Thursday, August 11th “DCI World Championship PRELIMS” Lucas Oil Stadium Indianapolis, INDIANA

[keystone3ply]

1 hour ago, Terri Schehr said:

I wonder who is volunteering now.  When Jim went out with the Cadets for a couple of years, most were middle aged like him.  They didn’t have kids in the corps, or marched there.  They just wanted to help the kids have a good experience. And in Jim’s case, he thought it was important to give back to the activity. He’s going to be 70 in December.  He looks great and is in good health but I’d worry about him driving at night for 16 days now.  

Might check into some military grade night vision goggles.  I'm sure they're not too expensive. 🤔

[skevinp]

2 hours ago, henry7184 said:

So yes I don't think BD has ever tried to be so cool

They absolutely have.  They even named one of their shows “Phenomenon of Cool”.  

But after that the train kind of derailed, they found themselves going backwards in time, cool got rubbed out and a victory was delivered to the concept of absurdity.

[Cappybara]

2 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

All good Terri.

I just see lots of folks here dismissing my exact actions as an audience member as disrespectful... just seems silly when we have no idea why people left. And it's none of our business. 

And I think snubbing audience members for the way they act is silly. Don't we need their money and butts in the seats? It's what I studied in grad school: how to welcome audiences to live performance. This isn't it.

There are definitely rude audience members. No doubt. But snubbing them, even if just afterwards on the internet, gets us nowhere.

Enabling that behavior does no good either 

[Ediker]

5 hours ago, MarimbaManiac said:

100% agree. Blue Devils have a formula that they've been using since the 2000s, and they repeat it every year and just layer new music and some conceptual material over it. It's frankly boring, but they are able to execute it very well because they aren't trying to reinvent the wheel or create new experiences. They just repeat themselves. 

On one hand it's great that they've figured out what the judges want to see, and are able to deliver it year after year. On the other hand it's exceedingly dull, and I wish the judges would reward some of the more innovative and inspired shows rather than focus so myopically on the execution of basically the same material year after year. 

Yes, they definitely nail the sheets, and are deservedly rewarded for it. Execution and variety of effects is BD’s strength. Everyone else is of course focusing on execution, but they could take a lesson from BD on building in more variety of effects. 

You nailed it that others attempt to reinvent the wheel and create new experiences. The others have more variety year-to-year, while BD has more variety within a given show, which is what the sheets reward, and that makes sense. 

[MidWAmericanArts]

3 hours ago, George Dixon said:

I'm more annoyed by smug BD fans than I've ever been about the scoring - BD are terrific - some of the fan base not so much.

That’s fair. From my biased view, I only can think of 2 smug BD fans. The other thing I’d say is some other fans attack BD so strong, that BD fans feel the need to put up a strong defense. I can’t really fault that.

[ftwdrummer]

4 minutes ago, MidWAmericanArts said:

That’s fair. From my biased view, I only can think of 2 smug BD fans. The other thing I’d say is some other fans attack BD so strong, that BD fans feel the need to put up a strong defense. I can’t really fault that.

I mean, one might argue that the two fists worth of rings is a strong defense.

[Ediker]

6 hours ago, jmc5682 said:

LOL, I guess you must be blind and deaf.

I’m not blind or deaf, yet, and was not criticizing BD’s look or sound, which is perfectly magnificent. 

[MadScout80]

3 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

the right corps won. is it my favorite show of the year? No. but they're #### god and i enjoy them

My thoughts exactly 

[MarimbaManiac]

22 minutes ago, Ediker said:

 The others have more variety year-to-year, while BD has more variety within a given show...

Yeah, I was with you until this section. 

They don't have more variety. They just check the effect moment boxes, and then design around those. It's obviously a valid strategy given the way the judges are interpreting the sheets, but when it's the same basic structure used since 2007, it gets old real quick. 

BD executes very well, and they check the boxes for the judges, but it's not compelling for any other reason than it's being performed well. At least half of the BD wins in the last 20 years probably could/should have gone to a more engaging show, but that's not the way the judges choose to interpret the sheets.

This is why there is such a divergence between what the fans appreciate, and what the judges appreciate. It's not because of jealousy, just a different value system and hierarchy of design/engagement vs. execution. 

[ftwdrummer]

10 minutes ago, MarimbaManiac said:

Yeah, I was with you until this section. 

They don't have more variety. They just check the effect moment boxes, and then design around those. It's obviously a valid strategy given the way the judges are interpreting the sheets, but when it's the same basic structure used since 2007, it gets old real quick. 

BD executes very well, and they check the boxes for the judges, but it's not compelling for any other reason than it's being performed well. At least half of the BD wins in the last 20 years probably could/should have gone to a more engaging show, but that's not the way the judges choose to interpret the sheets.

This is why there is such a divergence between what the fans appreciate, and what the judges appreciate. It's not because of jealousy, just a different value system and hierarchy of design/engagement vs. execution. 

Or the judges and fans have different definitions of "engagement."