Thank you from DCA.

[Senagod]

Fred,

Kudos to you for starting this topic!

I'd like to join the chorus of people praising this year's program book. I loved it! I'd also like to praise the runners, Alan and the Empire people, and everybody that was helping out.

MrBud,

I'd like to point out that not only was Glen tabulating that day, he was also the chief judge and T&P judge for the A class corps. That man ran around the whole day and night working for the event. I understand your concerns about deciding whether or not to take your family to the event, but like other people have said, Glen had way too much stuff to do. He worked his tail off the whole weekend.

[camel lips]

As we were returning to the lot we parked in, a local PD was stopping traffic and allowing the spectators to cross the street. He was joking with people, thanking them for coming, and said he hoped they had a great time and he would see them next year. A far cry from some of the stories I heard about the treatment in Scranton.

Agreed.I had only positive interactions with the police in Rochester.They were right down freindly.Not anywhere what I was expecting after watching COPS for the last 10 years.

Even the cop that told us to go around at the VIP gate was nice about it.

Thats the good...now for the bad.

BTW,,these are my own personal viewpoints,rants, gripes and solutions. Do not take them as the position of anyone else but me.

Warm up sites needed to have porto potties within a reasonable walking distance.There was no where to use the rest room.Men had to find a bush somwhere and women just had to hold it.Of course given the neighborhood,,whipping it out and peeing all over the walls before god and everyone was probably a way of life there.

As for the accommodations in the stadium.

God what a horrible neighborhood to have a stadium in.Did I say that already?Sunday morning at our practice lot we had two BIG rats come out in front of the hornline and do a little dance for us.These were BIG freakin RATS.There were homeless bums all over the place and way too many people wandering the streets wearing bling bling late at night.I am so glad there is safty in numbers.Had I been a father with a small child,,there is no way I would have gotten out of the car.I would have torn up my tickets and just gone home.

Ok,,Food service sucked, its already been said 100 times but it bears repeating. IT SUCKED! Having to stand in line for over priced food and drink was a real pain.I missed a whole corps because of it. Food was cold and the beer was hot.Wasent like that anywhere else in Rochester. Must have been a stadium policy or something.

Bathrooms sucked. Men should NEVER have to stand in line for a urinal. NEVER.

The field is nice but you are going to have to have to come up with a better way of lining the field in the event of rain. Unless you are not aware,,, this is a marching activity that needs the lines in order to know where to march on a field.Youve got a year to come up with a solution.Please find one.

Now for the rest of the story,,,

Ok I know this is a new stadium and there are lots of problems with it,,,but why in the world would you award a contract for Finals without testing the facility first for sound is a mystery to me. Sound did not carry in that event when the horns were above 10 degrees. With horns at the box,,,the sound all but disappeared. I would imagine this is one reason the crowds seemed bored the performances as pointed out in the other thread about no standing o’s.A solution is simple...See what Rochester does for the stadium and then test it.If its not a improvment then find another location in Rochester(or elsewhere) for finals.

Not sure what attendance was at this show but there sure were a lot of empty seats to be had by people.I know about 6 of us (maybe more)with general admission passes were able to find seats that no one was occupying. We kept those 6 seats all night long and there were many empty seats around us where people could have sat.

I did see two people down a row from me that kept someone’s seat warm for them through almost all of the show. It wasn’t until Buc’s came on the field that these two older men showed up and claimed their seats. I kept wondering why in the world they would wait till the last show of the evening to show up. But then I figured out that they probably were sitting in better seats that belonged to someone else and when they showed up they had to move.

Edited September 6, 2006 by camel lips

[gmencontra]

I had a great experience in Rochester!!!

A couple of "solutions":

1. Move the corps photo area to the cement patio located a mere 30 feet behind where it was located. Having to walk through all of that thick mud was ridiculous, and I believe the grounds crew will be unhappy with its current state.

2. (in jest) MAKE THE RAIN STOP!!!!

