Santa Clara Vanguard 2023 Announcement Thread

[scheherazadesghost]

3 hours ago, Mello Dude said:

What I find ironic is that people think this is a zero sum game.  You know you CAN get additional sources of revenue AND cut your costs.  These aren't mutually exclusive.  Brining the costs down per member needs to be a mission and a goal.  You want to grow the activity you need to make it more available to talent that can't afford it.

[Dansize]

I am saddened by the announcement. SCV was the first corps I really discovered when I saw the PBS broadcast version of finals in the 1987 season.  it made me a fan through today, which in turn helped make my kids fans as well. I hope for the best, but am also too pessimistic for my own tastes at this stage.

 

I am REALLY curious about the silence from across the bay though.  Within hours/days of the SCV announcement, many other corps made statements via their social media feeds concerning their feelings on the announcement and offers to help where they could. Those are the things we have come to expect and appreciate in the activity.  But I have not seen anything from the BD camp and can't help but be concerned for that silence.

 

Because remember, BD and SCV were joined at the hip for past (big) announcements.  When their open class corps chose to forego any season outside of CA in 2019, they announced it virtually together (same day).  When the world class groups chose to skip the non-competitive season in 2021, same thing. Generally the same explanation for both of them.  I have friends that speculated that when SCV announced that the Vanguard Cadets were shutting down for the current season that the only reason BD didn't do the same with BDB was due to the profound online reaction to the SCV announcement at the time, and they chose instead to do the "stay-close-to-home" plan for BDB.

 

In no way would I expect that the blue team has the issues that SVC ran in to that caused this announcement. But a lot of us did not see this one coming either.  It's just a weird silence given their history of doing many things together in the past and the mutual respect they seem to have fostered over the last several years.

[scheherazadesghost]

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Edited June 13, 2023 by scheherazadesghost

[George Dixon]

1 hour ago, Dansize said:

I am saddened by the announcement. SCV was the first corps I really discovered when I saw the PBS broadcast version of finals in the 1987 season.  it made me a fan through today, which in turn helped make my kids fans as well. I hope for the best, but am also too pessimistic for my own tastes at this stage.

 

I am REALLY curious about the silence from across the bay though.  Within hours/days of the SCV announcement, many other corps made statements via their social media feeds concerning their feelings on the announcement and offers to help where they could. Those are the things we have come to expect and appreciate in the activity.  But I have not seen anything from the BD camp and can't help but be concerned for that silence.

 

Because remember, BD and SCV were joined at the hip for past (big) announcements.  When their open class corps chose to forego any season outside of CA in 2019, they announced it virtually together (same day).  When the world class groups chose to skip the non-competitive season in 2021, same thing. Generally the same explanation for both of them.  I have friends that speculated that when SCV announced that the Vanguard Cadets were shutting down for the current season that the only reason BD didn't do the same with BDB was due to the profound online reaction to the SCV announcement at the time, and they chose instead to do the "stay-close-to-home" plan for BDB.

 

In no way would I expect that the blue team has the issues that SVC ran in to that caused this announcement. But a lot of us did not see this one coming either.  It's just a weird silence given their history of doing many things together in the past and the mutual respect they seem to have fostered over the last several years.

Probably figuring out how to best benefit from the trouble, ala USB for pennies on the dollar. 

[TOC]

7 hours ago, mingusmonk said:

A Reddit user was kind enough to compile all recent corps 990 filings into a single spreadsheet. 

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ja39zeGtJSWFTu3rejDFLo0aSydUs-t0oioukYk8U34/edit#gid=0

 

Was it simply Covid loss of bingo? For 2020, SCV's Net Income $ (1,156,499) was almost 3 times the magnitude of the next net-negative organization, BDPA  $ (441,627). They aren't the only corps that relies on bingo revenue. Bluecoats own and operate their own bingo hall. Their 2020 net income was positive  $ 10,909.  

Wonder how bad 21&22 figures are.

[Jeff Ream]

6 hours ago, Cainan said:

I believe the the technical term I am looking for here is....

"CODSWOLLOP" or alternatively, "you are full of crap"

Those posts do NOT exist on our Facebook group nor have they. Perhaps you are mixing us up with the 2,00,000 DCP immitator pages on Facebook (excluding our good friends over at the Coffee Shop of course... they're chill). I am an admin of the Facebook group and I can assure you that #### would have been dealt with swiftly and harshly had that occured. I even went through the moderation logs just to make sure I wasn't wrong. 

Now to be fair, I have seen posts of that ilk, but that was NOT in our group.

agree as a moderator on the DCP page. there's been misconceptions galore, but not like described

[27Socal]

11 hours ago, Brian Tuma said:

Off topic but what’s up with those numbers from Golden Empire in Open Class?

They are part of Bakersfield (community) College.   Perhaps those numbers are for the entire college music dept. or the entire college?  Unlikely they are spending that kind of money or have those kind of assets, with most of those years having about 10 local CA shows.

[Brian Tuma]

25 minutes ago, 27Socal said:

They are part of Bakersfield (community) College.   Perhaps those numbers are for the entire college music dept. or the entire college?  Unlikely they are spending that kind of money or have those kind of assets, with most of those years having about 10 local CA shows.

Thanks, that explains those numbers

[MarimbaManiac]

20 hours ago, Mello Dude said:

The term of proper technique is a fallacy especially in the world of music.  Technique varies from corps to corps.  From orchestra to wind ensemble and country to country.  The basics are always there but an overall "proper technique"...sorry....not seeing it.

That's really just...not accurate. 

Superficial flourishes aside, mallet technique in drum corps has homogenized to become just a showier version of orchestral technique, which is pretty true across the board. Quality of sound is paramount, and an overall lighter touch than legacy pit technique. Any differences you're seeing is just how the corps would visually like to present themselves, but the approach to the instrument is the same. 

(Source: Former member, front ensemble caption head, current professional musician with degrees in percussion performance and a PhD in music with an emphasis in music technology performance practice)

Why do you have 5 marimbas (4-5 is the standard, 6 is an anomaly)? Same reason we have 9 snares, or 40 colorguard, because multiple people doing things in unison is more impressive and part of the pageantry. Also like others said, those 4-5 marimbas are doing different things (different marimba parts/harmonizations, hand cymbals, gong/bass, hand percussion, etc.). 

Also (without knowing everyone's individual situation), I can confidently state that ALL top 12 corps, most semi finalist corps, and even the top open class corps, have similar contracts with the drum companies. They play on instruments for a season, and then resell them for basically what they paid for them. It's basically a push financially.

As for space, an entire pit, all horns, battery, drums, and colorguard equipment (without props) can usually fit on a single semi. It's the props, food service, and stadium tour style staff busses that carry only a handful of people, that are contributing to the additional fleet footprint. 

(

Edited December 16, 2022 by MarimbaManiac

[michsta8]

Won’t be the last. Sad. As others have mentioned, the arms race started years ago and set this in motion.  I highly suspect that the end is near for the activity.