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Will DCA be around in 5 years?


Will DCA be around in 5 years?  

99 members have voted

  1. 1. Will DCA be around in 5 years?

    • Yes
      33
    • No
      66


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3 hours ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Speaking of school, week and half before Labor Day and opening already around here... 😦

wife had first day with kids Monday. The kid started yesterday

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8 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

Planning, consistency and making it all work. It ain't rocket scicence.

Again, I would love to hear from all the corps not named Blue Devils or Buccaneers to tell us how they failed in planning and consistency.

From an outside perspective, it appears to be harder than rocket science. If it were easy, why aren't more corps so consistent?

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56 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Thanks for that very helpful reply!

(Obviously we disagree on this last paragraph, but I've already explained in my response to BigW about how I think Ohio bands stack up (as regards Central Crossing: they had an annoying but eventually impressive show two years ago before slipping last year -- although I gather there were some extrinsic circumstances at play). Until two years ago, I would have said that some twenty or more Ohio high school competition bands were better than CT -- even though their DCA placement jumped from fourth to first (merited, compared to the competition) and their score from 73 to 80 in 2016 (not merited, in my view). But in 2017, CT showed what I thought was great improvement, earning the score they'd received the year before, and last year they were, if anything, a bit underscored. As for OMEA, as shown here (you have to navigate Menu > Calendar of Events > Search > Type > Marching Band > Marching Band Local) their first competitions this year (at Circleville, Cloverleaf, Licking Heights, Philo, Springfield, and Troy) aren't until Sep. 14 -- and in none of the past five years, which is as long as I've been following OMEA super closely, have they had a competition scheduled on Labor Day weekend. BOA doesn't have any events until Sep. 21. Are you perhaps thinking of MSBA, the circuit in southwest Ohio / southeast Indiana / northern Kentucky? They do have, and have long had, one show on Labor Day weekend: the "premiere" event at Northmont, where bands receive comments but not scores. Though at the moment, no band from the greater Columbus area is signed up for that contest.)

Yes, you're correct; it's MSBA thanks for the correction as I often get them confused scheduling wise especially since it's also usually a major OSUMB weekend which impacts our Saints members who are also OSUMB alumni. There are also three large Labor Day parades which impact us as students aren't able to get released from the parade by their directors (this just happened earlier this month).

Until we switched to DCA, we had students from some of those local bands like Butler, and Carrol which is why I get them confused. We've been asked to not engage students from certain schools by their directors; other competition schools in the area have banned their students from participating in DCA as well. It's a weird bag; we basically have to wait for some some students to come to us; wait for some to graduate; or pull from non-competitive schools.

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13 hours ago, C.Holland said:

All of this.  The groups in the top box have fri 7pm -10pm, sat 9-9, and sun 9-6 rehearsals.  They have full or nearly full corps by feb or march. They have the show storyboarded and fully designed by   April.  And aren’t teaching in August, but are refining and changing show chunks as needed. 

It’s a pretty grueling schedule when you think about how the 3-day rehearsals happen from May to Sept. no wonder 25+ year olds don’t come out like they used to, that’s an incredible time suck. 

I hesitate to do the "back in my day" thing... but it pretty much has always been a tough grind for the DCA weekend warriors.

My first year with Sunrisers... 1977... we had 19 shows, including prelims and finals. Plus several parades... mostly Memorial Day weekend and July 4. And no full weekends off basically from early April through Labor Day weekend.   (We did get Easter Sunday and Mother's Day off. LOL. )

We did take some Sundays off during the summer when we had a Saturday show in upstate NY or New England. Getting off the bus at 5, 6, 7 AM on a Sunday morning didn't translate to a productive rehearsal on those given Sundays.  :laughing:

It's just a different era now. People have more going on in their lives than just drum corps.  I don't blame them at all for not wanting to do it, year in and year out. And I salute those who still are in the game.

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1 hour ago, cybersnyder said:

 

Add in transportation on both ends and needing a place to stay. I looked at the Bucs a few year ago and decided that I liked my "life".

Bucs membership is great about housing other members. The only time i stayed in a hotel was my choice.

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55 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Again, I would love to hear from all the corps not named Blue Devils or Buccaneers to tell us how they failed in planning and consistency.

From an outside perspective, it appears to be harder than rocket science. If it were easy, why aren't more corps so consistent?

so you think someone will come out here and admit they failed.

 

yeah i'll wait for that

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13 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

so you think someone will come out here and admit they failed.

yeah i'll wait for that

Well, it would seem that EVERYONE not named Bucs and BD has failed, most of the time, if they can't even manage simple things like consistency and planning.

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

 If it were easy, why aren't more corps so consistent?

Coming from dci Open Class perspective, unless you have one key voice at the top of the chain managing the design process, ed staff , and rehearsal schedule, whom is separate from the person dealing with operations, both of who should be separate from the people responsible for development and fundraising,  it’s too much work spreading everyone too thin. 

That voice in charge of each branch needs to be strong, able to keep everyone on task, on schedule, and on budget. And communicative to the other two as nauseum. 

 the one in charge of the artistic vision in addition to managing schedule and budget needs to be able to communicate the design idea and aesthetic clearly from the start, and be able to explain integration of it otherwise the staff and membership cannot.  

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32 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

Bucs membership is great about housing other members. The only time i stayed in a hotel was my choice.

Good to know, but I think the ship has sailed for me. Maybe some low commit - brass caroling around Christmas. 

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40 minutes ago, Fran Haring said:

I hesitate to do the "back in my day" thing... but it pretty much has always been a tough grind for the DCA weekend warriors.

My first year with Sunrisers... 1977... we had 19 shows, including prelims and finals. Plus several parades... mostly Memorial Day weekend and July 4. And no full weekends off basically from early April through Labor Day weekend.   (We did get Easter Sunday and Mother's Day off. LOL. )

We did take some Sundays off during the summer when we had a Saturday show in upstate NY or New England. Getting off the bus at 5, 6, 7 AM on a Sunday morning didn't translate to a productive rehearsal on those given Sundays.  :laughing:

It's just a different era now. People have more going on in their lives than just drum corps.  I don't blame them at all for not wanting to do it, year in and year out. And I salute those who still are in the game.

this

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