craiga Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 33 minutes ago, IllianaLancerContra said: 27, North Star, ?,? Brain isn’t working for last 2 Defenders of Plymouth County and Alliance of Great Boston, who had George Zingali as their visual designer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craiga Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 23 minutes ago, TOC said: It's been posted here before that in just the Concert in The Park alone, they bring in over $500K. TOC, I believe that figure is up over $800,000 over the past several years, including the 2021 season, when many corps took a time out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 6 minutes ago, craiga said: Defenders of Plymouth County and Alliance of Great Boston, who had George Zingali as their visual designer. Was Alliance connected with Crusaders or do I have that confused with a corps just called “Boston”. Tried to connect the dots with History of corps merging or being renamed and confusing: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllianaLancerContra Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 11 minutes ago, craiga said: Defenders of Plymouth County and Alliance of Great Boston, who had George Zingali as their visual designer. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KVG_DC Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 (edited) I don't have any viable answers to how to curb the arms race in DCI. Professional sports has tried with things like salary caps and revenue sharing. Something might be instituted whereby, If you want to spend beyond X then Y% of that amount is put into a fund that is evenly distributed among corps spending below Z. I'm sure such a system could be gamed though. And implementation would be impossible under the current DCI structure as it is a membership org, not an oversight org as previously mentioned. Thus the motivations of corps are entirely self contained. There's lip service concern about "the state of the activity" of course, which impacts all corps in the end. But no mechanism to even motivate them to bolster struggling corps. Nor accountability to make struggling corps attractive to invest in for that matter. It would take a culture shift whereby the Blue Devils, Bluecoats, and BAC's of the activity were actively interested and financially invested in making sure the Troopers, Madison Scouts, and Music City's of the activity had the resources to maintain and grow. The good will between corps is there, but there's no incentive or requirement or reason right now structurally for any such thing to happen. The Blue Devils had an agreement with Pacific Crest for mutual tryouts at one point but I'm not sure it went beyond that. And in the current structures, cadet corps are either seen as feeders (or not) to their A corps. And where seen as separate entities, they've not been treated well (SCVC apparently). And past examples of one org running two corps was not handled in good will either (YEA having Cadets and Crossmen.) So we end up with something more like European Club Soccer whereby the stratification of the rich from the poor squads leaves little opportunity for any sort of parity or equity between clubs. But the sheer number of soccer clubs across all leagues means that soccer as a business activity on the whole is not threatened by such an arms race. Drum Corps has neither those numbers (any longer) or the deep financial pockets and monetization opportunities that pro sports has. So the once large numbers and multiple circuits, for many reasons, devolved. So the arms race mentality has a much more destructive effect. Perhaps one step toward cross corps connection would be shared instructional staff. Whereby say Blue Devils and Pacific Crest do joint auditions, but also tour together for a bulk of the season. Instructional staff are shared between the two corps with the richer corps carrying more of the salary (and probably thus getting a commensurate amount of the hours from them) but raising the quality and experience of instruction for the lower corps making them more attractive to MMs. It'd be a perhaps more affordable way for the 'have nots' to invest and have the sort of access to the instructional staff that the 'haves' do without having to stick their neck out to compete with salaries to draw them in that might overextend their finances? I dunno if that'd work or not. It's an idea to throw on the wall maybe. In the meantime, it. does make me a bit nervous that Phantom (whom I've loved and seen as 'my favorite' since a teen in the 80s') is going with what seems to be a "we've hired the staff, now we'll diversify the financial support" approach as ... what if the diversification of financial support doesn't fly? Do they suddenly devolve as they can't keep the staff? Or do they seek to extend on credit and debt to keep the competitive momentum going? And risk falling off a cliff suddenly as SCV seems to have reached? By all accounts, BAC diversified their finances first, then invested in marcher experience, and then went grabbing the big name staff and designers. That seems a more stable foundation for making the competitive climb than going "hires first" to attract members and hope your board can come through with the promised diversification of financial support. It could work out fine for Phantom (and I hope it does!) but it seems more the kind of risk move the 'arms race' mentality encourages. Which goes back to my counterpoint earlier...how many corps take what risks? How many will lose on their risks trying to keep up and fall off the cliff? How many corps CAN diversify their revenue in a BAC style manner before the 'usual donors and granting bodies' are all tapped? Is there a way to keep corps from taking undue risks in the arms race? Or does the activity simply sit back and say, "Well, that's on them" until we have 5 or 6 corps left giving the same show at select locations for a few months each summer and it becomes more like a 'traveling music festival' than a competitive activity? Edited January 2, 2023 by KVG_DC 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craiga Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 1 hour ago, JimF-LowBari said: Was Alliance connected with Crusaders or do I have that confused with a corps just called “Boston”. Tried to connect the dots with History of corps merging or being renamed and confusing: No, Alliance of Greater Boston was an iteration of the Spectra-Heightsman, from Weymouth and I think Arlington. No ties to BAC. "Boston" was in fact the Boston Crusaders from 83-85. To the SCV folks here....sorry for the thread hijack. It was unintended. Just answering a question. