No Mass Appeal, No Future

[rut-roh]

Here's another way of thinking about what I am proposing/throwing out there. Don't think of it as limiting kids, think of it as limiting the top corps.

Limit the top corps who have worked tremendously hard to EARN everything they've gotten (including high audition numbers)?? Besides being unrealistic in an activity like drum corps, it's not fair to those corps. As much as we'd love to see those corps in the lower part of the rankings improve on and off the field, there is no legitimate reason to penalize the corps who have done the right things and achieved a level of success that they worked very hard for....a level that ALL corps aspire to.

People are looking for an overnight answer to a complex issue that requires PATIENCE and TIME to solve. And if you haven't noticed, in the last ten years or so, the quality of corps in the lower part of the top 12 and even the next 8 or 9 places below that have improved greatly. There are corps who are figuring out their own solutions...catered to their own sets of challenges (there is no magic bullet solution for ALL corps...each corps is unique in their circumstances).

Take Carolina Crown and Bluecoats as the most obvious examples. Back in say 2000, would anyone have predicted how much they would have improved by 2007?? I know I didn't. And good for them....they are getting in there and figuring stuff out. I look at corps like the Colts, Blue Knights, Blue Stars, and now even the Crossmen and possibly even the Troopers (there may be others as well, but these corps stick out to me) as corps on the verge of figuring things out as well. It wouldn't surprise me to see all of those corps vastly improved in the next five years. Organizationally speaking, they seem to have mapped out their major problem areas and are taking noticable steps to rectify the situations. The results are speaking for themselves right now. Did anyone expect the Blue Stars to be this good five years ago? The Troopers weren't even on the field last year, and now they're fielding a full corps. The Crossmen have had their ups and downs and a boatload of administrative and instructional inconsistency over the past several years. By next year, they'll be on their own again with a more business-minded administrative team and a game plan to maximize the talent in their new home base in Texas.

Will all of these corps eventually succeed? Will they all find their way to the top of the mountain? Probably not, but the overall quality of corps in DCI is improving...from the bottom up. And the top corps? Apart from an off-year here or there, they'll always be great. And who knows? The creative thinking and aggressive game plans being employed by the Crowns and Bluecoats of the world might just become the model for all sorts of corps in the future. And that should be the ultimate goal. NOT to just say "we need more corps." What good is having 400 drum corps like we did in the early 70's if more than half of them couldn't manage their way down the street (and this was before national touring!). What we should be striving for is more drum corps who are PROPERLY RUN. We should be recruiting more business-minded people who know how to operate an organization the magnitude of some of these corps. The days of mom and pop running the corps from their basement are long gone, and thankfully so. Finding these people can be difficult...drum corps is not necessarily a wise financial endeavor. Even Bill Cook had limits on his checkbook. But thank god people like him got involved and made something happen. These are the kinds of people we should be looking for.

I've run out of things to say and it's late...I stand by what I said here. You don't need to penalize the top corps in order to build the activity and increase the numbers of corps.

[stockman365]

I feel like I have to filter the first introduction of DC to my newbie friends. Ususally it is Phantom Regiment who they get to see as the model for drum corps...

Narration, South Beach guard uni's, etc., is just not going to cut it for mainstream...or maintaining my annual drum corps investments for that matter.

[mistofflies]

I feel like I have to filter the first introduction of DC to my newbie friends. Ususally it is Phantom Regiment who they get to see as what I think is the model for drum corps...

Narration, South Beach guard uni's, etc., is just not going to cut it for what I think is the mainstream...or maintaining my annual drum corps investments for that matter.

Fixed that for ya.

[stockman365]

Fixed that for ya.

I think I am going to bed...

[Matt_S]

And so my proposal builds on that line of thinking. So you want to march top 3/6, huh? Just how bad??? Bad enough that you'll go march Crossmen, Blue Stars, Colts, Blue Knights, Boston for a year first? Or just bad enough that you want to show up to one camp and have the DCI elite just gush and fawn all over you? "Oh, you're the best high school trumpet player ever! Oh, we just NEED you in our snare line! Oh, NOBODY spins a rifle like you do! " I just don't see this happening.

Another thing. If most people who audition at, say, Phantom go home and do the couch potato thing (ie, don't march), just how many of those 600 annual auditionees audition more than one year? How many of them EVER march ANYWHERE???

<snip>

So...what is your suggestion??? Points for originality.

And don't blast me if you don't get numbers--read them again a couple of times.

I get what you're saying, and honestly I agree with the vast majority of it. You're absolutely right that when 450 kids get cut from Phantom, or Bluecoats, or whoever, those are kids that could fill up another corps on their own (or three, if they all marched). It'd be absolutely great for the activity if they all stuck around, and in my time on DCP I've seen any number of threads addressing how to keep these kids in the fold. Solutions proposed in those threads were greater advertising of corps outside of the top 12, so that more are aware of their existence, and even a greater effort by the top 12, informing those they cut about other opportunities to march and get experience. I have no problem with Phantom Regiment asking a kid to march somewhere like Cap Sound or Racine Scouts for a year, before trying for Rockford again next year.