Great job guys.... only the picture situation almost caused a mass murder among our corps. I also enjoyed the over-pass signs on the highway. That was really a great touch.

[Snapettes Mom]

http://www.cafepress.com/jim_dandys

Best drum corps friendly line painters in the business.

Mom

[camel lips]

As for the 4 women sitting near the end zone on the b side of the field that had children in the corps that won the Title..Especially the woman that had a girl marching mellophone.

Please,,, please learn to shut your trap while other corps are performing and stay off the freakin cell phone.Had I actually paid for that seat I was in,,you would have heard some not so nice comments such as please about shutting your trap.

[Senagod]

Gee, I must have been the only person not to feel afraid about the neighborhood around the stadium.

I didn't think it was that bad. It wasn't great, but I've seen neighborhoods in Syracuse that looked worse than that.

Maybe I'm jaded after all these years living near Philly and going to school there. If you think Rochester was nasty, try Philly on for size.

[Gary Matczak]

Bathrooms sucked. Men should NEVER have to stand in line for a urinal. NEVER.

Speaking as an architect with some experience in outdoor sports facility design, I can't for the life of me understand how you can build a facility with a total of 9 urinals on the ground level in the mens room on one side of the stadium (safe to assume they have the equal inadequate number on the other side),......................based on what I saw,.....................not even close where I come from,...............

Porta Johns would have been a great idea for the staging and corps parking areas for sure, water would have been a good idea too,........................

other ideas,...........Open the east gate for corps going on and use the west gate for corps going off,...............that would give the photographer easier access to corps coming off, with no crossing, etc,.............and how about a temporary building, or something for a ticket office at the fan entry gate,..................

Edited September 6, 2006 by Gary Matczak

[camel lips]

Porta Johns would have been a great idea for the staging and corps parking areas for sure, water would have been a good idea too,........................

Sweet idea.I mean how hard would it be to have one guy run around in a golf cart with a big 20 gallon jug of water,cups and a trash bag?

Thank god our corps had a waterboy for this event.

[Kamarag]

Ok I know this is a new stadium and there are lots of problems with it,,,but why in the world would you award a contract for Finals without testing the facility first for sound is a mystery to me. Sound did not carry in that event when the horns were above 10 degrees. With horns at the box,,,the sound all but disappeared. I would imagine this is one reason the crowds seemed bored the performances as pointed out in the other thread about no standing o’s.A solution is simple...See what Rochester does for the stadium and then test it.If its not a improvment then find another location in Rochester(or elsewhere) for finals.

Rediculous. There was nothing wrong with the stadium's accoustics.

What PAETEC lacks is the reverberation/echo common to Lakawana County Stadium in Scranton. PEATEK is an IDEAL accoustic enviornment for drum corps. If your corps (or any other) had projection problems, that's a performance issue, not a facility issue.

The corps I heard (including my own) projected just fine, and the clarity level in PAETEC was far superior to any other stadium I've played in in DCA. The crowd's lack of enthusiasm at finals had nothing to do with the volume of the corps.

[camel lips]

Rediculous. There was nothing wrong with the stadium's accoustics.

What PAETEC lacks is the reverberation/echo common to Lakawana County Stadium in Scranton. PEATEK is an IDEAL accoustic enviornment for drum corps. If your corps (or any other) had projection problems, that's a performance issue, not a facility issue.

The corps I heard (including my own) projected just fine, and the clarity level in PAETEC was far superior to any other stadium I've played in in DCA. The crowd's lack of enthusiasm at finals had nothing to do with the volume of the corps.

I was speaking from a spectators standpoint and not a performers standpoint.When I was playing on the field it seemed like my sound was carrying forever.I am sure the 30+ degree in Temp drop from what I am use to playing in was a determining factor in that.

Lots of people sitting around me said the same thing,,that because the stadium was so open,,it diminished the sound.

So yes I stand by my statement that accoustics were bad.