Judges wandering on field

[EricS]

1 minute ago, Jeff Ream said:

you've come up with plenty of what if's to justify your POV, and it still doesn't prove your point or make you right.

WTF ever!

[Jeff Ream]

1 minute ago, EricS said:

WTF ever!

ah, can't continue the discussion because i called your bluff. Gotcha.

[N.E. Brigand]

6 hours ago, cfirwin3 said:

Recently, the school district that I live in had a traffic officer file a complaint with the district and the police department that a particular community event that they had been holding was unsafe due to inevitable traffic patterns.  He cited several 'close calls' with pedestrians and vehicle on vehicle.  This was just now reported, in spite of the fact that the event is 10 years old.  The timing of the event, the parking scenario and the traffic pattern was studied and it was determined that they were running a high risk of injury/death by hold this event at the time that it was being held.  The event (and all others like it) was cancelled until further notice.  The risk was sufficient and they didn't wait until an accident happened to act.  So the question is 'when did it get like this?'... and the answer is ' who cares?'.  The fact is that it IS unsafe.

In the drumcorps scene, you can't put a date on when design got universally complicated... and you don't need to.  However, you can justify that once a single corps exercised the design freedom to be unpredictable with increasing sets and subsets, meshing drill, and collapsing forms, then the cat was out of the bag.  I would say this happened in the mid 80s, became regular among competitive groups through the 90s and now even the nonfinalist corps are presenting such nonlinear, unpredictable design.  It has always been dangerous to be standing in forms with people moving and guard work outside of the feild of view.  But with the integration and unpredictability that design has at this moment in time (regardless of where we were 'yesterday'), the probability of injury is pretty high with non performers wandering in the forms.

If you sit in on rehearsals now you will see far less staff traffic (if any) inside the forms during ensemble rehearsals.  And these are the folks that know how the show works.  That's saying something.

Thank you. So it's your opinion (which may be correct; I don't know) that in at least some corps' shows, it's been too dangerous to have judges on the field for about 35 years.

[N.E. Brigand]

1 hour ago, Jeff Ream said:

what happens if a prop falls over with performers on it? Do they then ban props?

Several years ago, BOA put limitations on prop height.

[N.E. Brigand]

6 hours ago, cfirwin3 said:

False choice.

Corps are responsible now to stage their work to have it seen by the judges.  Nobody can argue that they deserve credit for what a judge can't see and a judge won't withhold credit on the assumption of the unseen... they reward what they do see.

What if a judge can't tell who's better because that would require being closer to the battery? More ties?

[Jeff Ream]

1 minute ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Several years ago, BOA put limitations on prop height.

watching last fall, i highly doubt people have been out there with measuring tape

[tesmusic]

6 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

Dunno. Does DCI have people out there with Measuring tape to prove they are the allowable heights with or without handrails? I know I have actually had to carry it now as a chief judge to inspect if need be.

Wow, seriously never knew

[N.E. Brigand]

5 minutes ago, EricS said:

not here to argue, and you can come up with "what ifs" all day long, but judges don't belong on the field 

IMHO end of point

I mean, you're certainly entitled to this opinion, but obviously lots of people disagree with you, and you won't win them over by just telling them they're wrong.

[Jeff Ream]

2 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I mean, you're certainly entitled to this opinion, but obviously lots of people disagree with you, and you won't win them over by just telling them they're wrong.

works in politics LOL

[N.E. Brigand]

1 minute ago, Jeff Ream said:

watching last fall, i highly doubt people have been out there with measuring tape

At one BOA regional I attended last year, it did look to me like a judge was at least giving one tallish prop a close look. No measuring tape, but standing next to it to check against his own height. The rules on height were instituted sometime in the past five years, I think, and they are: no prop taller than 12 feet, and no one standing higher than 6 feet off the ground without a safety railing.