SAY WHAT?

[PeeWee]

Well it was the best chance west coasters had to attend finals for many years.

I have a strong feeling 07 is going to break the record for attendance.

With...17 competing corps (added VK!) in California ALONE next year, plus Oregon Crusaders, Seattle Cascades, Portland Thunder (?), The Academy, Jester, Blue Knights, and Troopers...24 WESTERN CORPS...

yeah, the turn-out for Pasadena 2007 should be good. B)

[Gil-galad]

With...17 competing corps (added VK!) in California ALONE next year, plus Oregon Crusaders, Seattle Cascades, Portland Thunder (?), The Academy, Jester, Blue Knights, and Troopers...24 WESTERN CORPS...

yeah, the turn-out for Pasadena 2007 should be good. B)

I'll be coming all the way from the east coast for Pasadena-- and I'm sure I'm not the only one. ^^

[membase]

I would bet that two of the lowest attended finals were Jackson, MI and Miami, FL. A long trip for most drum corps fans, and ungodly hot and humid both places. I didn't attend either of those Finals, but I have heard stories that the attendance was pretty low both years.

Its kind of ironic that "membase" guessed that one of the Montreal championships would be one of the lowest attended Finals ever. In fact, the 1981 Finals in Monteal still holds the record for the highest official attendance with 35,947. It was an awesome sight from the field. Olympic Stadium was packed all the way around into the end zones. The crowd noise was insane. As much as I love Finals when it is in Madison, I don't believe attendance there has ever approached 40,000. I would LOVE to see the 1981 attendance record fall sometime in the future, however.

I was in Jackson in '93. The crowd was about as big as they could get on the concert side. I would say they had about 20k. That was the year it rained on Scouts in finals.

As far as my ill-conceived guess about low finals attendance in Montreal - well, that's what I get speculating on things that happened when I was 10 year old and had never heard of drum corps. I should have known they didn't have THAT bad attendance, or they wouldn't have tried to go back there in '89.

[SkyRyder_FMM]

I don't have my attendence figures here with me on my laptop, but I do have them going back to the mid 90's (as previously puiblished by DCI). I had posted them at one point, but can't seem to find them now. Paid attendence figures for finals in 96, 97, and 98 all fell below the Atlanta attendence figure. I believe the 4th they are referring to was likly 93. Total attendence for the entire week in Jackson was something like 36,000, with only about 13,000 at finals (it was a rather small venue too compared to other locales). I'm surprised Atlanta was announced as the largest regional. I could have sworn they announced a larger crowd at San Antonio this year. Does anyone have the attendence figures for all of the regionals this year? That might be interesting to see.

[Jeff Ream]

i'm pretty sure before the super regional days Allentown had more than that

[DCImonkey]

i'm pretty sure before the super regional days Allentown had more than that

You'd have to combine both days totals. I doubt there is anyway that homeside at Allentown would seat that many. There are HS stadiums in Texas that dwarf Allentown.

[SACMellos2010]

COME on it is all a twist on words. That is why they have a marketing firm involved. I would take it as 4 of any finals and yes back in certain years it was limited by stadium capacity. Also I thought we most times had more than than at Mid America in Bloomington. Anyone know concert side capacity in Bloomington?? If Indy stadium does not get done by 08' that would be a great alternative!!!!

[Phillygwm]

In context, the article says attendance surpassed four prior finals attendance tallies. It doesn't say THE four previous.. just four previous finals.. so it could be four from among all of them.

I would guess 98 in Orlando (one reason ten years of Indy would scare me a bit if I were DCI) though perhaps that just eked out a few more fans, 93 in Jackson, and '83 in Miami are three of the four. The last might have been one of the early Whitewater or Ithaca finals.

Atlanta gets big props, though. Nice venue (despite Section 324,) reasonable transportation and accomodation costs from most places, and stuff to do. I've never been to DATR but of the Indy, Atlanta and San Antonio regionals (OK, I'm biased toward Allentown) I was most impressed with Atlanta's "total package". I'd definitely go back.

[pags]

One thing that makes me believe that Finals in California will not come close to matching any attendance records is the venue itself.

If you go to the DCI webpage, click the link for Finals in Pasadena 2007, and also click the link for a view of the Rose Bowl, you'll see that the stadium is pretty evenly divided into four sections. Two sections face the field from the sidelines, two face it from the endzones and the sections somewhat meet at the corners of the field.

Each section is about the same size, and the total capacity for the Rose Bowl is a little over 90,000, meaning that each section would hold about 22,500, give or take a little.

Also, remember that DCI states that official attendance is paid attendance.

The figures below are paid attendance since 1995:

1995, Buffalo: 19,100

1996, Orlando: 13,771

1997, Orlando: 13,773

1998, Orlando: 12,693

1999, Madison: 19,931

2000, College Park: 18,423

2001, Buffalo: 16,406

2002, Madison: 20,230

2003, Orlando: 18,865

2004, Denver: 22,047

2005, Boston: ???

Based on these numbers, the section of the stadium that fans are going to want to sit in and be willing to pay for only has a capacity of about the same size of the PAID attendance from Denver.

The only way Pasadena breaks any attendance records is if all 22,000-23,000 fans are attendees who pay. That has never happened before, and I don't see it happening next year.

I'm predicting a paid attendance around 18,000 at best.