Fran Haring Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Making things more competitive..... thinking Cadets2 being runner up with Hopkins and Templin. GH was new to DCA scene as far as running things more. RT NOT new to DCA but new to Cadets organization. Keep it together for 2016 and they have a years experience under their belts (cue evil laugh)... I hear ya, Jim. This could be very, very interesting next season. C2 is knocking on the door. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 I hear ya, Jim. This could be very, very interesting next season. C2 is knocking on the door. Repeating line about letting the conspiracy theories commence.... If that certain DC history FB page didn't have a ban on discussing current events C2 would be a major B-wording point. Especially since DCI helped kill corps, even before 1972 lol. Then again the major gripers seem to be Jr only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 how do you know that most of the audience is there for the competition rather than to be entertained by a bunch of performances? At lots of drum corps shows I attend, a good chunk of the audience leaves before scores are announced. I was there for both the competition and the entertainment. I found plenty of both. I would not draw conclusions about interest in the competition based on whether people stay for the score announcements. Scores are usually available online as soon as they are announced. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Repeating line about letting the conspiracy theories commence.... If that certain DC history FB page didn't have a ban on discussing current events C2 would be a major B-wording point. Especially since DCI helped kill corps, even before 1972 lol. Then again the major gripers seem to be Jr only. DCI killed corps, hmm? Even though it was created by the corps. A lot of those corps had financial issues to begin with. Other factors many of those cats look blithely away from: 1: Vietnam and the Draft. Fran knows this fellow, he's Reilly's Business Manager I think and is the emcee for the Shamrock Festival. I asked him flat out at the K of C party after the Festival one night- "What happened to the corps?" He told me without batting an eyelash, "We all got drafted in the late 60's, so there wasn't anyone left to march!" The Draft hit down to 18, so it would also affect the Junior corps as well. Put that into the calculus as well. 2: The growing school based instrumental music programs began to supplement and fill the void missing in many of the communities and areas that had corps. 3: Let's see... as a corollary to Vietnam, there was a growing cultural anti-military sentiment taking place in a lot of urban areas in particular. Kids wanting to be involved in quasi-military organizations sponsored by the Legion and VFW, wearing military style uniforms? Had to be some kind of negative to many kids who would normally have gone there. Even without the touring model firmly in place that knocked out many corps-- corps like Blessed Sac bit the dust around that time for lack of funding, DCI or not. I'd imagine there are other corps who also would have foundered with or without DCI. IIRC, there were also some economic downturns in that 1968-1973 era. Nixon's Wage and Price Freeze for example. Inflation issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 DCI killed corps, hmm? Even though it was created by the corps. A lot of those corps had financial issues to begin with. Other factors many of those cats look blithely away from: 1: Vietnam and the Draft. Fran knows this fellow, he's Reilly's Business Manager I think and is the emcee for the Shamrock Festival. I asked him flat out at the K of C party after the Festival one night- "What happened to the corps?" He told me without batting an eyelash, "We all got drafted in the late 60's, so there wasn't anyone left to march!" The Draft hit down to 18, so it would also affect the Junior corps as well. Put that into the calculus as well. 2: The growing school based instrumental music programs began to supplement and fill the void missing in many of the communities and areas that had corps. 3: Let's see... as a corollary to Vietnam, there was a growing cultural anti-military sentiment taking place in a lot of urban areas in particular. Kids wanting to be involved in quasi-military organizations sponsored by the Legion and VFW, wearing military style uniforms? Had to be some kind of negative to many kids who would normally have gone there. Even without the touring model firmly in place that knocked out many corps-- corps like Blessed Sac bit the dust around that time for lack of funding, DCI or not. I'd imagine there are other corps who also would have foundered with or without DCI. IIRC, there were also some economic downturns in that 1968-1973 era. Nixon's Wage and Price Freeze for example. Inflation issues. I bring up decline of the cities and AL and VFW Posts every now and then.... never get a reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Historically speaking, you still have more corps competing than you did until around, say, 2005. DCA that I remember broke 20 corps at Prelims maybe twice before 2005. It's been 20 or above for the most part for the past decade. More groups competing at DCA championships? Absolutely. But that's probably only a partial answer. And your memory was spot on, based on Corpsreps' lists: only twice before 2005 did DCA Prelims see 20 or more competitors: 1965 -- 6 1966 -- 10 1967 -- 10 1968 -- 18 1969 -- 15 1970 -- 15 1971 -- 17 1972 -- 15 1973 -- 19 1974 -- 15 1975 -- 19 1976 -- 17 1977 -- 16 1978 -- 15 1979 -- 17 1980 -- 17 1981 -- 18 1982 -- 19 1983 -- 16 1984 -- 19 1985 -- 17 1986 -- 18 1987 -- 23 1988 -- 18 1989 -- 18 1990 -- 17 1991 -- 17 1992 -- 16 1993 -- 13 1994 -- 14 1995 -- 14 1996 -- 15 1997 -- 16 (first year for Class A) 1998 -- 16 1999 -- 16 2000 -- 16 2001 -- 15 2002 -- 18 2003 -- 17 2004 -- 20 2005 -- 26 2006 -- 23 2007 -- 25 2008 -- 24 2009 -- 24 2010 -- 23 2011 -- 21 2012 -- 20 2013 -- 23 2014 -- 19 2015 -- 20 So for DCA championships, following the start-up period when DCA was still competing with other circuits for attendance, the darkest period was the 1990s. Before running through this list, I had never heard of the Wind Gap Blue Eagles--although I once walked through the edge of Wind Gap. Corpsreps only has scores for them in two seasons (1978 and 1979), even though it indicates they'd been around since 1962. This may hint at an important issue related to the subject of audience attendance: even if the number of corps at DCA championships has remained relatively stable through the years, how many other all-age corps were they competing with over the course of a season in the past? Just checking on the one non-championship score that Corps Reps has for Wind Gap (Aug. 26, 1978 in Niagara Falls), I see three corps listed--New Horizon, Kawartha Kavaliers, and Niagra Regionnaires--who were not at DCA Prelims that year. How many more were there in 1978? A dozen or more? Nowadays, almost every competing all-age corps appears at championships. (All of them this year, I think, and all but one last year.) Every additional corps that was around presumably meant more fans, and more shows, and more people who might attend DCA championships. