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Record attendance for Indianapolis, but far from an overall record. IIRC, that happened in Montreal in '81 or '82, with north of 40k in Olympic stadium.

Paging Brasso, paging Mr. Brasso...
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So to sum up.....your upset the Cavies beat the Cadets. We got it.

Simply, the Cavies had the best product they've put on the field in 5 years and the Cadets...well.

I had no idea this thread would get 11 pages already.

No, I'm NOT upset the Cavs beat The Cadets. I do think the Cadets should have been 6th, just not with a measly 92.x

I'm not upset about anyone who beat anyone. That wasn't the purpose of my complaints.

Great show by the Cavs, at first I hated it, but then I grew to love it.

My favs for the season were Blue Knights, SCV, then Cavs.

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So it's that time of year where the season is over, and the coulda-shoulda-wouldas start to come to mind for many.

If you feel the need to complain about anything from the season, this can be a venting ground for it.

Please keep it clean and intelligent if possible.

It's important for everyone to vent their frustrations, and I feel we should have a place for that here.

I'll go ahead and start with this.

Did the judges really feel it necessary to score The Cadets in the 92 pt range? I know many will say "well you can't compare scores from one year to another", well I say bull hooey on that.

It does stick in the minds of people.

When I toured with the Blue Stars in 2010, Houdini show, of course we (Blue Stars family and fans) were all elated at the 91.90 (92.05? on Friday) and of course we were all bummed we couldn't top SCV that year. The point is, 92pts is great, for an 8th place corps.

Did The Cadets really put out a performance on Saturday that was only marginally better than Blue Stars in 2010? Of course not. The Cadets were leaps and bounds better. Not knocking Blue Stars, or SCV, or even Phantom Regiment who scored in the 93 range (along with the Sanford award) with their Into the Light show. Great show, but their brass was really a good bit behind Cadets 2016 who I feel had a great brass section.

Now I'm no homer for The Cadets this season, or even last, although in general they are among my favorite corps in all, but as a fan, I do feel insulted that they would get 92.x for their efforts. I hope this org doesn't feel that way, but I do. I feel insulted at this score.

Scores do matter. They matter in the sense that an organization looks at their scores to try and determine where they stand within their competition. The Cadets were not a 5pt behind Bluecoats. That's like saying the Crossmen were as far behind Cadets and Cadets were behind Bluecoats.

I think that is a load of crap.

Id believe, IMO, that every corps at Finals had a BETTER show than they had last year. And even most corps NOT in Finals had a better show than last year.

They all really raised the bar.

Cadets with a 92.7625? No way.

I feel the same with the Blue Knights. Their show was 2.5 pts better than last season.

Here is how I would have scored.

1-3 I think was about right.

4th SCV got 95.3 I would have them at 95.75.

5th Cavs got 94.025 I would have had them about 94.7 and in 6th

6th Cadets 92.763 I would have had them about 95.25 and in 5th

7th Blue Knights 90.737 I would have them at 93.4

9th Blue Stars 89.05 I would have them at 91.25 and in 8th

8th Phantom 89.963 I would have them at 90.575 and in 9th

10th Crossmen 86.975 I'd give them an 88.5

11th Academtn 86.1 I'd put them 88.2

12th Boston 84.8 Id have them 86.1

But then again this is just me.

Scores do matter to me in a certain way, it DOES tell me "did this corps improve?" Yes they all did improve and I'd REALLY like to see that improvement manifested in a score that is SOMETHING MORE THAN ARBITRARY.

The more each season goes by the more I wonder if scores really ARE mostly arbitrary, when they SHOULDN'T be.

Scores have to mean SOMETHING.

And even more than that, what really ticks me off is how EVERY score went down from Semis to Finals except for the top 3.

Was this kind of a statement being made intentionally? What did DCI have to do with it? "Hey, judges, thanks for coming out tonight to judge Finals. We all hope that y'all will bring us a new champion tonight!" wink wink.

Now I'm not saying there is a conspiracy, and I do think Bluecoats deserved to win by a SMALL margin, which they did, not to take anything away from my favorite show Blue Devils have done in a long time, but seems to me that DCI has been pretty clear that they wish the activity to change as far as show design. What can the corps like Cadets do, when their show didn't work quite enough to medal last season, and come out with something completely different, BASED ON COMMENTS FROM JUDGES about how their show design wasn't working, and they come out with a program so completely different, and they get roasted for it.

