Does anyone in drum corps think this way?

[garfield]

more fannies in the seats & more musicians with coin to spare is the most ideal it would seem to me. That and an aging billionaire with a Charitable Remainder Trust Life Insurance Policy that has a Face Amount of 100 million dollars with DCI as the designated beneficiary- recipient of all the proceeds once the Insured has gone to his or her last rodeo.

More musicians won't help. More drum corps in which musicians can participate surely would.

I would think "pay to play" could and would be reversed with proper funding and marketing revenue.

[N.E. Brigand]

Do we really measure success based on the number of performers?

I think most drum corps would say that having provided thousands of members with wonderful experiences is indeed a marker of success.

Edited April 17, 2015 by N.E. Brigand

[BRASSO]

I think most drum corps would say that having provided thousands of members with wonderful experiences is indeed a marker of success.

True enough... but for proper context, over 3,000 deceased Drum Corps no longer with us could have your particular definition of " success " too. ( and in my view, you'd be correct with this definition of " success ", too, although others here might likewise have a different definition of " success " and be deemed equally correct with THAT definition too we might add. )

Edited April 17, 2015 by BRASSO

[N.E. Brigand]

I would say, assuming the figures in the posted article are correct, reaching 550 million TV + web viewers across 40 countries is huge. From a very cursory evaluation of the situation, PBR grew a niche brand into a fairly large, world-wide phenomenon. I don't know how they did that, unfortunately, as that's not documented that I could find (again, with a very minimal search). I would guess that when the organization was fledgling and got a TV deal somewhere it caught on ratings-wise, whereas for whatever reason DCI did not.

That sounds like the old Steve Martin joke:

"Do you want to know how you can make a million dollars and not pay any taxes?"

"First, you make a million dollars."

What you go on to say in that post is, more or less, that people just like bull riding more than they like drum corps.

Garfield's response to my request, about what PBR specifically did that DCI did not, was to bring in people from outside the activity to manage it. That might help, as long as those people don't try to change drum corps into something else. Having a live Finals broadcast of just five corps, as he suggests might be needed for sponsors to come on board, wouldn't necessarily change the fundamental nature of the activity. It's actually been tried before. I remember returning to my hotel room from the wedding reception I was attending in Wheeling in August 1999 to see PBS broadcast just the top five. (The only problem would be if, say, number six had moved up but hadn't been broadcast. The way that NBC often handles the challenge of making sure the highest-placers in multi-competitor events in the Olympics is usually to show the event in delay.)

Horn Teacher notes that "an exquisitely performed 2 1/2 octave sixteenth note run by 150 horns will never" be of interest to more than a specialized audience. Garfield, as a drummer, you may wish to substitute some mark of excellence from that side of the activity. Would you be OK with losing the top performance level, dumbing-down the activity, as it were, in order to boost sales? Let's go for an easy analogy: is Britney Spears really better than the Chicago Symphony just because she makes more money? (I don't know how financially successful Spears is right now, but substitute whatever famous pop-star whom you happen to think is really no good.)

Which is really to say: why do drum corps exist? What are their purposes? Should it be to make money for shareholders? Does the Blue Devils organization exist to make money? That's a financially successful corps, right? So why haven't they turned for-profit?

[HornTeacher]

What could present more edge-of-the-seat fear and danger than Hop pacing the sidelines at Finals?

(/sarcasm)

The key is not in the pacing...but the pounds-per-square-inch each pacing step applies to the ground.

Edited April 17, 2015 by HornTeacher

[BRASSO]

: is Britney Spears really better than the Chicago Symphony just because she makes more money?

I suppose it all depends on what you are comparing " better " with between the two. As a perfomer, are you asking us " better " at making money for herself, family, agent, her company than the entire Chicago Symphony Co. ? Of course.. absolutely.. This is just factually undeniable. " better" however, as defined in musical, artistic terms as performers ? Well, this is more open to debate, as this is in the realm of personal musical, and artistic taste, preference and so forth. So naturally it would be purely personal and subjective which is " better ".. So there really is no right or wrong answer to such a " better " question with such a definition to be utilized when looking at stage performers and musicians it would seem to me. Plus, Britney Spears is a Singer. The other performers you want to compare her with here are not Singers.They are Musicians. Are the Musicians in the Chicago Symphony" better " Singers " than Ms. Spears ?... " better " Dancers than her ? For her part, can she play a mean and " better "Clarinet ? Who knows. Its all purely personal and subjective a question with no right or wrong answers, anyway.

Edited April 17, 2015 by BRASSO

[glory]

While I think Garfield has a great notion (maybe there's somebody who might invest in the potential our audience represents), I think that market is fundamentally limited, which would serve to limit the interest of that special somebody.

Suppose Bill Cook's son discovered DCI this year instead of a generation ago. While Cook might have chosen to start a corps in Indy, maybe he would also have explored how to take drum corps "big time" the way he took Star to the stage. The marketing world has evolved a lot in a generation. As Garfield is suggesting, a rich guy with passion today might see drum corps not just for its participation opportunity; he might just see its audience as a vehicle for marketing and maybe money. Today's Bill Cook could buy DCI for a song. WGI too. He could combine the two, convert them to actual businesses and run them in tandem as a way to aggregate young people and their parents into packages that appeal to sponsors. It's not a bankrupt idea.

