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Saturday, August 13th 5:30 PM ET “DCI World Championship Finals” Lucas Oil Stadium Indianapolis, Indiana


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26 minutes ago, Matt_S said:

Just last year we had a DCI season without any scoring. Corps still designed and rehearsed shows, and performed them for appreciative fans, who in turn felt an emotional response. Competition is a motive in this activity, to be sure. But the flaw in your position is the premise that competition is the primary motive, or even a necessary one.

My favorite Bluecoats show is 2015, not the show next year when they won a championship.

Even though there are aspects of competition that I don’t like, I do believe that without scoring a lot of the interest around the activity would disappear. 

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23 hours ago, Phillygwm said:

Glad I'm not there.  What I can't understand is 1) They've hosted DCI before. They should know the routine by now; 2) They host the Colts, which get at least 3x the number of people.  

I know they're not staffed at NFL event levels and that's OK because you don't really need much backfield.  But the other side should be staffed normally.  There would be a riot if the lines were this long for football or a big concert.

I got a feeling they won't have these issues when Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett are here Tuesday night.

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1 hour ago, Tim K said:

I can usually see why Blue Devils win and this year is no exception. I did not find this year’s show as flawless as other years, but three of the four performances I saw were spot on, and the one that was not was against a corps that also did not have its best run. I think I watched them more carefully this year since Boston Crusaders were so good and I wanted at least one victory over BD by BAC. Actually I wanted a title for Boston Crusaders, but that’s another story.

Regarding kids wanting to win and joining Blue Devils, I’m not sure that Blue Devils is the destination corp it used to be. Over the years I’ve talked with BD marching members and parents, usually at the airport where. I am right Nile, and I hear more stories about nurturing talent and the reliance of the corps on vets. Maybe I am just talking with a small group and what I say may be anecdotal. Blue Devils could have a good number of one and done folks who just want to win, but it’s not the entire corps.

At the DCI West family BBQ this year, the staff mentioned that of the 160+ members, over a 100 of them were from California. I’d think that if BD were as much of a destination corps as much as people believe they are, they’d have a much higher number of out-of-staters. 

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2 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

Even though there are aspects of competition that I don’t like, I do believe that without scoring a lot of the interest around the activity would disappear. 

One of my great memories as a fan is being in the stands when Phantom won in 2008. That moment when Brandt announced Blue Devils in second was pure chaos. Fans were thrilled that Phantom won, proving that competition absolutely matters. But someone wins every year and we don't see a reaction like that. It also mattered that fans had an emotional connection to the art Phantom had created on the field.

Competition has been a part of this activity from the start. Certainly I watch scores each day during the season, to see who's up and who's down. But when the season is done, those placements only matter in determining which track I need to skip to on the CD when I want to listen to my favorite shows in the car. So yeah, I completely agree with your post. But I strongly push back on that silly gatekeeping idea that art cannot be created in setting where competition is present. 

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19 minutes ago, bstar82 said:

I got a feeling they won't have these issues when Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett are here Tuesday night.

Wait, are Bluecoats playing on Tuesday night?!

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19 hours ago, lawdn said:

SCV show was sublime. Probably my favorite show this year, for brilliantly complementing music and visual, including amazing horn marcher choreo, significance of meaning, and refined use of a limited color palate. Gorgeous and powerful. 

(An unabashed SCV fan here). As several have mentioned, "Corps Identity" is an important attribute for many fans when it comes to judging a performance. I think that SCV probably ended up where they should have,  but I also believe they don't get enough credit in the Forum for doing what they do best, which the above quote from lawdn expresses perfectly.

It must be a nightmare for designers to figure out how to please the crowd, the judges, and perhaps just as important, the corps members. For some corps, at least, a large factor in show design must be establishing an identity, then sticking with it.  For SCV, it seems to me that they've achieved a certain ethereal quality in their music and movements over the last 5 or 6 years, although not always successfully. You wait every year to see if BLOO can get your jaw to drop. You wait to see if SCV can bring tears to your eyes.

I invite views from some of the experienced DCI veterans out there as to how designers go about figuring out their objectives for the next season.  

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1 hour ago, Rylan said:

At the DCI West family BBQ this year, the staff mentioned that of the 160+ members, over a 100 of them were from California. I’d think that if BD were as much of a destination corps as much as people believe they are, they’d have a much higher number of out-of-staters. 

I mean California is massive - size and population - so 100 from a massive state and 60 from all the top programs in the USA

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Just now, George Dixon said:

I mean California is massive - size and population - so 100 from a massive state and 60 from all the top programs in the USA

If this many young people in BD were actually from California then the rest of the corps on the DCI circuit definitely has a uphill to compete with BD now and in the future.

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2 hours ago, Orwellian Wiress said:

I love when drum corps do little things like that for their fans. Good thing I wasn't there, I would probably have bowled over a few people to catch it😂

My favorite DM of all time was Dan VerHeusen from Madison, around 1980. Before each show he would pull out a Kodak Instamatic camera with a cube flash bulb and take a picture of the crowd. Dan was a great showman.

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1 hour ago, Rylan said:

At the DCI West family BBQ this year, the staff mentioned that of the 160+ members, over a 100 of them were from California. I’d think that if BD were as much of a destination corps as much as people believe they are, they’d have a much higher number of out-of-staters. 

Depends on how that compares with other corps.

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