90'sMelloguy Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 We need to keep our artistic purity free from commercialization. Artistic Purity? We are talking about drum corps right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bawker Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 Artistic Purity?We are talking about drum corps right? I think that post was aiming for sarcasm. All the businesses listed were/are DCI/DCA sponsors. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver_King Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 they need Survivor Drum Corps Style and vote corps off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hughesmr Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 Hey, just to toss in a thought...The PGA is famous, right? The PGA is a non-profit. The difference is, LOTS of people like golf. Mike in OH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bass5 Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 The whole concept that more money = better product = better musicians = better drum corps does not sit well with me. Money tends to corrupt rather than benefit most activities in this country. If DCI went corporate do you really think it would benefit from it. Like sports, tickets would get so expensive that only the wealthy would go see the shows - or would they put bleachers on the back of the field for the "lower class"? I believe drum corps is slowly becoming an activity for the well to do and this concept would make it more so. How many of you out there that marched 20 years ago (or 30 to 40 years ago like myself) would have been able to afford modern drums corps? I marched with "out of staters" as we called them but most were poorer than the locals. This may be a HUGE misconception on my part but drum corps just doesn't seem to be the youth activity it was back in the day as far as bringing kids off the street and turning them into musicians and responsible young adults. Maybe its just all the money goes into the top drum corps and the small corps suffer. I'm new to DCP so this has probably been discussed previously but I thought I'd put my 2 cents worth in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnavis Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 they need Survivor Drum Corps Style and vote corps off Great idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsreed Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 The difference is, LOTS of people like golf.Mike in OH And how many of them suck at golf? I think you would be surprised how many people were in band starting in middle school. I'm in a community band and I'm always recruiting. About one in six people that I meet were in at some point in time. The potential to build a significant audience is there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsreed Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 Blast! on Bway grossed about 8M in 6 months. That's about equal to DCI's yearly revenue. But I think they were just barely breaking even. Their occupancy rate was somewhere around 70% I think. Most long-running shows stay around 90%. Then 9/11 happened and Broadway closed down for a week. Blast! closed the following week.In terms of the critics, I think the reviews were mixed. Most of the reviews I read appreciated the talent, but felt that the show didn't connect on a visceral level (except in a few spots). Basically they were too artsy-fartsy even for New York theatre critics. That may be appropriate if you consider that Blast only performed on Broadway. They also performed at all Disneyland parks in addition to enjoying national tours. Many non-band people I know told me thay watch Blast at Disney and were very impressed. I took a couple to the touring production in town about six months ago. The spouse, who has never heard of drum corps, was very impressed with the excitement and energy. She would go to another show. I didn't see it, but the second Blast production was terrible. It was more like today's drum corps, sans saxes. We don't need every one and their mother to watch drum corps and become fans, 10 million willing to turn on their TV a couple times per year and watch will work fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orpheus Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 (edited) OT, I know, but I had to respond to your comment on the cost. Don't a lot of these same 15 year olds take weekend band trips that cost upwards of $1,000? $1,500 for a summer? A bargain I say (and I can say it, cuz I paid it this year for my daughter - more actually). When you look at what the kids get for their dues - instruction, transportation, meals, uniform parts, etc. for an entire summer - the dues are cheap. During intermission at the Huntington show, I was talking to a friend of my sister-in-law's who said just that. She has a kid who is of age and might be interested in marching. I was explaining about practice and performance schedules, sleeping on gym floors, and all that sort of thing. When she asked how much it cost, I said something like, "The top corps are well upwards of $1000, probably closer to $2000 in some cases." Her reply, and this is an average middle-class mom, was that "For three meals a day, all that bus travel, and everything else, that's very reasonable for a whole summer." Considering what parents shell out these days for things like Scouts and band and youth sports leagues and whatnot, spending $1500 to spend an entire summer touring with a D1 corps is actually a bargain. That's not to say that I don't wish it were free, or at least a whole lot cheaper. I'd be absolutely thrilled if there were a lot more corporate sponsorships flowing in, and if corps only had to charge membership fees of maybe a couple hundred bucks. Unfortunately, the money has to come from somewhere. Edited July 13, 2006 by Orpheus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siuehist Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 (edited) A sobering thought for you guys: As you people go ga ga over this show and that show, most people ain't buying it. The VAST majority of our society does not find any entertainment value in drum corps. They would view the activity as lame. There is absolutely NO commerical potential for this activity, no where near the kind to make TV execs. happy. Edited July 13, 2006 by siuehist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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