I don't believe their 92.x was because of execution. They didn't perform on a low box 4 level across the board, but that's how it was scored. Same with Blue Knights.

I really feel sorry the most for these two corps, Cadets and Blue Knights for doing something both so completely different, and get insulted by judges/DCI for their efforts.

For corps who are 1) either trying to get back into medal contention, or 2) trying to get TO medal contention for the first time, these bipolar messages from one year to the next are NOT helping these staffs in trying to figure out what is going to work for the judges.

And I hope that DCI and their judges don't automatically equate "what works for the judges and DCI" = what works for the fans.

I WOULD like to see better show designs in the future, but what I say this year, as disappointed as I was with last season's show designs, was a GOOD step in the right direction, but seemed to have NOT been rewarded for it.

I'm sorry this has happened and just wanted to voice my concern about this issue that may start to be a disconnect between what DCI as the governing body wants, and what the fans want to see as a whole.

That being said, I enjoyed every show in at least some way, and thought they ALL did a fantastic job no matter what scores they ended up getting. Congrats to them ALL, especially Academy, Bluecoats, and BLUE KNIGHTS who had IMO the best entertaining product on the field for me.

Thank you to all, and my post was not a knock against any corps, it was a knock to the disconnect between where the fans would like to see shows scored and how they were actually scored.

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Please feel free to get off your chest anything about this season that may have bothered you and keep it constructive if you can.

Okay, well first your are correct. You cannot compare scores year to year. After our "breakout" year in 2014, scores have needed to be toned down. Understand that the Cavaliers scores were reflected from those of the Cadets and SCV. Obviously, the gap shows how far ahead or behind you are. In this case, the Cavaliers were about 3 points behind SCV and barely ahead of the Cadets. Why? Because the Cavaliers didn't put out a better product than SCV did in the judges eyes.

The blue knights did not get insulted by the judges. They were given an opinion about their show. I wouldn't consider any top 12 corps to have been "insulted". With the Cadets, their show was probably the most difficult. When you cannot execute your difficult music and drill and guard work, then you can't even begin to be scoring high. Lucky for the Cadets, they actually pulled it off.

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I don't think The Cadets show was that bad.

I know scores are relative, but it almost seems like, and I've been thinking about this all season, that the people at the top of DCI want the activity to go in a certain direction, show design being one of those things, and, and I know the directors of the corps have the votes about scoring systems, but who designs the scoring systems? It seems like corps are going to be rewarded for those things that those in position of power and influence want to be rewarded, and punished for not.

Execution will still be king, but even those things are being made subjective.

Seems almost as if the entire scoring system is being made subjective. Cadets 6th in brass? No way. Maybe I'm clueless, but I thought their brass section was 2nd to only Crown, maybe Bluecoats were at the same level. Certainly better than SCV, though. And a tougher visual program than SCV as well.

Oh well.

It's just that, well I know a lot of people, including me, would like to see Cadets win another title, IF they had a show worthy to do it.

But what a 92.x, and 5pts behind the current champion, tells me, is that they are years away from winning a title.

Anyone can say that The Cadets can come out next season and compete for a title, and it would be feasible.

Blue Stars in 2010, 91.9 and probably should have beaten SCV for 7th, to say that it was feasible for them to come out in 2011 and compete for a title, one would be out of their mind. Just using the Stars as an example. Same with Blue Knights. They aren't ready to compete, but saying Cadets are 5 pts behind the current champion tells the community that they are now at a level in which they are mid tier and have a long ways to go to get back to the top.

That's what those scores tell me.

As far as I'm concerned, any of this season's top 6 has a shot at winning in 2017. IF that is true, let us have closer scores.

Judges, please stick to judging your caption and let the other captions fall where they may.

As an example, I thought it was great seeing Phantom Regiment in 2010 end up in 6th, with a brass section that I thought was over scored, and win the percussion title.

But from the recaps this past Saturday, it was pretty generic. The biggest variation was SCV ending up 4th and taking 1st in percussion, and Blue Knights in 7th, taking 10th in visual proficiency. That's only 3 placements off.

I really would like to see corps pulled out of a hat for gate times.

I want to see the scoring be more objective than they have been. I think they are too subjective. It that happens and I end up not being happy with the results, I can at least accept them a lot better.

