Are busses becoming a major issue?

[wolfgang]

In terms of a percentage of budget, where does the bus rental and paying the drivers for a 5-6 week tour fall?

Have corps had issues getting bus drivers, even if the busses are ready for them?

[craiga]

The bus drivers come with the buses from the company.  The corps do have to hire the drivers for the trucks. 

[Sh0uldN0t]

Bus costs are rising and consuming ever-greater shares of the summer budget. One of the reasons why is a declining number of bus drivers available. A couple of corps recently have found themselves in a bus bind (or bus driver bind), costing tens of thousands of dollars they weren't expecting to spend that summer. 

Since Covid in particular, there have been fewer bus drivers available. That means more options to choose from for the drivers. Why choose the drum corps tour? The high schools. The food truck. The overnight hauls. Plenty of other contracts provide for hotel beds, restaurant meals and less onerous hours. Plenty of bus companies serving corps have seen their drivers evaporate on them with little notice. Those have little recourse especially in the short term. 

So yes, bus costs have been creeping higher in almost all cases in part because bus companies have to pay their drivers more. In the worst cases, some corps have had to cover large increases for one summer tour.

 

[Jeff Ream]

that and housing yes

[IllianaLancerContra]

I have a bad feeling that at least one Corps isn’t going to get as far as Indy. 

[Slingerland]

Bus costs with drivers come in around $240-250k for a season now, go to $320-330k if a corps is leasing the tractors too. No question that drivers for the busses are getting harder to source, since the accommodations suck except for the one or two nights a week they get a hotel vs a school. 
 

All of the external elements that make the summer tour model are under pressure, and it'll be housing plus transportation costs that eventually make everyone stop and wonder if national touring makes any sense any more. And if the big corps aren't on the road for 6 weeks, what's the rationale for the most motivated kids to keep playing the game?

 

[dcifanforlife]

The issue is finding drivers that are willing to stay with corps, in room on air mattress,  shower in school,  and eat meals  etc. with corps.  Bus companies pay a big per diem per day to each driver but to many that saving is not worth the trouble.  Once bus companies require hotel rooms for drivers it gets expensive fast.

[Quad Aces]

1 hour ago, Slingerland said:

Bus costs with drivers come in around $240-250k for a season now, go to $320-330k if a corps is leasing the tractors too. No question that drivers for the busses are getting harder to source, since the accommodations suck except for the one or two nights a week they get a hotel vs a school. 
 

All of the external elements that make the summer tour model are under pressure, and it'll be housing plus transportation costs that eventually make everyone stop and wonder if national touring makes any sense any more. And if the big corps aren't on the road for 6 weeks, what's the rationale for the most motivated kids to keep playing the game?

 

Why don’t corps just pay the additional money for hotel rooms for the bus drivers, especially if that is a pain point?

Doing a very quick and rough estimate, if a corps uses say five drivers per day of the tour, and five hotel rooms per day at $150 each are needed, that’s $750 per day for hotel rooms.  In a six week tour (five week for some), that’s $750 x 7 x 6 =$31,500 total for hotel rooms for the tour, or only about 13% of the cost of renting the busses/tractors.  And in comparison to an entire budget, that’s a drop in the bucket.

Why wouldn’t a corps want to make sure that their only means from getting the corps from one place to another safely are being taken care of?

People say all the time that props are not a big expense in a corps’ budget - it seems as though bus driver hotel rooms aren’t either (and also way more important to a successful season than props ever could be).

Edited Saturday at 06:12 PM by Quad Aces

[LabMaster]

3 hours ago, dcifanforlife said:

The issue is finding drivers that are willing to stay with corps, in room on air mattress,  shower in school,  and eat meals  etc. with corps.  Bus companies pay a big per diem per day to each driver but to many that saving is not worth the trouble.  Once bus companies require hotel rooms for drivers it gets expensive fast.

Bus drivers, if hired from outside the corps community (independent drivers) can’t stay with the corps unless they have taken training like all volunteers are required to. Safesport I think it is.  They also have rest requirements like the semi drivers do.  Bus drivers stay in hotels. 

[LabMaster]

3 hours ago, Slingerland said:

Bus costs with drivers come in around $240-250k for a season now, go to $320-330k if a corps is leasing the tractors too. No question that drivers for the busses are getting harder to source, since the accommodations suck except for the one or two nights a week they get a hotel vs a school. 
 

All of the external elements that make the summer tour model are under pressure, and it'll be housing plus transportation costs that eventually make everyone stop and wonder if national touring makes any sense any more. And if the big corps aren't on the road for 6 weeks, what's the rationale for the most motivated kids to keep playing the game?

 

Bus drivers aren’t staying in the schools.