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) Roughly 69-78 there was the Red Carpet Association and usually the top corps or 2 made DCA Finals. Not sure if corpsreps has all the RCA Finals scores, srcorps has them but not sure of the web address anymore so would have to google. Early-mid 80s had ICA which had some corps that built themselves into DCA (Empire Statesmen the big success story). Never found a good place with their scores and no idea when it folded. Couple of other Sr circuits back in the 60s that I've read about but RCA/ICA only other Sr circuits that I know about. Trivia bit.. Westshoremen came in 15th at 1974 and 1975 Prelims..... guess why we were happier with the 1975 placing.... Edited September 17, 2015 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 I bring up decline of the cities and AL and VFW Posts every now and then.... never get a reply. You and I are 100% in lockstep on that one. VFW and AL members of the 50's and 60's were the vets of WWII and Korea. Like my dad did with me, they placed their kids in the hundreds of small corps all over the country. As those kids aged out, there were fewer and fewer kids to join, as there were fewer and fewer VFW/AL posts and members that survived at a level to support such an activity. That is a part of it, for sure. The many CYO corps sponsored by the Catholic Churches were losing funding and support before DCI ever came along. St Mary's Cardinals became the Beverly Cardinals, Sacred Heart became the Manville Crusaders (right Fran???). Most of the Saint this and Saint that and other Catholic corps just folded...a lot of them before or just into the DCI era. Add to it the anti-establishment mentality of the late 60's-early 70's, and you had fewer and fewer kids who even WANTED to do something that looked like a military-supported activity. Later in the 70's you had the gas crisis, the increased need for insurance and accountability in general followed by 18% inflation that served to kill even more of the "mom and pop" operations, Add the rise of the competitive MB scene, and there was less and less reason for kids to want to spend their summers doing small-time drum corps. Translating to DCA... Fewer and fewer long time junior corps members results in fewer and fewer adults wanting to continue into the all-age arena. It is just a numbers/percentages game. Hence, DCA starts to market and attract younger members as an alternate or a predecessor to DCI. Cadets2 is a prime example. That corps might not have even been formed if the parent organization was not in the main competitive arena of DCA. The other DCA corps get younger and younger as well. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 More groups competing at DCA championships? Absolutely. But that's probably only a partial answer. And your memory was spot on, based on Corpsreps' lists: only twice before 2005 did DCA Prelims see 20 or more competitors: 1965 -- 6 1966 -- 10 1967 -- 10 1968 -- 18 1969 -- 15 1970 -- 15 1971 -- 17 1972 -- 15 1973 -- 19 1974 -- 15 1975 -- 19 1976 -- 17 1977 -- 16 1978 -- 15 1979 -- 17 1980 -- 17 1981 -- 18 1982 -- 19 1983 -- 16 1984 -- 19 1985 -- 17 1986 -- 18 1987 -- 23 1988 -- 18 1989 -- 18 1990 -- 17 1991 -- 17 1992 -- 16 1993 -- 13 1994 -- 14 1995 -- 14 1996 -- 15 1997 -- 16 (first year for Class A) 1998 -- 16 1999 -- 16 2000 -- 16 2001 -- 15 2002 -- 18 2003 -- 17 2004 -- 20 2005 -- 26 2006 -- 23 2007 -- 25 2008 -- 24 2009 -- 24 2010 -- 23 2011 -- 21 2012 -- 20 2013 -- 23 2014 -- 19 2015 -- 20 So for DCA championships, following the start-up period when DCA was still competing with other circuits for attendance, the darkest period was the 1990s. Before running through this list, I had never heard of the Wind Gap Blue Eagles--although I once walked through the edge of Wind Gap. Corpsreps only has scores for them in two seasons (1978 and 1979), even though it indicates they'd been around since 1962. This may hint at an important issue related to the subject of audience attendance: even if the number of corps at DCA championships has remained relatively stable through the years, how many other all-age corps were they competing with over the course of a season in the past? Just checking on the one non-championship score that Corps Reps has for Wind Gap (Aug. 26, 1978 in Niagara Falls), I see three corps listed--New Horizon, Kawartha Kavaliers, and Niagra Regionnaires--who were not at DCA Prelims that year. How many more were there in 1978? A dozen or more? Nowadays, almost every competing all-age corps appears at championships. (All of them this year, I think, and all but one last year.) Every additional corps that was around presumably meant more fans, and more shows, and more people who might attend DCA championships. Wind gap became Renaissance in 80....can't remember how long they lasted in the 70's you had several that did the RCA circuit, but attendance wasn't always stellar at those shows Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 To MikeD I thought the big numbers from AL/VFW were from the two World Wars and just a bit of Korea. My dads a Korea vet and at times thought his company was less than welcome when he came home. But he was a local guy so he was accepted more for that. And talked to some Viet Nam vets who really felt unwelcome in the local Posts. Combination of generation gap (aka hair, etc) and "we won OUR war" crap. Wish I had saved my dads Legion mags with the yearly membership report. As for decline of cities as I've posted here and there my old church is a city church and no idea how it stays open thru loss of younger members. Was on council and attended a session on what was happening and what could be done. What happened applies to corps decline also and not much can be done except to do what you can with what's left and accept the truth of what happened.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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