Anyways, yeah, the biggest complaints have been mentioned - we will never see these shows live again, and drum corps season is 10 months away.

:(

Great job by all corps this season.

And like I think I mentioned in my OP, I thought ALL corps had a better show than they did last season. They really raised the bar a little bit after last year's disappointing season. I found myself humming melodies from this season's shows today at work.

Congrats to all and I'm going to be busy with other things in life, so I'll read you all in 9 months when I get back into DCI again.

FCO.

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But what a 92.x, and 5pts behind the current champion, tells me, is that they are years away from winning a title.

Anyone can say that The Cadets can come out next season and compete for a title, and it would be feasible.

Blue Stars in 2010, 91.9 and probably should have beaten SCV for 7th, to say that it was feasible for them to come out in 2011 and compete for a title, one would be out of their mind. Just using the Stars as an example. Same with Blue Knights. They aren't ready to compete, but saying Cadets are 5 pts behind the current champion tells the community that they are now at a level in which they are mid tier and have a long ways to go to get back to the top.

That's what those scores tell me.

And i think that's where you're wrong. You cant read that much into the future of an organization from its current score.

Hell, Cadets themselves were 4 points off the champ in 2010 and won in 2011. Bluecoats were 5 points off the champion in 2013 and won in 2016.

The fact is, scores just tell us how a corps is performing on that particular date. They dont tell us what kind of talent the corps has coming in for next year or what kind of design staff are employed. In your example between BS and Cadets, Cadets are better set up because they likely have a higher talent level coming in than blue stars did in 2010. Theyre still The Cadets. Blue Stars were maximizing both from execution and design where they were at the time as an organization, whereas cadets, well.... arent. That leaves a lot of room for quick growth at cadets, where the growth for a corps like BS2010 is the type that takes longer.

Edited by AlexL
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I had no idea this thread would get 11 pages already.

No, I'm NOT upset the Cavs beat The Cadets. I do think the Cadets should have been 6th, just not with a measly 92.x

I'm not upset about anyone who beat anyone. That wasn't the purpose of my complaints.

Great show by the Cavs, at first I hated it, but then I grew to love it.

My favs for the season were Blue Knights, SCV, then Cavs.

If you have 1 person judging finals every year what you are talking about could happen. They would be the only person judging so they could think back and remember what they gave Cadets those many years ago, make the decision that this years show was as good as the previous score and give them a number that would be in its correct place. Instead we have gone through several sheet changes, de-emphasizing some things, emphasizing others, creating new captions, getting rid of others. We have different numbers of judges going along with those sheet changes, giving more opinions along with different head judges who bring their own opinions into the fray too. We have a different amount of judges within a single season, shows without people judging on the field and only upstairs in the press box, we have different judges judging each show, especially with complete different panels in Quarterfinals, Semis and Finals. What I'm getting at is that there are too many variables to grant your wish. We could take examples from every year and slog through this discussion and it would not make any sense. The only number that counts is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. there is no way we can do what you want.

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So to sum up.....your upset the Cavies beat the Cadets. We got it.

Simply, the Cavies had the best product they've put on the field in 5 years and the Cadets...well.

It's all water under the bridge now, and I agree that the Cavaliers had a better put-together show this year; but you can't tell me their brass and percussion were better than the Cadets. To me it wasn't the placement. I figured the Cadets were going to take 5th or 6th. But brass and percussion got dumped on Finals night. I was there for semifinals and the Cadets music ensemble was sublime. Don't feel they were scored that way. I wasn't there for finals, so perhaps they had a bad night, or maybe they just threw in the towel.

Now I had no problem with the judges dumping them in visual and GE. The show wasn't there.

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I am wondering if the statue guy in Cadets show paid 3000+ in dues to do that all year......

Edited by Mello Dude
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Seat hoppers!!! A few years ago I popped for the cost of Friends of DCI, a scholarship and a group of tickets in the friends section for all three days of finals. It was a pretty good size "investment" to get good seats. All three days we had seat hoppers next to us. One made a point of showing his companions where there seats really were ( down low in the 100s.). That was the last time I made that "investment". DCI lost $1000s from just me by not having someone checking tickets for seating. Did they lose money from others as well

Edited by WIS
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I was going to complain about complainers, but decided they'd just ##### about it

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