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Redesign the Tour


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56 minutes ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

And that is the crux of the problem.  Because finals are always in the same location, the tour is in a rut.  Drum Corps season in CA, AZ, OR, & WA  is over by the end of the first week of July (at latest).   And over in the south (INC Texas) by the end of the third week in July.

But, no matter where finals are located, the parents & many fans will still come.  So Indy it is.  

Another Midwesterner rationalizing to Midwestern convenience?

Related to your penultimate sentence:  the "many fans" are the ones reacting to the rut you well cite. The parents are now fickle and not the diehards of the past as their prodigies are now "one and done" rather than lifers. ( My source for this is mostly narrative asI know of no actual statistics to support that beyond the DCI stats worked into the exiting of tour surveys handed out by each corps to mms, each corps doing such evaluation by each corps' particular method not always public.) I am supposing that persons without a long-term investment in the activity and still trying to pay off their past history with DCI which is now more costly than what most traditionalists paid in their past will be slower to make sacrifices of budget for something not an addiction or necessary. All the citations about earlier school years and the lack of housing for corps (or affordable for fans) in Indy will further be a hurdle for making DCI the annual family vacation spot. Besides if they are already bored of Indy with BOA trips they won't sacrifice to come back. At least WGI makes it interesting moving from venue to venue within Greater Dayton and Cincinnati. DCI loses a large market share by not re-considering a West Coast championship and allowing the championships to be held elsewhere in the nation as was the custom of DCI for the first 30 years (when the activity seemed more dynamic if not growing in interests.)

PS. I will be offline until Tuesday evening.

Edited by xandandl
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2 hours ago, xandandl said:

Another Midwesterner rationalizing to Midwestern convenience?

Related to your penultimate sentence:  the "many fans" are the ones reacting to the rut you well cite. The parents are now fickle and not the diehards of the past as their prodigies are now "one and done" rather than lifers. ( My source for this is mostly narrative asI know of no actual statistics to support that beyond the DCI stats worked into the exiting of tour surveys handed out by each corps to mms, each corps doing such evaluation by each corps' particular method not always public.) I am supposing that persons without a long-term investment in the activity and still trying to pay off their past history with DCI which is now more costly than what most traditionalists paid in their past will be slower to make sacrifices of budget for something not an addiction or necessary. All the citations about earlier school years and the lack of housing for corps (or affordable for fans) in Indy will further be a hurdle for making DCI the annual family vacation spot. Besides if they are already bored of Indy with BOA trips they won't sacrifice to come back. At least WGI makes it interesting moving from venue to venue within Greater Dayton and Cincinnati. DCI loses a large market share by not re-considering a West Coast championship and allowing the championships to be held elsewhere in the nation as was the custom of DCI for the first 30 years (when the activity seemed more dynamic if not growing in interests.)

PS. I will be offline until Tuesday evening.

I grew up in midwest but actually live in coastal Virginia

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7 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

1.  I think (hope) you meant to say "profit".  If we just want more revenue, we could run 10,000 shows all over the globe and tour 12 months a year, expenses be ######.

2.  And if #1 holds, then I think restructuring that lowers expenses ought to be considered.

Yes, of course.  I was referencing revenue TO the corps, which would be net of DCI's expenses. In this case, I consider "expenses" to be at the corps level and "profit" to be net of corps expenses.

If redesigning the tour doesn't end up in more net cash flow flowing to the corps, there's no reason for DCI to consider doing it at all.  The extent to which it should be done can only be determined after a full audit of the tour's financials on a per-show basis.

Also, there are still some shows that are break-even ventures for the TEP but still produces contract income for DCI.  A potential exists that re-designing the tour and capturing show management will prompt an increase in gate revenue via ticket price increases.

 

Edited by garfield
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On 10/12/2019 at 10:17 AM, xandandl said:

Another Midwesterner rationalizing to Midwestern convenience?

Related to your penultimate sentence:  the "many fans" are the ones reacting to the rut you well cite. The parents are now fickle and not the diehards of the past as their prodigies are now "one and done" rather than lifers. ( My source for this is mostly narrative asI know of no actual statistics to support that beyond the DCI stats worked into the exiting of tour surveys handed out by each corps to mms, each corps doing such evaluation by each corps' particular method not always public.) I am supposing that persons without a long-term investment in the activity and still trying to pay off their past history with DCI which is now more costly than what most traditionalists paid in their past will be slower to make sacrifices of budget for something not an addiction or necessary. All the citations about earlier school years and the lack of housing for corps (or affordable for fans) in Indy will further be a hurdle for making DCI the annual family vacation spot. Besides if they are already bored of Indy with BOA trips they won't sacrifice to come back. At least WGI makes it interesting moving from venue to venue within Greater Dayton and Cincinnati. DCI loses a large market share by not re-considering a West Coast championship and allowing the championships to be held elsewhere in the nation as was the custom of DCI for the first 30 years (when the activity seemed more dynamic if not growing in interests.)

