DO the current mm's in DCI worry about it's possible demise as much as veterans do?

[KVG_DC]

13 minutes ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

Very good point.  Somehow we (the Drum Corps community) need to find a way to keep recent age-outs engaged.  

I think it's also a "proximity to experience" thing.   As great as the rush of a season is done, when one is finally "done" there's a period of "well. that was hell. fun. but hell."  Which also involves a time of mourning that its over and figuring out what comes next.  Only after however many years that takes, is there the nostalgia that creates a lifelong fan.  

That's a default to establish around which some exceptions may occur.  Like the "I'll become instructional staff for a few weeks each summer and keep having seasons"  where one can't let go.

And the darker side of "that was hell and I'll never look at it again" that never becomes nostalgia but rather a trauma.  

[mjoakes]

The amount of money a lot of (not all, of course) college students spend on various activities - study abroad, recruiting trips, unpaid internships - not to mention social lives, is staggering.

There are still plenty in this age group who can afford DCI. 

[cixelsyd]

11 hours ago, olddrummer34 said:

Demand is price-sensitive. You don’t set prices based on a spreadsheet, you set them based on what people can and will pay. If you overshoot that line, you don’t “solve revenue,” you just shrink your customer base.

The activity is objectively harder to access than ever. Suggesting the fix is simply to charge even more is less a financial strategy and more a way to speed-run irrelevance.

Corps subsidize the experience through fundraising, sponsorships, bingo, grants, and donations. That’s not some flaw in the model. That is the model. It’s how literally every nonprofit arts and youth organization in the country survives.

If pricing alone could fix this, it already would have. The fact that it hasn’t is the entire point.

I refuse to accept that.

We have heard numerous times that comparable youth experiences charge double what drum corps does.  Now the news tells me that people are paying significantly more than drum corps fee levels just to send their kids to a device-detox camp.  No travel, no expert instruction in music or movement, no performing in front of cheering crowds - just the minimum necessary to interrupt a smartphone-social media habit.  Drum corps can do that too, and cheaper.

When I reviewed budgetary data from 50 years ago vs. today, I found that corps membership dues have not increased at the same pace as overall budgets.  To apply your logic, that suggests that the membership market has not been willing to pay for the improved member experience.  Is that your final answer?

[Terri Schehr]

22 minutes ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

Very good point.  Somehow we (the Drum Corps community) need to find a way to keep recent age-outs engaged.  

By the time they hit forty, they’re so disengaged that I don’t think that they could tell you who won this year. 

[Terri Schehr]

8 minutes ago, KVG_DC said:

And the darker side of "that was hell and I'll never look at it again" that never becomes nostalgia but rather a trauma.  

That is definitely the case for at least one alumnus I know. 

[cixelsyd]

Along these lines... the optimist says:

21 hours ago, craiga said:

corps at the top continue to have all time high numbers of auditionees

... while the pessimist says:

15 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

a $10k price tag will drive kids away

These could both be true.  But if so, is drum corps only sustaining itself by undercharging its membership?  Is modern drum corps popular on its merits, or is it just a Black Friday bargain right now?

[olddrummer34]

1 hour ago, Terri Schehr said:

That’s true. Most of them I know never attend a show after they marched their last show. 

This is just not true. There are TONS of alumni at shows. Come on Terri, don't fall into the negativity. 

[olddrummer34]

1 hour ago, OldSnareDrummer said:

I guess drum corps just doesn't get into people's blood like it used to. That's sad. 

DCI sells more tickets than ever before. There is more auditionees than ever before. Just stop with this "I guess it's just not as cool as  it was when I participated." 

[olddrummer34]

34 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

I refuse to accept that.

We have heard numerous times that comparable youth experiences charge double what drum corps does.  Now the news tells me that people are paying significantly more than drum corps fee levels just to send their kids to a device-detox camp.  No travel, no expert instruction in music or movement, no performing in front of cheering crowds - just the minimum necessary to interrupt a smartphone-social media habit.  Drum corps can do that too, and cheaper.

When I reviewed budgetary data from 50 years ago vs. today, I found that corps membership dues have not increased at the same pace as overall budgets.  To apply your logic, that suggests that the membership market has not been willing to pay for the improved member experience.  Is that your final answer?

You’re free to refuse it, but refusing a market reality doesn’t make it stop being one.

The device-detox camp comparison is clever rhetoric, but it’s not a meaningful financial analog. Those programs operate at fixed sites, with controlled staffing ratios, static food and housing contracts, no touring fuel costs, no convoy logistics, no rolling medical team, no equipment transport, no performance licensing, and no national-scale liability footprint. Comparing that to a 10–12 week, multi-state touring production model is like comparing a day spa to a traveling Broadway show and asking why the ticket prices don’t behave the same.

As for the historical data: yes, tuition has lagged behind total operating costs. That does not mean the market has rejected the value of the experience. It means the activity deliberately chose an access ceiling to avoid collapsing its participant base. There’s a difference between “what something costs to produce” and “what the consumer market can sustain.” Every nonprofit arts organization in the country lives in that tension.

Your conclusion assumes that if families truly valued the modern experience, they would simply pay whatever is required. That’s not economics, that’s a thought experiment with no income brackets attached. Price sensitivity isn’t philosophical. It’s measurable. And drum corps is already operating very close to the upper limit of what its demographic can bear.

So no, that’s not my “final answer.” The real answer is that drum corps is expensive and still price-capped by basic demand elasticity. You can acknowledge that reality and discuss diversified revenue like an adult nonprofit, or you can keep chasing a tuition-only solution that the last 20 years have already disproven.

[olddrummer34]

21 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

Along these lines... the optimist says:

... while the pessimist says:

These could both be true.  But if so, is drum corps only sustaining itself by undercharging its membership?  Is modern drum corps popular on its merits, or is it just a Black Friday bargain right now?

One of these is a proven fact, one of these is speculation.