Disturbing DCI rumors

[cixelsyd]

54 minutes ago, garfield said:

This is, has been, and will be my sole disagreement with allowing WW to boost revenue by attracting new participants and their fan-family.  If drum corps, the activity, wants new revenue then they'd vote to allow woodwinds but not increase the MM limit.  Horns cut to allow the palette of woodwinds in one corps, when added to a group of other, new participant woodwinds, in fact makes a new corps in numbers even as it requires a like-minded group of visionaries to create and run it.

But, existing corps directors looking to increase only their own revenues see the obvious answer is to increase the MM limit AND allow any-instrument.  A 200-piece top-5 drum corps with 50 woodwinds will still blow as loud as a 150-member corps that stays all brass, and the bigger corps has the extra palette of sounds with which to dazzle the bored judges (plus a whole new crew of able-bodied prop-movers).

I'm not confident that "creating new corps" as a new activity revenue source is on the radars of individual corps leadership (i.e. DCI member corps) even while I'm positive that generating new revenue for their corps most certainly is.

Well, then, nothing has been learned from the G7 episode.  NOTHING.

They still want to haggle over how to slice the pie, instead of how to make the whole pie bigger.

[cixelsyd]

13 hours ago, garfield said:

Tim, I know you know this math as I do.  It's not possible.  Million dollar spectacles placed on the back of how many kids' member dues?   If the winningest corps in the activity spends annually upwards of $1.5mm to field their WC corps, that means to just attract attention a corps has to raise $750m annually or there-abouts.  Divided by 150 kids, it's $XX.xx per kid.  But divided by 200 kids, or 250 kids on the field it's even less per kid.  You'd need 500 kids marching to make the math work.  Sponsors' return on dollars invested declines with each additional member they have to outfit with their gear under this "special [insert corps name] deal".  No matter what, all in, the cost per MM can't be greater than the dollars raised towards their costs.  It's been upside down for decades and has only gotten worse.  The BEST corps in the activity only fund 50% - 60% of their expenses from MM tour fees.  The rest comes from...

The math is simple: either increase the number of MMs, reduce the dollars spent on shows, or some combination of both.  And it is never as easy as <---that sounds.  

That is not how it works. 

If you increase the number of kids in a corps, that number increases too.  Does anyone really not get that?

[gbass598]

14 hours ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Not knowing DCI corps as well as DCA have a question. How many corps would be in each region? To use DCM as an example, who is left in the non top corps?

Not many anymore but they were basically driven away when DCI started making all the groups travel much further distances and couldn’t afford the additional costs involved. When I marched in the 90’s there were more than 30 corps in Div III prelims. Now there aren’t 30 corps total. The “haves” drove out the “have nots” by making decisions that increased participation costs. There for there are probably over 1,000 kids today who don’t have an opportunity to participate due to various cost prohibitive reasons. Many of those smaller corps also used to teach people to play brass instruments as well.

To decide bringing in woodwinds for more participation opportunities Now would be a reactive CYA solution to cover for 20 years worth of decisions made that helped drive participation levels lower.

[JimF-LowBari]

28 minutes ago, gbass598 said:

Not many anymore but they were basically driven away when DCI started making all the groups travel much further distances and couldn’t afford the additional costs involved. When I marched in the 90’s there were more than 30 corps in Div III prelims. Now there aren’t 30 corps total. The “haves” drove out the “have nots” by making decisions that increased participation costs. There for there are probably over 1,000 kids today who don’t have an opportunity to participate due to various cost prohibitive reasons. 

Transportation costs added to the mix of the other costs yes. But I’m from the DCA side and saw about the same percentage of disbanded corps. Same problem applied as shows further apart... but in the senior corps case it was shows no longer being held and not corps being forced to go further away.

My original question is if regional shows can be found can enough regional corps be found to make it viable

Edited December 27, 2019 by JimF-LowBari

[Terri Schehr]

35 minutes ago, gbass598 said:

Not many anymore but they were basically driven away when DCI started making all the groups travel much further distances and couldn’t afford the additional costs involved. When I marched in the 90’s there were more than 30 corps in Div III prelims. Now there aren’t 30 corps total. The “haves” drove out the “have nots” by making decisions that increased participation costs. There for there are probably over 1,000 kids today who don’t have an opportunity to participate due to various cost prohibitive reasons. Many of those smaller corps also used to teach people to play brass instruments as well.

To decide bringing in woodwinds for more participation opportunities Now would be a reactive CYA solution to cover for 20 years worth of decisions made that helped drive participation levels lower.

I was trying to figure out how many DCM corps are gone now.  Cap Sound and Americanos for starters.
 Joliet Kingsmen.  I loved those little kids. That was noble work the staff was doing there.  💕

Edited December 27, 2019 by Terri Schehr

[MikeD]

4 hours ago, garfield said:

Can each region sell enough seats to be profitable even without a WC participant?  What of regions that have none?  I'm simple - I think of "regional" as being time zones because those lines are fixed and not gerrymandered to benefit the few.

Is the activity ready to concede membership to the big club if the successful regional touring, plus DCI "Regionals" in their area, and the trip to "Finals" with 100 members is the minimum requirement for a minimum time?

 

In addition, how would it be to have ONLY corps in your region at every show the entire summer? Here on the east coast, we'd never see BD, SCV, Madison, Coats, Phantom Regiment, Blue Knights, Mandarins, etc.....those in the mid-west would never see Crown, BAC, Cadets, Surf, Spirit of Atlanta...and so on. Would enough people want to attend shows that will always contain the exact same set of corps?

[cixelsyd]

37 minutes ago, MikeD said:

In addition, how would it be to have ONLY corps in your region at every show the entire summer? Here on the east coast, we'd never see BD, SCV, Madison, Coats, Phantom Regiment, Blue Knights, Mandarins, etc.....those in the mid-west would never see Crown, BAC, Cadets, Surf, Spirit of Atlanta...and so on. Would enough people want to attend shows that will always contain the exact same set of corps?

If you finished your thought, you would have answered your own questions. 

And those on the west coast would... 

[xandandl]

Just imagining this with DCPers and mms storming the Janual: the Class of Brass vs. the woodwind whiners picketing and contra-picketing and beating their drums while the judges, corp reps. and lobbyists shrink back into their cups...

https://www.theday.com/national-politics/20191227/virginia-school-system-will-let-students-take-time-off-to-protest-conservative-backlash-has-begun

Edited December 27, 2019 by xandandl

[HockeyDad]

16 hours ago, MikeD said:

Plus, are there sufficient shows in each 'region'...however you define them...to provide a full season of shows for the members? 

Ummm. No. You know why?  Because DCI eliminated the regional touring model. Bring that back and more regional shows come back. 

Edited December 27, 2019 by HockeyDad

[HockeyDad]

Blah blah blah same arguments as nauseam. I can virtually guarantee you the way for DCI to survive in the long term does NOT include increasing the costs every year for each corps to remain competitive. But by all means, keep adding bells n whistles and sell it by laughably claiming it will somehow reduce costs or perhaps magically increase revenue over and above the cost increase involved with addition of said bells n whistles.