However, I also have no problem with that kid choosing to wait it out a year, not marching anywhere until he auditions again. I haven't marched corps, so I can't comment on which course of action would be better, but it certainly possible that a player can also practice individually and get better without having to spend a summer marching. I might have your proposal wrong, but what you seem to be saying is that this "warm-up" season would be a requirement, that no one could march Vanguard without marching, say, Mandarins first. I don't' see such a proposal as being fair to the marcher or either corps.

For one, there are auditionees that are good enough to make an elite corps on their first try. It happens. So if a kid is good enough to make Vanguard without any prior drum corps experience, why should he be required to march Mandarins? Vanguard is deprived of a talent they otherwise would have had on the field, while Mandarins are stuck with someone who doesn't really want to be with that organization. Even assuming he puts forth a good effort, and gives the Mandarins everything he would have given Vanguard, he's still moving on after the year. Is that truly going to benefit Mandarins in the long term? Of course, the best case scenario would be if the kid enjoys Mandarins so much he decides to stay. The worst case, though, is that the kid doesn't want to be in Mandarins at all, spends all summer going through the motions, , just so he can march where he really wants to be next year.

My main objection to your proposed warm-up year is the action is forces the kid to take. Marching drum corps is expensive, in money, time, and effort. From what I hear, rook-outs are becoming more and more common. That's not surprising to me. After all, I never marched. While I could probably have afforded to pay the fees, barely, it was more beneficial to me to spend my college summers working internships. Marching a summer isn't just about what you're paying to join, it's also what you're giving up. If you tell someone that they have to sacrifice a summer marching somewhere that they'd rather not be, just so they can spend next summer with the corps they want, I'm not sure you're going to have many takers.

"Years" are a commodity, and they are in such short supply already whenever you are discussing a junior activity. On top of that, "years" are limited by the barriers - such as fees, other responsibilities, etc. - that already exist to prevent kids from marching. Requiring a kid to spend one of the few years he has available to him by making him marching somewhere he doesn't want to be seems a raw deal to me. In my opinion, the only effect such a ruling is likely to have is that fewer people will show up to march across the board.

[Walter]

As far as DCI's popularity, looking at cumulative audience numbers from DCI regionals last year, those totals eclipsed the glory days of the late 70s/early 80s. This despite the fact that so many fewer corps are marching, so there are fewer friends and families to fill the stands.

As far as DCI's "popularity" in Canada, it's hard to say as we haven't had a good Division 1 contest up here at least ten years.

I wish someone would take the ranes and have a show that would fill the stands.

OH, I forgot the border thing......you know all the hassles the corps "MAY" have when they cross the border ??!!

I'll leave it at that.

Edited June 27, 2007 by ODBC

[MikeD]

I feel like I have to filter the first introduction of DC to my newbie friends. Ususally it is Phantom Regiment who they get to see as the model for drum corps...

Narration, South Beach guard uni's, etc., is just not going to cut it for mainstream...or maintaining my annual drum corps investments for that matter.

Actually, narration etc....would go a lot further to attract the 'mainstrream' than most other things. Whether or not it attracts you is another story.

[mistofflies]

I think I am going to bed...

B)

[MikeD]

Here's another way of thinking about what I am proposing/throwing out there. Don't think of it as limiting kids, think of it as limiting the top corps. Yeah, yeah--semantics. Several of you have said, "Not me, man! I'm gone!" OK, I'll even admit that I MIGHT have had ONE person voice support and a couple say something somewhat supportive. Thanks.

Why penalize success? The top corps worked their way there and work constantly to remain at/near the top. Cadets and Cavies were not much of a DCI power in the 70's, for example, yet look at them today.

The problem is not the top 6 getting theirs--they're not going anywhere anytime soon! But dozens and scores of other corps have gone somewhere, alright! And something must be done. I have my proposal. Several have mentioned regional touring models. Might work. Doesn't seem like DCI likes that much, now does it?

So...what is your suggestion??? Points for originality.

I have said the below before, and repeated it just the other day on a different thread.

I do agree that it would be great if the cuts from the audition process knew about the II/III opportunities. The problem is figuring out how you tell the folks what their options are.

Marching a II/III corps is bound by geography more than a div I. You pretty much have to live near enough to be able to drive to rehearsals, as in the old days. There are exceptions, of course; I just read of one the other day.

What I think should happen at winter auditions is that a II/III representative of a nearby corps should make a presentation on II/III in general to the folks at the div I camp.....at the START of the camp, not the end. There could be a generic set of materials created by DCI that would be usable at any camp. This info session has to be at the start of the camp, IMO, because telling disappointed kids who were just cut about other options is hardly the proper time to sell them on the alternatives.

A Cadets camp in South Jersey could have a rep from Surf, for example, who would explain about the II/III experience and make available materials about ALL of those corps to the attendees. Videos of corps in both divisions should be available...and shown...as well.

This way the person who is cut is exposed to those corps when they are all pumped up for the weekend...and not when they have just had their dreams dashed.

[rut-roh]

I feel like I have to filter the first introduction of DC to my newbie friends. Ususally it is Phantom Regiment who they get to see as the model for drum corps...

Narration, South Beach guard uni's, etc., is just not going to cut it for mainstream...or maintaining my annual drum corps investments for that matter.

Actually, the mainstream might just connect to that a lot more than band uniforms, shakos, and the military bearing that many drum corps die-hards enjoy.

Be careful what you wish for...