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scheherazadesghost Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 (edited) . Edited June 12, 2023 by scheherazadesghost 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ContraFart Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 3 hours ago, KVG_DC said: I don't have any viable answers to how to curb the arms race in DCI. Professional sports has tried with things like salary caps and revenue sharing. Something might be instituted whereby, If you want to spend beyond X then Y% of that amount is put into a fund that is evenly distributed among corps spending below Z. I'm sure such a system could be gamed though. And implementation would be impossible under the current DCI structure as it is a membership org, not an oversight org as previously mentioned. Thus the motivations of corps are entirely self contained. There's lip service concern about "the state of the activity" of course, which impacts all corps in the end. But no mechanism to even motivate them to bolster struggling corps. Nor accountability to make struggling corps attractive to invest in for that matter. It would take a culture shift whereby the Blue Devils, Bluecoats, and BAC's of the activity were actively interested and financially invested in making sure the Troopers, Madison Scouts, and Music City's of the activity had the resources to maintain and grow. The good will between corps is there, but there's no incentive or requirement or reason right now structurally for any such thing to happen. The Blue Devils had an agreement with Pacific Crest for mutual tryouts at one point but I'm not sure it went beyond that. And in the current structures, cadet corps are either seen as feeders (or not) to their A corps. And where seen as separate entities, they've not been treated well (SCVC apparently). And past examples of one org running two corps was not handled in good will either (YEA having Cadets and Crossmen.) So we end up with something more like European Club Soccer whereby the stratification of the rich from the poor squads leaves little opportunity for any sort of parity or equity between clubs. But the sheer number of soccer clubs across all leagues means that soccer as a business activity on the whole is not threatened by such an arms race. Drum Corps has neither those numbers (any longer) or the deep financial pockets and monetization opportunities that pro sports has. So the once large numbers and multiple circuits, for many reasons, devolved. So the arms race mentality has a much more destructive effect. Perhaps one step toward cross corps connection would be shared instructional staff. Whereby say Blue Devils and Pacific Crest do joint auditions, but also tour together for a bulk of the season. Instructional staff are shared between the two corps with the richer corps carrying more of the salary (and probably thus getting a commensurate amount of the hours from them) but raising the quality and experience of instruction for the lower corps making them more attractive to MMs. It'd be a perhaps more affordable way for the 'have nots' to invest and have the sort of access to the instructional staff that the 'haves' do without having to stick their neck out to compete with salaries to draw them in that might overextend their finances? I dunno if that'd work or not. It's an idea to throw on the wall maybe. In the meantime, it. does make me a bit nervous that Phantom (whom I've loved and seen as 'my favorite' since a teen in the 80s') is going with what seems to be a "we've hired the staff, now we'll diversify the financial support" approach as ... what if the diversification of financial support doesn't fly? Do they suddenly devolve as they can't keep the staff? Or do they seek to extend on credit and debt to keep the competitive momentum going? And risk falling off a cliff suddenly as SCV seems to have reached? By all accounts, BAC diversified their finances first, then invested in marcher experience, and then went grabbing the big name staff and designers. That seems a more stable foundation for making the competitive climb than going "hires first" to attract members and hope your board can come through with the promised diversification of financial support. It could work out fine for Phantom (and I hope it does!) but it seems more the kind of risk move the 'arms race' mentality encourages. Which goes back to my counterpoint earlier...how many corps take what risks? How many will lose on their risks trying to keep up and fall off the cliff? How many corps CAN diversify their revenue in a BAC style manner before the 'usual donors and granting bodies' are all tapped? Is there a way to keep corps from taking undue risks in the arms race? Or does the activity simply sit back and say, "Well, that's on them" until we have 5 or 6 corps left giving the same show at select locations for a few months each summer and it becomes more like a 'traveling music festival' than a competitive activity? I don't think its an arms race as the bulk of the costs have to do with the touring model, and not so much the production costs. Yes the greatest variance in production costs have to do with top named staff, but I am not sure that is at the top of the cost issues. You are correct that the monetization opportunities are nowhere near where they are in professional sports, but DCI is not a professional sport, its a high end summer arts activity. (Or at least has evolved to be that) What can DCI do? I am not sure. If DCI corps had listened to Bill Cook 30 years ago. we might be having a different conversation today. But I think SCV has made other corps directors think of how to get their financial house in order. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 2 hours ago, craiga said: No, Alliance of Greater Boston was an iteration of the Spectra-Heightsman, from Weymouth and I think Arlington. No ties to BAC. "Boston" was in fact the Boston Crusaders from 83-85. To the SCV folks here....sorry for the thread hijack. It was unintended. Just answering a question. Well I’ll be in thread hijack jail with you. 😆 Now I’ll have to go back to my notes with this info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllianaLancerContra Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 2 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said: No harm no foul, IMHO. I think this was all relevant. I'm very interested in learning from the BAC about they turned their ship around to where it is now. Reached out, but never heard back. 😕 Besides, not much for us to discuss until after the Alumni Q&A with VMAPA later this month. Happy to extend the invite from our Alum Association prez Erik Brown to any other alum interested in attending. There's also a Slidio link where we're banking and voting on specific questions in case you are unable to attend. Very interesting to see other alumni thoughts rn. To other alum: I didn't get this invite directly, had to go hunting after I saw it mentioned on other social media. Fortunately I marched with Erik and found his contact info easily. Just in case there are others that didn't get the word... 💚🩹❤️ Well maybe next year.... For those of us who are interested but not SCV alumni, can you report what was discussed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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