PS. I will be offline until Tuesday evening.

I personally would love to see it moved. the only real option is to reverse everything and have the eastern venues early.

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On 10/12/2019 at 4:10 PM, garfield said:

Yes, of course.  I was referencing revenue TO the corps, which would be net of DCI's expenses. In this case, I consider "expenses" to be at the corps level and "profit" to be net of corps expenses.

If redesigning the tour doesn't end up in more net cash flow flowing to the corps, there's no reason for DCI to consider doing it at all.  The extent to which it should be done can only be determined after a full audit of the tour's financials on a per-show basis.

Also, there are still some shows that are break-even ventures for the TEP but still produces contract income for DCI.  A potential exists that re-designing the tour and capturing show management will prompt an increase in gate revenue via ticket price increases.

 

and expenses in having people on site to run everything

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On 10/12/2019 at 4:10 PM, garfield said:

Also, there are still some shows that are break-even ventures for the TEP but still produces contract income for DCI.  A potential exists that re-designing the tour and capturing show management will prompt an increase in gate revenue via ticket price increases.

... and a danger of thinking too short-term.  Maybe data suggests that a higher ticket price in 2020, even with less tickets sold, will increase profitability in 2020.  Meanwhile, that change caused the fan base to shrink.  There is a business case to be made for growing long-term revenue by growing the activity - larger fan base, larger participant base, larger donor/sponsor base, more corps in more places, more shows.

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1 hour ago, cixelsyd said:

... and a danger of thinking too short-term.  Maybe data suggests that a higher ticket price in 2020, even with less tickets sold, will increase profitability in 2020.  Meanwhile, that change caused the fan base to shrink.  There is a business case to be made for growing long-term revenue by growing the activity - larger fan base, larger participant base, larger donor/sponsor base, more corps in more places, more shows.

Raising ticket prices was one of the things that killed the old RCA Sr circuit. Less butts in the seats and sponsors got to the point where they were either losing money or found events that made more $$$$. 

Edited by JimF-LowBari
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4 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

... and a danger of thinking too short-term.  Maybe data suggests that a higher ticket price in 2020, even with less tickets sold, will increase profitability in 2020.  Meanwhile, that change caused the fan base to shrink.  There is a business case to be made for growing long-term revenue by growing the activity - larger fan base, larger participant base, larger donor/sponsor base, more corps in more places, more shows.

To take your example to its potential, if seemingly illogical, conclusion then, should all shows be free?

I think the flaw in the logic of "long-term revenue" is that fans aren't long-term any more.  What's the sense in worrying about long-term revenue when the average fans hangs around 3 years and attends shows at a declining rate to almost zero heading into the MM's last performance prior to aging out?

Does "long-term" necessarily have to be part of the discussion around growing the fan base?  And, again, if we have a huge fan base and revenue is zero at the gate, does that win the quest for "new revenue"?  

If the purpose of restructuring the tour is to generate more revenue with less expense, does "long-term" thinking have to come into play?

(My presumption is that your use of "long-term" is longer than the 3-year average life of today's fan.)

 

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9 minutes ago, garfield said:

To take your example to its potential, if seemingly illogical, conclusion then, should all shows be free?

I do not recall even suggesting lower ticket prices.  I definitely never said that the relation between price and quantity sold was linear all the way to price = 0.

Quote

I think the flaw in the logic of "long-term revenue" is that fans aren't long-term any more.  What's the sense in worrying about long-term revenue when the average fans hangs around 3 years and attends shows at a declining rate to almost zero heading into the MM's last performance prior to aging out?

Does "long-term" necessarily have to be part of the discussion around growing the fan base?  And, again, if we have a huge fan base and revenue is zero at the gate, does that win the quest for "new revenue"?  

If the purpose of restructuring the tour is to generate more revenue with less expense, does "long-term" thinking have to come into play?

(My presumption is that your use of "long-term" is longer than the 3-year average life of today's fan.)

First of all, I dispute the notion that the average lifespan of fandom is 3 years.  I suspect that the original survey finding of 3.5 years that you are most likely referring to was a side-effect of the time when that data point was measured, immediately after a raft of dramatic changes to the activity.  And if one were to put that in context, the idea of cultivating longer-lasting fan loyalty is something worth considering in this kind of analysis (but I doubt they are anymore).

You know as well as anyone what the value of a long-term fan can be, in real dollars.  You are one of those valuable fans.

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