New DCI survey and its comments

[Bruckner8]

I was going to copy/paste the questions in here too, but I want to encourage people to see them for themselves.

Here are my responses:

1) I see no trend...only stagnation.

2) Increase the pool of participants (which will lead to more excellence)

• increase the age limit (better to remove it altogether)
• allow ALL instruments, no restrictions whatsoever (do not make the corps limit higher...keep it at 3 busses: 150)

3) Reduce it TOC to the 6 best corps from prior year, and always make it a full retreat. I want drama, excellence and pageantry!

Edited December 1, 2016 by Bruckner8

[garfield]

I'm not so inclined because I think these questions are misplaced in the public:

1. What are the one or two key trends that you see most affecting the Marching Music Activity or any of its sub-components over the next 3-5 years?

2. What are the one or two key issues that DCI MUST address in the future to effectively assist our member and participating organizations’ success for generating participation, advancing music education and expanding organizational influence at all levels?

3. Do you have any comments or suggestions as to how DCI can make the annual DCI Tour and World Championships and/or other educational events stronger and value added, and meet your future needs more effectively?

Aren't these three questions BEST ANSWERED by the member corps? The member corps and their staffs are the ones most directly involved with the many aspects of the marching activity; they are best aligned to spot trends, aren't they?. Does anyone think that the member corps are going to do what the "majority" of fans (let alone a smaller subset) wants them to? When has that EVER happened?

What is expanding organizational influence at all levels? Expanding whose organizational influence?

This survey strikes me as a way to placate paying fans by enticing them to believe that their input actually means something.

Cynical? You bet. And plenty justified to be so, IMO.

Edited December 1, 2016 by garfield

[garfield]

I was going to copy/paste the questions in here too, but I want to encourage people to see them for themselves.

Here are my responses:

1) I see no trend...only stagnation.

2) Increase the pool of participants (which will lead to more excellence)

• increase the age limit (better to remove it altogether)
• allow ALL instruments, no restrictions whatsoever (do not make the corps limit higher...keep it at 3 busses: 150)

3) Reduce it to the 6 best corps from prior year, and always make it a full retreat. I want drama, excellence and pageantry!

Reduce WHAT to six?

[Bruckner8]

Reduce WHAT to six?

I meant to say "reduce TOC to 6"

[ouooga]

My thought, this is a stab in the dark by the research firm to locate a few strategy nuggets they haven't thought of yet. I agree with garfield that these questions are probably best answered by the member corps, but within the whole of the fan/alumni community there's going to be some good ideas. Few and far between, but some. This method is easier and cheaper than hiring expensive consultants who don't know the activity, and after some poor intern has parsed through the hundreds of paragraphs we have all written, an account manager will have a handful of ideas that can be vetted and presented to DCI.

[Bruckner8]

My thought, this is a stab in the dark by the research firm to locate a few strategy nuggets they haven't thought of yet. I agree with garfield that these questions are probably best answered by the member corps, but within the whole of the fan/alumni community there's going to be some good ideas. Few and far between, but some. This method is easier and cheaper than hiring expensive consultants who don't know the activity, and after some poor intern has parsed through the hundreds of paragraphs we have all written, an account manager will have a handful of ideas that can be vetted and presented to DCI.

I assume they have already talked at length amongst themselves, and one of them said "let's ask the public!" (recall that DCI *is* the member corps)

[xandandl]

I'm not so inclined because I think these questions are misplaced in the public:

1. What are the one or two key trends that you see most affecting the Marching Music Activity or any of its sub-components over the next 3-5 years?

2. What are the one or two key issues that DCI MUST address in the future to effectively assist our member and participating organizations’ success for generating participation, advancing music education and expanding organizational influence at all levels?

3. Do you have any comments or suggestions as to how DCI can make the annual DCI Tour and World Championships and/or other educational events stronger and value added, and meet your future needs more effectively?

Aren't these three questions BEST ANSWERED by the member corps? The member corps and their staffs are the ones most directly involved with the many aspects of the marching activity; they are best aligned to spot trends, aren't they?. Does anyone think that the member corps are going to do what the "majority" of fans (let alone a smaller subset) wants them to? When has that EVER happened?

What is expanding organizational influence at all levels? Expanding whose organizational influence?

This survey strikes me as a way to placate paying fans by enticing them to believe that their input actually means something.

Cynical? You bet. And plenty justified to be so, IMO.

I too felt that the survey was not well constructed, not well focused and was severely weighted by distributing it only by Twitter. If the opinions of the public were being sought, that approach seemed generationally biased, anti-luddite, and cavalier (apologies to Rosemont.) Not all fans are tech savvy, interested in Twitter, or free to peruse such.

I disagree on each of Bruckner's comments except increasing the number of participants (by which I mean the number of corps not the number of members on the field for each corps. DCI shows have been more active on the field by legacy than the hippopotamus size units of certain h.s. band circuits and many college bands.) To do what DCI has always done has involved most of the corps MMs almost all the time, not the whole-scale "time-outs"/sit-outs the larger bands use where sections and subsections are, at best, hidden behind the scrim to wait until its their turns resulting in MMs only doing 1/2 or !/3 of the whole show at times. Southern and Texas bands are notorious for that when I evaluated shows down there; I always presumed it was due to a heat and humidity factor or the Texas restrictions on how many hours a band student may practice in a given week. .

Even 150 MMs is too large sometimes for the DCI level of drill as well as the echo in most of the indoor stadia for regionals and championships.

Edited December 1, 2016 by xandandl

[xandandl]

These DCI issued facts, not yet released by Wikileaks, will sure to be a DCP reference source for further "discussions," I mean "threads."

http://www.dci.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=33500&ATCLID=211331997

[Liahona]

These DCI issued facts, not yet released by Wikileaks, will sure to be a DCP reference source for further "discussions," I mean "threads."

http://www.dci.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=33500&ATCLID=211331997

old news...I published this info months ago

[Jeff Ream]

What was the idea?

DCI seems to have turned several corners the last few years from a business perspective. Old timers will poopoo what I'm saying because it's not 440 corps yada yada, but look....crowds are going up, slowly more corps coming to life and fewer dying...

and DCA is going the other way. There needs to be more of a partnership between the two. For decades DCA has been the starting place for many kids who went on to march in DCI....and many then came back to DCA afterwards.

DCi is now selling into the end zones at an NFl stadium. DCA is moving it's championships to a high school stadium that won't be done for a renovation in an area where the nearest corps is an hour away. It's held several of its last championships in a town thats supposed to be a drum corps hub that no longer has an active corps, and has seen attendance drop steadily since it first moved there in 06 ( minus 12 and 13 in Annapolis), and while it has a corps an hour away, the next closest is what 4-5 hours?