DCI Membership Question

[crest99]

Can some intrepid soul explain to me the changes to membership requirements for DCI, including specific or approx. dates? What the heck was associate membership, exactly? Why did they do away with it, and when did it become top 21?

Sorry for the bureaucratically inclined topic, but think of it as a chance to prove your true expertise. Afterall, everyone knows what 2-7 played in '81.

Thanks,

Chris

[Walter]

To Crest99

I'm not that up on too many things but I'll try.

Back when DCI was spreading it's wings, I guess they wanted to separate the

corps that were good from the corps that were the "Elite". To become an

"Associate" drum corps of DCI you had to place 13th-25th. Also back in the seventies, you only had one shot at making finals. In the prelims, two days

of ONE more time and that's all you get. If you had a bad show, too bad.

Now you have three days of quarter finals, semi finals and the finals.

It sounds like a money grab from DCI to me but I've been out of drum corps for so long, these ideas probably sound stupid to some people. What the heck it's my

opinion, that's all. But then I never tried to figure out the way DCI do things.

Edited March 22, 2004 by Old Dutch Boy Cadet

[nhsalan]

Let me give it a shot and someone who has spent more time analyzing it all can correct me if I'm wrong.

In the "good old days", you only marched on Thursday if you had finished in the 13 through 25 spots or lower in the previous season. Then the Friday show was the top 25 from THAT season vying for a spot in finals on Sat night.

As DCI got fewer and fewer corps participating, they changed their format. Eventually dropping what was once a top 25 show to top 17 and then top 25 "member corps" to 21 "member corps".

The recent surge in "new corps" in the last couple of years is a major positive and I hope the beginning of a trend. Be nice to see 40 or 50 corps at Championships again in the future.

Later, AA