Cadets Suspend for 2024

[ContraFart]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

don't mention a 10 score if someone falls.

Joking about it doesn't make it right 😛

[IllianaLancerContra]

12 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

I’m sad tonight. Maybe delayed grief.

The show that changed EVERYTHING for me and I believe, the activity. I still remember that tenor break in Concerto in F like I had first heard it yesterday. I first saw this show in Madison, Wisconsin at Drums On and I was in love. I never thought much about Garfield before then.  They certainly got my attention that night. Groundbreaking is a term overused in drum corps. This was legitimately groundbreaking.

if posting this is not permitted, I apologize. 

 

I saw them at Whitewater & was blown away as well.  I actually like 82 more than 83. 

[IllianaLancerContra]

4 minutes ago, ContraFart said:

Yes there are other costs. But my entire point is that if the 30k or so to add the props and additional vehicle are the difference between going on tour and folding, then maybe you shouldn't be going on tour. It's not the props and electronics that are making corps fold.

It all adds up.  If we want to bring costs down then everything needs to be looked at.  
 

Here is another suggestion- as pit is amplified, cut back on size so there is only one player/part.  So only need 1-2 marimbas, not 5-6.  And so on.  Saves space on truck, and maybe then you need one less truck, which brings costs down. 

[Terri Schehr]

12 minutes ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

I saw them at Whitewater & was blown away as well.  I actually like 82 more than 83. 

I don’t remember ever reacting to a show the way I did that one.  It made everyone else at the show look kind of old timey.  To me anyway.

I hope they return in 2025. 🤞

[cixelsyd]

22 hours ago, ContraFart said:

Everything has a cost. Are you saying that the corps have no agency to know that an extra truck is going to add x amount to tour costs? 

Sure, they know.  But not sure they care.

In fact, I will go farther and assert that DCI decision making has been biased against proper accounting for cost impacts for all its 50 years.  That is because in DCI, the costly decisions have always been made by the elite subset of corps who can afford them.  Anyone can look at the track record of drum corps over those 50 years and see the hundreds of corps who have dropped out, often citing costs in their post-mortems.  Even today, if information on this forum is correct, corps like SCV and Cadets who sit out a year will lose their voice and vote for a year... and only the corps who can afford perennial extravagance will decide each January what the future will bring.

If it seems I focus on cost more than revenue/fundraising, it is due to the apparent need for someone to speak to that side of the equation.

[HockeyDad]

When somebody does the case study on why drum corps fell apart they can use this thread as input. Tons of handwringing. All ideas to cut costs dismissed out of hand. They just won’t work. Or - that’s not the cause. Nothing is the cause of excessive expense. Not the tour model, not the staff size, not new uniforms every year (they actually make money!), not the gigantic pit, not amps, not props, nothing!!   Nope you can’t take away ANYTHING they must continue to EVOLVE. Evolve right into insolvency. Apparently that’s the end state of drum corps evolution. Yup, we’ll always have our downloads and CDs.  And this one - I hear there’s another one coming soon. But I surely couldn’t say who (wink wink coy coy). Let the kids pour more time and effort into it first, Then we’ll let that other shoe drop. I love that approach. 
We can’t go to a regional model, there aren’t enough regional corps!  There aren’t enough regional contests!  Well, guess who killed the regional model. Big old DCI itself. Oh no they didn’t!  And on and on we go. 

Edited October 15, 2023 by HockeyDad

[dbc03]

15 hours ago, TenHut said:

I was promoting a very similar model 10 years ago which would eliminate corps membership from outside of the region they line in. The current model of mostly out of state membership isn't sustainable. Corps need to recruit members and staff close to home. Make it a community activity again.

I started in my "local" corps (still 3 hours away, but the closest to me) and honestly had a pretty miserable summer. Then I went to a corps 9 hours away and had a great time.

If you told me at the time that my options were pay thousands of dollars to be in a corps I didn't want to be in or stay home I'd stay home.

Even if I was willing to do it, 3 hours is too far to commute during the season, so I would still need exactly the same housing and food.

Unless you are hyper local, restricting who can be a member of which corps is completely pointless, and if you do restrict it to hyper local members you'll have corps with 20 members if you're extremely lucky and in a high population area.

There is no demand for community based drum corps, kids have other options and even high school bands (which have largely replaced local drum corps) are having trouble recruiting. 

[cixelsyd]

31 minutes ago, ContraFart said:

Yes there are other costs. But my entire point is that if the 30k or so to add the props and additional vehicle are the difference between going on tour and folding, then maybe you shouldn't be going on tour. 

This is precisely the cost-dismissive attitude that has driven hundreds of corps out of the activity, and led to the bind that the few remaining corps now face.  I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone affiliated with one of the "haves" advising a "have-not" to get out, rather than even allow their cost concern to be discussed.  Whether it was meant as literal "advice" or not, apparently more and more corps have done as suggested.

Now even a couple of the "haves" are taking that advice.

Quote

It's not the props and electronics that are making corps fold.

Sure.  It is the total cost, including non-essentials like those you keep naming, that are making corps fold.

[dbc03]

5 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:

When somebody does the case study on why drum corps fell apart they can use this thread as input. Tons of handwringing. All ideas to cut costs dismissed out of hand. They just won’t work. Or - that’s not the cause. Nothing is the cause of excessive expense. Not the tour, not the staff size, not new uniforms every year (they actually make money!), not the gigantic pit, not amps, not props, nothing!!   Nope you can’t take away ANYTHING they must continue to EVOLVE. Evolve right into insolvency. Apparently that’s the end state of drum corps evolution. Yup, we’ll always have our downloads and CDs. 

The issues are complex and a bunch of armchair drum corps directors that are convinced everything will be fine if we just do what worked 40 years when they marched aren't going to solve the problem. The "solutions" being offered have glaring problems that are obvious after a few minutes of critical thinking. I don't know what the solution is, if I did I'd be making a lot of money as a nonprofit consultant, but I can easily recognize problems with the solutions being offered

[cixelsyd]

6 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:

When somebody does the case study on why drum corps fell apart they can use this thread as input. Tons of handwringing. All ideas to cut costs dismissed out of hand. They just won’t work. Or - that’s not the cause. Nothing is the cause of excessive expense. Not the tour, not the staff size, not new uniforms every year (they actually make money!), not the gigantic pit, not amps, not props, nothing!!   Nope you can’t take away ANYTHING they must continue to EVOLVE. Evolve right into insolvency. Apparently that’s the end state of drum corps evolution. Yup, we’ll always have our downloads and CDs. 

This.  All of this.  Well, except the CD part.  DCI stopped making them because it was not worth the... cost.