Member corps vote to cancel 2020 DCI Tour

[TwoValves]

6 hours ago, Slingerland said:

Except that audition revenues are going to be depressed.  Significantly. With many corps keeping a spot every kid contracted for next year, there will be a finite number of openings, so I wouldn't be surprised to see audition numbers halved or worse from previous years, and audition camp revenues are how most corps get through the first few months of the new season.

Figure that there are 30 to 35 existing organizations, who'll need anywhere from $50k to $300k each to get through the end of this calendar year and make sure they can cover their rent/utilities/skeleton staff, etc.  Behemoths like SCV and BD are going to be missing potentially hundreds of thousands of Bingo income over the next 9 months, and if those two are going to be facing problems, everyone else is going to be facing Biblical famines.

As for DCI, it's quite possible that without a half million to million in loans/grants/gifts in the next three months, they might have to fold up this summer, and that's after letting a majority of the staff go this week. 

The point isn't to survive enough to walk into the new season as an emaciated child with whooping cough; it's to be strong enough to enter the new season fully prepared for battle.

Highly doubt it.  First, just because they are contracted, doesn't mean that corps won't require them to attend all of their paid camps in the fall as usual.  Second, there will still be just as many auditioning for however many spots there are that remain - and there will be spots.  I've seen 50 kids tryout for 2 openings on a snare line before.  Those that want to march drum corps will show up looking for their chance, and enjoy the audition camps even if they don't get there.  And my prediction is that only about 30% of the "grandfathered" age-outs will actually end up taking advantage of it.  Many will have graduated and be heading off into the real world of employment, and summers off are no longer an option.  Others will, just as every year, decide it's time to call it quits based on money, time, relationships, etc.  

[Hafe]

6 hours ago, garfield said:

The number you're using combines expenses of the tour with payout proceeds to the corps, neither of which are going to happen.

DCI has already furloughed its staff.  If the corps want any hope of having a tour in which to perform next year, they need to keep DCI alive but it's not going to take $12million to do it.

 

You're absolutely correct.  DCI needs to stay alive to have a tour.  Not sure if everyone recognizes that.

[cixelsyd]

9 hours ago, Angelee said:

Besides the difficulty in tracking a MM who was contracted for 2020 and lost the year, why are some of you against everyone getting a bonus year? I see “it’s life deal with it”. Why shouldn’t the age outs of 2020 “deal with it”? Seriously though. Thousands of MM are losing a year. It sucks for some that it was their last, yet they’re the ones who get the bonus year. 
I’m this year’s seniors in WGI or even graduation aren’t getting another run. It is what it is. So why not allow all a bonus year when one “class” gets it?

The opposition I see seems to be based on two factors.

1.  Rules are rules.  The age rule has been the single most hard-fought, controversial rule in drum corps history.  Several of our greatest-ever corps have had their seasons snuffed out over it, while another such corps settled for second place behind a corps that was forgiven for two overage marchers.  None of the age-eligible kids in those corps were offered a bonus year.

Rules are there for reasons.  If there were no reasons, then we could just repeal the rule. 

2.  Nothing is fair.  Not saying this to be mean - just stating an observation.  Trying to make it fair for some people inevitably makes it unfair for someone else.  It would be unfair if 2020 ageouts were denied their final/only season in the manner of current events.  But it then becomes unfair to give them special treatment with another year of eligibility, where the class of 2020 takes spots away from the class of 2021.  And no matter how many more exceptions we make, whoever is left out gets short-changed.  We could permanently bump the age limit up one year, and it would still be retroactively unfair to the class of 2019, 2018... all DCI alumni.  An exception for the coronavirus shutdown is unfair when the World War II shutdown of VFW/AL state and national field competitions had no such provisions.

[cixelsyd]

8 hours ago, Lance said:

Ethnocentrism should not be the result of this.  That's really gross.  

Spend money where you want.  You earned it. 

I must be missing something here.

RIght now, many of us cannot "spend money where we want".  Many businesses are closed by government order.  Travel restrictions and advisories limit our movement.  Some face quarantine or isolation, a far greater such restriction.

This time is a reminder that as humans, a species vulnerable to viruses, one of our necessary defenses against a pandemic is to restrict movement and association... to self-isolate on individual, local and national levels.  It is a reminder that individuals, locales and nations should therefore aspire to be more self-sufficient so that they CAN self-isolate when necessary.

Suggesting that when this is over, we support our local businesses, or even extend that support nationwide, is not "ethnocentrism". 

If it is, then I guess supporting Drum Corps International, a US-based circuit whose participating corps are almost exclusively US in origin, is "ethnocentrism" as well.  That makes this whole forum "really gross".

[garfield]

10 hours ago, Lance said:

Ethnocentrism should not be the result of this.  That's really gross.  

Spend money where you want.  You earned it. 

Being American is not ethnocentric!  There are no ethnic Americans.  It's not gross to love one's country or origin over others.

In fact, it's the sineu that binds us.  It's the reason most people on the planet want to come here.

 

[TwoValves]

9 hours ago, Hafe said:

You're absolutely correct.  DCI needs to stay alive to have a tour.  Not sure if everyone recognizes that.

Not necessarily 

[IllianaLancerContra]

14 hours ago, LabMaster said:

So 2020 ageouts get to finish in 2021. An “extra” year to make up for this years list year.   Very fair.  But a potential MM for 2021 may not get a spot because all spots were filled for 2020? 

So the potential MM MAY possibly miss out one year.  But only if a spot doesn’t open up with his/her dream corps. There are other corps to join if it means that much.  And there may be openings in the upper tier corps too.  
The way it’s looking is that the carry over 2020 ageout and the 2021 ageouts go out together.  That makes a lot of openings for 2022. That may hurt corps with typically high ageouts.  Most ageout numbers are in the 30-40 range yearly.   That may look like 60-80 ageouts in 2021. 
This will present a challenge for some corps to have a turnover that high.  I don’t know the answer, and I may be way off in how this might work,  but this years unprecedented situation, may result in an unprecedented corps membership issue next year.

This is one reason pandemics suck.

[greg_orangecounty]

11 hours ago, Lance said:

Ethnocentrism should not be the result of this.  That's really gross.  

Spend money where you want.  You earned it. 

"Ethnocentrism"...........!!??   That is the most utterly absurd thing I've read this weekend.  You should look up the definition of the term and then compare it in context to the original post.

[Hafe]

1 hour ago, TwoValves said:

Not necessarily 

How do you figure??

[TwoValves]

1 hour ago, Hafe said:

How do you figure??

There could many other ways to have a season and tour without what we currently know as DCI.  Individual corps could take on more production of shows.  Smaller regional bodies could re-emerge.  Possibly even an entirely new entity could be born to do what DCI once did. 

The member corps basically govern themselves.  DCI is a  show producer/promoter.  Others could fill the void.