The end of scores?

[Jeff Ream]

14 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

This post illustrates another fallacy with this argument.

Food - people need food or they cannot live.

Insurance - corps need insurance or one claim will bankrupt them.

Fuel - corps need fuel or they cannot travel to contests.

Housing - corps need housing or they cannot travel to contests.

Props are not an existential necessity like these other items.  Drum corps thrived for decades without props, and could have continued to do so.  But instead, a subset of top corps decided to add this expense to an activity that was already dependent upon an enormous amount of charitable donations to keep it going.  How do you justify adding ANY non-essential expense when you are so dependent on charity?

food doesnt get cheaper. remember when the membership was upped to 154 many of us pointed out that costs would go up and revenues would not increase enough to match it. thats food, travel, insurance, housing...and yes props to a point. but if you want to keep sitting here claiming props are the biggest budgetary issue hurting drum corps, you go ahead and live that lie.

 

the biggest drain on a budget is up to 6 weeks static in one or two locations ( usually a college), while you're piling on costs and yet you're not out at shows starting to work on earning that DCI share check. the ever lengthening spring training is the biggest addition of costs and doesnt do a thing to generate money to pay for itself.

[Jeff Ream]

14 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

What does Indy get now?  Last time I recall seeing a number was four years ago.

minus 2021, it's been in the 22-23k range paid.

[Jeff Ream]

12 hours ago, Continental said:

Didn't Montreal in 1981 have around 35k in attendance?

it did, but every non finalist member that went in had to buy a (price reduced) ticket. so that helped to add to the number to a degree, but yes Montreal holds the record. the only 2 numbers to really get close since then were Pasadena (imagine that...finals in Cali draws huge!) and Denver (imagine that...finals west of the Mississippi draws huge!)

[Jeff Ream]

11 hours ago, stevedci said:

The attendance patterns at DCI events across the country can be roughly grouped into audiences that need clearsil (Southeast and Texas), ethnically diverse and young audiences (west of rockies) and the Geritol crowd (east of Mississippi river and north of Ohio river).

The direct correlation between entrant/participants and audience size was a key factor in making the Thursday prelims essentially an all-comers event : more corps, more audience.

 

SE and Texas...heat and not travel destinations...look at attendance

West of the Rockies...finally giving people a reason to go there!

Indy..well  aint going anywhere so adapt

Madison...generally drew well

Boston did ok in 05, Buffalo did ok despite being Buffalo. 

 

and, well Miami

[LabMaster]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

food doesnt get cheaper. remember when the membership was upped to 154 many of us pointed out that costs would go up and revenues would not increase enough to match it. thats food, travel, insurance, housing...and yes props to a point. but if you want to keep sitting here claiming props are the biggest budgetary issue hurting drum corps, you go ahead and live that lie.

 

the biggest drain on a budget is up to 6 weeks static in one or two locations ( usually a college), while you're piling on costs and yet you're not out at shows starting to work on earning that DCI share check. the ever lengthening spring training is the biggest addition of costs and doesnt do a thing to generate money to pay for itself.

Maybe one thing learned from this year is, with the ability and quality of virtual instruction, ST time can be reduced.  Planning and managing well run ST, all facets of it, is key. 

[cixelsyd]

9 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

food doesnt get cheaper. remember when the membership was upped to 154 many of us pointed out that costs would go up and revenues would not increase enough to match it. thats food, travel, insurance, housing...and yes props to a point. but if you want to keep sitting here claiming props are the biggest budgetary issue hurting drum corps, you go ahead and live that lie.

Not saying props are the biggest budget item.  But I will not justify them on that basis either.  You think waste is okay as long as it does not exceed 25% of budget?

[stevedci]

17 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

it did, but every non finalist member that went in had to buy a (price reduced) ticket. so that helped to add to the number to a degree, but yes Montreal holds the record. the only 2 numbers to really get close since then were Pasadena (imagine that...finals in Cali draws huge!) and Denver (imagine that...finals west of the Mississippi draws huge!)

I'm guessing most stuff relating to audience demographics and actual paid attendance isn't really a matter of conjecture and opinion. Maybe these numbers might be a little illuminating --

1994	1995	1999	2001	2004	2005	2007
Boston	Buffalo	Madison	Buffalo	Denver	Boston	Pasadena
24,513	19,100	20,501	16,406	22,047	20,548	24,309

But the focus on championship finals night as the metric of success is maybe misplaced.... how many eyeballs are watching the overall event and how much value are generated by those eyeballs.... you might be able to make a pretty compelling case that close to 100,000 sets of value-generating eyeballs watch the 2019 DCI championships live -- all events, all media, all platforms.

I suspect that DCI knows, as opposed to thinks, how the demographics of the paid audience in allentown differs from rockford, from Nashville, from houston, from Atland, from Stanford.... 

[GUARDLING]

13 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Not saying props are the biggest budget item.  But I will not justify them on that basis either.  You think waste is okay as long as it does not exceed 25% of budget?

NM 🙂

Edited August 23, 2021 by GUARDLING

[Boss Anova]

On 8/15/2021 at 12:51 PM, Ediker said:

Any show fielded this year still bears the residual influence of decades of scoring. 

[Jeff Ream]

15 hours ago, LabMaster said:

Maybe one thing learned from this year is, with the ability and quality of virtual instruction, ST time can be reduced.  Planning and managing well run ST, all facets of it, is key. 

i would think so as well as in person camps. not only can it helps corps with costs, it can help members as well.