price the service at whatever the market will bear, and I'd bet that directors view all DCI corps as worth the market price. I'd not allow myself or my staff to be swayed by the contention that there is no value just because it's not the top seven. If you buy that, then we should just let the seven execute their 2010 plan, right?

i'm not disparaging the O-15....it's a matter of marketing. Do you want the best, or the other 15? That's the whole G7 approach...we're the best. BOA knows that, and people in their top programs know that. Hell, it's one of USBands bggest assets...the Cadets name.

never underestimate the power of DCI's continual marketing of the best above all else, and how it played into the G7 and the issues created from that.

[Jeff Ream]

Is this really true? Being a long time attendee of USBand (and USSBA events) and from what I know of the organization, they do reach out to member band organizations to host some state championship events as additional fundraising opportunities. How does that translate into problems staffing shows? Also, Yea! has a large number of band parents as part of their volunteer database. So again, where is this an issue?

YEA is always advertising for help running their big shows.

[Jeff Ream]

What are you talking about? What "went under"? They just changed the name from USSBA to USBands, after going from CMBC to USSBA initially. Just a name change.

Angry band directors? That happens all the time in every circuit I have seen over the decades. Bands move between circuits all the time. Sometimes bands leave one circuit only to eventually come back and may rinse and repeat more than one time.

many times a circuit is only as good as the last score they gave you.

[garfield]

i'm not disparaging the O-15....it's a matter of marketing. Do you want the best, or the other 15? That's the whole G7 approach...we're the best. BOA knows that, and people in their top programs know that. Hell, it's one of USBands bggest assets...the Cadets name.

never underestimate the power of DCI's continual marketing of the best above all else, and how it played into the G7 and the issues created from that.

If Persona is correct, the kids marching in drum corps do so because it's DCI, not because of a corps name. I'm dealing with this now with the _kid. He knows enough to know that making his dream corps is not likely his first few years, but it doesn't bother him. "I just want to march" is his answer.

Because he's been around the activity a long time he knows that the experience will be similar, even if different in caliber, regardless of where he marches. If the majority of kids out there don't know that, then you're right, it is about marketing.

With the DCI Board now split between the G's and the O's, I'd expect marketing would be focused on a balance between "the best" and "the rest" (however one defines that) and, if it's not, I expect those O corps to exert a little more muscle to make it so.

If they buy into the notion promoted by the G's - that they are the only reason kids march and they are the best at providing the experience - then the O's should fold up the tent and just let the G's run the asylum.

If not, they should buck up, push back, and market the drum corps experience to more than just the potential members of the G-corps.

Edited March 14, 2014 by garfield

[garfield]

i'm not disparaging the O-15....it's a matter of marketing. Do you want the best, or the other 15? That's the whole G7 approach...we're the best. BOA knows that, and people in their top programs know that. Hell, it's one of USBands bggest assets...the Cadets name.

never underestimate the power of DCI's continual marketing of the best above all else, and how it played into the G7 and the issues created from that.

And one of BOA's biggest assets could be the Madison Scouts, the Blue Stars, Jersey Surf, etc.

I imagine the DCI board room after GH announces his MiM marketing program as "Our star corps are better than BOA's star corps!". I'd give up a finger-tip to be a fly on the wall when that discussion starts.

[garfield]

If the ED of DCI is guilty of favoring the G-corps over all others in DCI's marketing, then he needs to be thrown out with the trash, because he's not fulfilling his obligation to the whole activity that DCI represents.

It was the O-15 corps that saved Dan's job during the G7 coup attempt. I'd hope he'd make it a priority to repay some of that love by exercising some muscle to promote those corps as least as much, or more than, those who wanted to throw him out.

But, despite my feelings, maybe the G's were right about him?