Recent age-out has spot-on takes

[Jeff Ream]

19 hours ago, OldCorpsGuy said:

Well some folks do so…. Oh that’s right well just call them names and exclude them from the activity. That sounds like a great plan. 🤦‍♂️🙄

but it wasn't drawing money. alumni only shows aren't making money. 

[Jeff Ream]

18 hours ago, OldCorpsGuy said:

And the name thing I didn’t mean you, but in various places when trying to have this discussion if you do not agree this version of DCI is the greatest thing ever, you will be verbally assaulted. 

and every era has been "DCI is the greatest thing ever". if it wasn't, you wouldn't see alumni of all eras complaining about any era or many eras that came after them. even kids that aged out 5 years ago mock some of what is happening now. 

[Jeff Ream]

35 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

Yes they have.  There was no such thing as "alumni corps" until a sufficiently beloved form of drum corps was taken away by sufficiently rapid change.  We also had competing corps who took traditional tacks... until DCI scoring, judging and "artistic direction" made it abundantly clear that such an approach would be incompatible with competitive success.

You are partly correct about changes typically not going back.  But that is partly because "going back" is not a compelling case for change.  Change is supposed to move you forward.  If people are convinced that a change moved us backward and that repealing it would move us forward, then it could happen.

yes but alumni corps are dying off. the members that wanted to do those 60's-70's era shows are literally dying off or not performing anymore. the 80's and beyond crowd are ok doing the one offs we see at DCI every year. the alumni show DCA ran lost money more often than not. the spring standstill faded away as it became alumni dominated. 

 

i love older stuff and supported the alumni movement and participated in it. and because we did 80's and 90's stuff, we were a rarity. few corps still active have an alumni corps and have a base of members to draw from...Boston, Bucs and Cabs being the only ones that do stuff frequently. Sure cost is a factor, but the later generations didn't show interest. in fact, i know of one place where younger members asked about doing more recent music and were told "we arent doing that ####". they walked away, never to return.

[cixelsyd]

2 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

yes but

This is the only part of your post I object to... because nothing in the post you quoted conflicts with the following.

Quote

alumni corps are dying off. the members that wanted to do those 60's-70's era shows are literally dying off or not performing anymore. the 80's and beyond crowd are ok doing the one offs we see at DCI every year. the alumni show DCA ran lost money more often than not. the spring standstill faded away as it became alumni dominated.

All I said was that alumni corps did pop up at some point... not that they were everlasting organizations. 

The number of such corps, their respective sizes, the amount of effort they put in, and their choices of styles have been, and continue to be, a reflection of how beloved those styles were and how much of those styles have been deleted from the competitive environment by rapid changes.

Trying to compare alumni corps to the competitive activity is apples/oranges.  Alumni corps are non-competitive, and competition is the #1 drawing component of this activity.  Many alumni corps performances are standstill, while competitive performances include both music and motion.  Alumni and reunion corps can be entertaining, but they do not match either the time commitment or the quality level that their competitive selves achieved.

Edited May 6 by cixelsyd

[wolfgang]

Regarding the generational thing, imo today's kids and marchers of each past decade would have issues marching each other's shows, based on training.

Meaning, marchers of bygone eras would have to adapt to a more choreographed movement style, and arranging style if given a 2020s product.

Today's marchers would have to adapt to more drill with fewer stops, and associated challenge of being in the form on the move for a much higher % of the program, plus getting used to the extra weight of the heavier G horns.

Kids from different eras could adapt to different performance styles. Drum corps of any era adjust on the fly, but there are aspects of corps of any era that would take getting used to.

A modern Bluecoats show has challenges to do right, but '75 Scouts, '87 Cadets or '02 Cavies also were not easy to pull off at the level those corps achieved.

Edited May 6 by wolfgang

[Jeff Ream]

3 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

This is the only part of your post I object to... because nothing in the post you quoted conflicts with the following.

All I said was that alumni corps did pop up at some point... not that they were everlasting organizations. 

The number of such corps, their respective sizes, the amount of effort they put in, and their choices of styles have been, and continue to be, a reflection of how beloved those styles were and how much of those styles have been deleted from the competitive environment by rapid changes.

Trying to compare alumni corps to the competitive activity is apples/oranges.  Alumni corps are non-competitive, and competition is the #1 drawing component of this activity.  Many alumni corps performances are standstill, while competitive performances include both music and motion.  Alumni and reunion corps can be entertaining, but they do not match either the time commitment or the quality level that their competitive selves achieved.

i posted as i did because of the fact that yes generations did love them. newer generations don't. so as to the constant "its changed stuff"...well...what doesn't change?

[waliman4444]

23 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

i posted as i did because of the fact that yes generations did love them. newer generations don't. so as to the constant "its changed stuff"...well...what doesn't change?

I am so tempted to BLUECOATS this but I won't..lol..peace

[Jeff Ream]

18 hours ago, waliman4444 said:

I am so tempted to BLUECOATS this but I won't..lol..peace

Blue was a one off. just as several other one offs we have seen at DCI over the last 16 years. 

[Slingerland]

On 5/6/2026 at 9:36 AM, Jeff Ream said:

but it wasn't drawing money. alumni only shows aren't making money. 

Yup. The most interested fans of the activity are those who are in the age range of participation - high school and college age kids. They don't want to see grandpa's drum corps (and if they, there's plenty of video from the 70s and 80s out there).

That said, it feels like we're possibly at a tipping point where a corps that wanted to go more traditional in terms of look and programming could have success, as long as judges would be ok with hornlines and drumlines marching rather than 'writhing." Eventually everything cycles thru, and we might be at the end of the props/staging cycle, since they're not really progressing in any meaningful way.

[Lance]

23 hours ago, wolfgang said:

Regarding the generational thing, imo today's kids and marchers of each past decade would have issues marching each other's shows, based on training.

 

Yeah, I feel the same.  Different eras have different sets of skills both to instruct and to execute.  I don't think in terms of 1 being better or harder than any other.  Zero nuance to thinking that way, and it's certainly the wrong approach when trying to get the current generation to generate interest in what came before.