But where this probably hits an Indy brickyard is something core to corps. Blurring the people behind the uniforms, corps shows no "face" for its drama and glory. There's no point guard from the projects leading the team to triumph. There's no handsome quarterback we can see whether or not he's dating the cheerleader. There's no rider who's been trampled and gored. Not even a sullen running back with not a word to say. Drum corps has teams without individuals. No stars. No stories except for the corps.

The Yankees wouldn't be the Yankees without Ruth, Mantle, Jeter and even A-Rod. The Cavies, the Devils, the Cadets ...? The names, like the headgear, are interchangeable. Drum corps is all of us, not each of us.

I remember in the 70s meeting a young man from Boston who'd been dragged (his term) to too many drum corps shows in the area. "They're all the same," he complained. To a world that can't see past the uniforms, he might not be wrong.

HH

Edited April 17, 2015 by glory

[garfield]

That sounds like the old Steve Martin joke:

"Do you want to know how you can make a million dollars and not pay any taxes?"

"First, you make a million dollars."

What you go on to say in that post is, more or less, that people just like bull riding more than they like drum corps.

Garfield's response to my request, about what PBR specifically did that DCI did not, was to bring in people from outside the activity to manage it. That might help, as long as those people don't try to change drum corps into something else. Having a live Finals broadcast of just five corps, as he suggests might be needed for sponsors to come on board, wouldn't necessarily change the fundamental nature of the activity. It's actually been tried before. I remember returning to my hotel room from the wedding reception I was attending in Wheeling in August 1999 to see PBS broadcast just the top five. (The only problem would be if, say, number six had moved up but hadn't been broadcast. The way that NBC often handles the challenge of making sure the highest-placers in multi-competitor events in the Olympics is usually to show the event in delay.)

Horn Teacher notes that "an exquisitely performed 2 1/2 octave sixteenth note run by 150 horns will never" be of interest to more than a specialized audience. Garfield, as a drummer, you may wish to substitute some mark of excellence from that side of the activity. Would you be OK with losing the top performance level, dumbing-down the activity, as it were, in order to boost sales? Let's go for an easy analogy: is Britney Spears really better than the Chicago Symphony just because she makes more money? (I don't know how financially successful Spears is right now, but substitute whatever famous pop-star whom you happen to think is really no good.)

Which is really to say: why do drum corps exist? What are their purposes? Should it be to make money for shareholders? Does the Blue Devils organization exist to make money? That's a financially successful corps, right? So why haven't they turned for-profit?

Several things in here.

Or maybe more aptly: "How do you make a million dollars in drum corps? Start with two million."

I wonder how many people even knew they liked the rodeo before they turned it on the first time. Someone here referenced bored NASCAR fans, whatever. MikeD, if you're around, spout out that last number you had that represented the number of high school marching band members around the country. Let's figure how many of those DCI reaches as an audience. Once we have all of those we can worry about attracting the drop-by and stay audience.

Would a six-minute maximum show time change the "fundamental nature" of the activity? Why begin the search for a vision with a proviso of what you DON'T want to happen? Is it reasonable to presume that the partner drum corps seeks is interested in changing drum corps into something it's not? Is it also reasonable to go into the meeting believing that's the motivation of the partner? A key component of the media company's success is promotion of live events. A little searching would show the depth of their reach. Live events seems to be a specialty of theirs. They saw what the original organization had done, partnered up, committed to its success and grew it to reach eyeballs that drum corps can only (still) dream of. I know only cursory information about the company and don't mean to promote it in any way. What was rodeo before it became a $100million organization? Did it change it's "fundamental nature"?

How in the heck did you make the jump that drum corps would need to be "dumbed down" in any way? Because you presume that that lowest common denominator is the only path to success these people know? Are you suggesting that the PBR is "dumbed down", glorified Britney Spears? I'd bet they take umbridge as they cash their checks.

Your last paragraph is the most poignant, IMO. If DCI is an event promotion company, and the corps are about promoting the activity to more kids to be involved in, has it been successful, not as individual corps necessarily, but as an aggregate activity? By the number of corps and the number of participant kids?

Because they saw it on TV for the first time due to the fact that the "money people" got involved, I suspect a growing number of strong farm kids and skinny Oriental kids will aspire to be a professional bull-rider. Which is better serving the "spread and promote" function of their by-laws?

Edited April 17, 2015 by garfield

[N.E. Brigand]

How in the heck did you make the jump that drum corps would need to be "dumbed down" in any way?

That was my extrapolation from Horn Teacher's comment that "an exquisitely performed 2 1/2 octave sixteenth note run by 150 horns" simply will not have mass appeal. If he's right, then presumably the audience needs something simpler. With a few exceptions, blockbuster movies really are dumber than art films, partly because they need to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Or as Britney Spears once complained: "Sundance is weird. The movies are weird: you actually have to think about them when you watch them."

However, if Horn Teacher is wrong about serious musicality having a limited appeal, then my comment certainly falls apart.

Edited April 17, 2015 by N.E. Brigand

[N.E. Brigand]

Blurring the people behind the uniforms, corps shows no "face" for its drama and glory. There's no point guard from the projects leading the team to triumph. There's no handsome quarterback we can see whether or not he's dating the cheerleader. There's no rider who's been trampled and gored. Not even a sullen running back with not a word to say. Drum corps has teams without individuals. No stars. No stories except for the corps.

The Yankees wouldn't be the Yankees without Ruth, Mantle, Jeter and even A-Rod. The Cavies, the Devils, the Cadets ...? The names, like the headgear, are interchangeable. Drum corps is all of us, not each of us.

Yes, as I've noted before, every high school football program lists all the players' names, while most drum corps members are anonymous to the audience.