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Visit the DCA Championship ticket selection map. Dismal. It would appear not even family members of performers attend as they once did. The numbers indicate a smaller crowd than last year. Difficult trend to reverse.

Admittedly, I can be considered part of the problem.  I choose to watch on Box5.

Edited by Fred Windish
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52 minutes ago, Fred Windish said:

Visit the DCA Championship ticket selection map. Dismal. It would appear not even family members of performers attend as they once did. The numbers indicate a smaller crowd than last year. Difficult trend to reverse.

Admittedly, I can be considered part of the problem.  I choose to watch on Box5.

Box5 viewer too but if that didn’t exist this year I might have gone to Prelims for the first time in years.

Winder if anyway DCA could find out why people who went last year do not go this year. 

 

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A big thing in keeping DCI going is strong investment in the corps by parents. I don't think many DCA corps have really embraced parents and given them a stong role in shaping the corps. I think a lot of the coprs still think they are senior corps while the average age may be younger than most DCI corps.  ANyway that has been my fight getting parents involved and getting the corps to respect the opinions of parents.   I think this may be one thing that helps DCI fill stadiums

 

Edited by totaleefree
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I am coming to DCA finals.

All the way from London, England.

As director of Cadence I  toured with the Corps in DCA last Summer and had a blast so I am coming back to meet old friends in DCA and hopefully make new ones.

I will be found in the midst of the Cabelleros Alumni Corps on Friday night dancing my stuff as per last year.

I am arriving Thursday, going to the hall of fame dinner as a guest of Doreen Sandor on Friday then staying for the weekend.

Se you all there....

 

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I hope it's a happy dance you'll be doing when you're in the midst of us (Cabs Alumni) On Friday night.  😊  

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6 minutes ago, LucyGuy66 said:

I hope it's a happy dance you'll be doing when you're in the midst of us (Cabs Alumni) On Friday night.  😊  

I was very happy last year so I am sure all will be good.

I got to stand in the midst of the mellophones last time so looking for a repeat.

 

Also got to met the lovely Larry Kerchsner, hope hes there again this year.

 

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2 hours ago, shombell said:

I am coming to DCA finals.

All the way from London, England.

As director of Cadence I  toured with the Corps in DCA last Summer and had a blast so I am coming back to meet old friends in DCA and hopefully make new ones.

I will be found in the midst of the Cabelleros Alumni Corps on Friday night dancing my stuff as per last year.

I am arriving Thursday, going to the hall of fame dinner as a guest of Doreen Sandor on Friday then staying for the weekend.

Se you all there....

 

Having relatives in Bristol and Twickingham hope you have a safe trip and a good time. 

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7 hours ago, BigW said:

Nothing wrong in growing a young audience. It's essential to any activity. MLB is desperately trying to do just that.

What makes me wonder is the perceived  very short shelf life of the new fans with DCI.

No major sports that I know if have a fan base that's a 3 year expendable crop. They want people to follow for a long time from young on. They try to get the new fans in, but then they try to keep them. I really can't see the model as healthy unless it's more of a throw the hands up and run with the HS Band model, which is a weird duck to begin with in so many ways. Might explain why I feel Bandma Jones and Aunt Mabel are shoving me out the door while they scream "THEY'RE ALWAYS READYYYYY!!!!!!!!!" for you know who. :sleep:

And it's a niche audience. One thing I took notice of: One of my coworkers has a son who's a senior in high school. Their band director bought a subscription of Flow so that he could stream DCI finals for the kids. That's a whole lot cheaper than 100 kids going to a show. I've gotten at least 4 inquiries now from those kids about how they can march corps. Ive pushed them all to CV because 1) I know the staff and caliber and 2) I'm a vet. 

If DCA wants a fan base, they could easily get a reduced or even free subscription for school music educators. It can't POSSIBLY be that hard. 

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There are a lot of challenges in both circuits which deal with a shifting market, and a lot of it goes to marketing; how young people consume content; more options for time and the biggest pull - WGI.

One circuit shifted their marketing heavily digital and began putting out content consistently that gets people engaged. 

  • Podcasts
  • Live Videos
  • Ambassadors - user generated content
  • Top 10 Videos
  • Alumni Showcase Videos
  • Did You Know Content & Videos
  • Clear definition of what the circuit is; and it's goals
  • Highlighting timely relevant things like - female leadership, LGBTQ participation,  community outreach, human interest stories
  • Making the event an experience; food trucks; 5K; drum circles etc. Keeps people engaged off the field

This stuff can be done by one to two casually engaged people primarily from you phone. I showed a DCA director how to create content on their phone at dinner in 10 minutes and they'd created posts, and scheduled 3 before we left for the evening. With platforms like fiverr; you can simply request high quality video, content and more for literally nothing which saves a lot of time too.

Batch create content and then schedule it out months in advance; things like alumni, DYK, human interest stories are all things that can be done months ahead of time and simply scheduled. That's what the jr. circuit does in some cases; the other is not leveraging traditional small market media sources for advertising as much; 65% of all internet traffic goes to social media - if you're not actively engaged on those platforms then you're not going to reach an audience; having content to provide that audience is vital as well.

 

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2 hours ago, Weaklefthand4ever said:

And it's a niche audience. One thing I took notice of: One of my coworkers has a son who's a senior in high school. Their band director bought a subscription of Flow so that he could stream DCI finals for the kids. That's a whole lot cheaper than 100 kids going to a show. I've gotten at least 4 inquiries now from those kids about how they can march corps. Ive pushed them all to CV because 1) I know the staff and caliber and 2) I'm a vet. 

If DCA wants a fan base, they could easily get a reduced or even free subscription for school music educators. It can't POSSIBLY be that hard. 

The outreach to schools needs to be vastly improved beyond trying to pick staff because they work with a High School they hope they can cherry pick members out of and the recruiting booths in the fall. In my case, having a show in the town I grew up was a pretty large factor in getting me interested.

 

I know at one point the Cabs had a clinic and at least some people there viewed it as a positive. This kind of outreach and increase of awareness needs to be done. Brilliant move for the director to stream it, MUCH less expensive and MUCH less of a logistical PITA.

 

Thought- while we here believe this is worth doing and has great value, it just seems many people now do not view it as such. I think there's a variety of issues in the stew that has caused that problem, and some of them are at cross purposes. For instance, I would think some view the limited performance opportunities which look to becoming even fewer a negative... yet some also think the Summer weekend commitment is too much. One can't have it both ways.

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