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DCA '15, 35 corps, great performances, not-so-great attendance


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I bet this is the part where the 5 people left on DCP start to pee on the point I'm trying to make. The Kingston show is an example of good community relationship building, but...alas....there was no Kingstion show this year so that generally dismisses any part of the conversation that came before. Your sandbox, guys. My mistake. Been down this road one too many times before :) All the best.

You use the Kingston show as an example, and then get all pissy when I ask if it even still exists? Good lord, man, how does THAT work?

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The stadium experience, from a production standpoint, offers many opportunities to freshen and surprise. There's plenty of fan feedback available that is often free (of charge) and available (on social media).

For example: the Exhibitions are almost universally panned, not for their production value, but for their placement in the programming. Star United and Carolina Gold performing productions that are incongruous to the past three hours of competition makes for an odd fit. Putting them at the beginning is reasonable as a warm up act (11th place) and for recognition (mini-corps winner) while giving the late arriving fan a chance to get acclimated to the FInals environment before the first competitor.

I'm all for efforts to "freshen and surprise", but remember why they have corps play in exhibition in the first place: to fill time. They don't need to fill time at the beginning of the show, only between the final competitive corps and the start of the retreat. (And I can't recall anyone panning the mini corps, only the eleventh-place corps.)

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Actually ... in the past 15 years, Kingston was not held in 2000 and 2015 ... so ... it's a relevant venue for DCA ... just as much as the Barnum, which went DCI one year and all-Alumni another ...

The folks in Kingston have run some spectacular Jr shows (Pow Wow) over the years in addition to DCA ... maybe they should submit a bid ... maybe they have ... who knows? ... but, I wonder if hotels would be a problem ...

:-)

You use the Kingston show as an example, and then get all pissy when I ask if it even still exists? Good lord, man, how does THAT work?

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Mike from Erie - I would venture that the perception of DCA is rooted in an expectation of quality than quantity. People pay good money to see shows with 5 corps. This show had 15 in 2 classes with Star in exhibition. That's a good show, with or without Westshoremen. If the perception is that Fusion, Kidsgrove, Sabers and Cadets2 and Atlanta are not good substitutes for Empire, Brigadiers, Renegades, Crusaders and Westshore...that's DCA's problem to solve.

There is one drum corps within 200 miles of Atlanta, but 18,000 people show up there to watch drum corps. That isnt all alums or moms and dads. That's fans.

On the flip side of "major" events, the ability to sell tickets year after year even with fewer or different or "lesser" corps (ie the Rome, NY show) means there is a relationship cultivated with the event and its fans (most of whom couldnt name three of the drum corps they saw within 20 minutes of the end of the contest).

Not sure DCA, the entity, has that. DCA Rochester used to have that....at Holleder Stadium everybody remembers drum corps as a big deal.

Some of the corps have it, eg Hawthorne in Kingston. That's a tough ticket regardless of the lineup. People just plain go to that show. They make plans to go every year. They are made to feel welcome and special somehow. That's a big deal.

Relationships mean the show isnt prediicated only on the whiz bang..., with 35 corps, there is plenty of whiz bang.

The "spectacle" is there. 4032 people need enough reason to go check it out

A GREAT post !!!!

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This topic has generated a lot of new thoughts. Certainly, we all had quite a chance for input and filled 4 or more pages in a hurry.

While we digest some and consider the future, clearly the most important point (IN MY OPINION) is that someone said that people in Rochester weren't sure it was still there.

I can remember as a teenager in the 1960s, seeing the busses pass through Paterson with the advertising both outside the bus and on the inside overhead as well for The Dream Contest. There were also billboards all over this area (North Jersey) for The Dream. Maybe DCA needs some placard advertising in the Rochester area. Maybe the member corps could distribute the placards all over their own geographic areas as well..... perhaps window shop posters which are split between the member corps own contest and the DCA Finals on the other half ? Cheap to print IN VOLUME and FREE to put in store fronts...... digital transmission and printing would enable DCA to send half of a poster to the member corps for them to add the other half and print...... I'll bet every corps has one member who in employed in the print or communications industry.

And then there's free local radio interviews.......... the list goes on..... free or inexpensive

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Just do what DCI did in INDY this year. Sell a truckload of end zone seats at $5 bucks a pop and you can all sit around boasting about soaring attendance records and how great everything is.

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Winston Salem Sold how many Tickets at a 6 corps show in a major downpour without participation of many of the biggest draws???

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Yknow. I stayed at an Air Bed n Breakfast last year at Rochester. And the nice lady who operated it asked what brought me to town. I said the drum corps finals and she said "I didn't know that still existed." This was a person who used to attend these years ago who has lived in Rochester for decades.

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Yknow. I stayed at an Air Bed n Breakfast last year at Rochester. And the nice lady who operated it asked what brought me to town. I said the drum corps finals and she said "I didn't know that still existed." This was a person who used to attend these years ago who has lived in Rochester for decades.

Cabs' brass staff ate together every meal, and were always asked why were were in town. The answer we got twice (Highland Diner and at Sticky Lips) was, "I didn't know they were still doing that. I went a couple years ago. I'd have gone again if I'd known,"

Edited by Kamarag
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From an "experience at the stadium" standpoint, the lack of a video scoreboard this year, to show ads, corps videos, etc., didn't help.

NOT DCA's FAULT, at all.

Just a scoreboard that has basically given up the ghost and has not yet been replaced.

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