Replacing Our Losses in Corps Numbers

[JimF-LowBari]

OK folks we've b-worded, moaned, groaned, excused and finger pointed all around the fact that the number of corps has gone down over the years. Now it's time either to come up with ideas that might help the situation or just say things are fine, thank you very much.

To kick things off, my first idea is looking into the reasons why some non-top 15 corps, including Div II/III are going inactive and what might be done to help the situation. Secondly, what might help the environment in which these new corps operate. Yes, Top 12 are DCIs money maker but unless you have Bill Cooks wallet it's next to impossible to create a Finalist corps from scratch. More possible to start with a smaller corps as has been done over the last few years. But if a large percentage of the these corps go under it kills whatever gains are made. IOW, if we want growth in number of corps it has to start at the bottom as DCA has done over the last few years.

BTW - Every flippin' time I mention anything like this I get "it's not DCIs job" which is a cop out and kills any discussion. JUST FOR ONCE could we have a REAL discussion....

Edited June 24, 2007 by JimF-3rdBari

[vferrera]

It's not DCI's job to add more corps, but it is their job to expand the market, which would in turn spur the creation of new corps.

Currently, drum corps is supported mainly by the members. Their dues provide about half the operating budget for most corps. Hence, the number of corps is limited by the demand for membership.

If audiences were bigger, there would be more box office and merchandising revenue. This would replace some of the membership dues in the operating budget. It would then be cheaper to march corps and demand for marching spots would increase.

One thing I constantly ask myself, being a NYC resident, is why there is almost zero DCI presence in this city. There is a DivIII corps in Brooklyn and that's it. In a city of 8 Million people where people will pay $1000 for a six year-old to attend soccer camp and several times that to send them to the Poconos or Catskills for a couple of weeks in the summer. It's baffling that DCI has not even tried to crack this market.

Edited June 24, 2007 by vferrera

[Bruckner8]

This quesiton is like "how do we save the family in USA?"

The answer is so complicated, so convoluted, that it's almost impossible to solve w/o first admitting that behavior have changed and that we need to change it again. Very difficult indeed.

Every top 12 corps has stats like this in their media guides: "Over 600 kids tried out..."

That's 7200 kids...enough for more than 50 full-135-member corps. Are there 50 corps out there? Let alone with all 135 members.

Given that some of those 7200 are overlaps (kids auditioning for more than one corps), how come the vast majority who get cut don't march at all? Every corps out there has a list of "sister corps" or their own B-C corps to make the transition very easy for the cut member.

But most don't take advantage of that. We have to answer "why?" and there are lots of reasons, most notably logistics, but another reason is that these kids have a one track mind: They want to march with CORPS X, period. Gone are the days when kids just wanted to be part of the activity...they want one thing only.

Mr George H. has tried the experiment where we could have Cadets I and Cadets II (Xmen) by sharing braintrust and resources. (A great idea, IMO) But the staff can't be in two places at once. The tone and message during rehearsal is differnt. THE KIDS ARE DIFFERENT. No kid who wanted to march Cadets would ever buy the notion that they could go to XMen and get the same experience. The unique legacies of Cadets and Xmen are a powerful source...for better and for worse. As it turned out, luckily for Xmen, the monetary resources was the most important factor. Now they're their own again, soon, and might be better for it; jury's still out.

So instead we're going to more kids a chance by enlarging the corps to 150 memebrs in 2008. There is a fear that lower corps might get hurt. Given all that I've stated above, I think it won't matter: more kids will march, instead of going home! I'm a fan of the 150 rule. (Especially since hornlines will get much larger, and finally be as loud as the G Bugle hornlines! HA!)

OK, so back to modern kid behavior. Have ya noticed that most top 12 coprs have holes in Spring, and sometimes into the first shows of Summer? That's becauzse some kids who make it have no idea what they're really getting into, and then just fold under the pressure. Even veterans--who know what to expect--sometimes flake exactly because they know! And they just don't want to put in the work. They wait until they see "what direction" everything is going in, waiting for the first marching rehearsal, and then falke right after that..."Screw this, I don't want to work this hard again."

And make no mistake: Drum Corps is freakin HARD these days! It takes some level of masochism to be really successful. That limits the segment of society dramatically!

IMO, cost is never a factor. I never let my kids use that as an excuse, and whenever they try, I make them restate it as "Drum Corps is not a high enough priority in my life right now to justify the effort" Even if tour fees were $2000(US ie, wink to Canada), that's 20hrs/week at $5/hr for 20 weeks. Gimmie a break. I'm so old school, I skipped college (Spring quarter) so I could move out to SCV and get a job to support my habit. That doesn't happen anymore!

But even if marching were FREE, I claim the situation would be the same...since kids have 1000 other things pulling at their time, and all 1000 of those things take a lot less effort. Modern society practically looks at loyalty and commitment with disdain anymore...two of the most imprtant factors with successful drum corps.

Do you really expect DCI to change society's behavior?

[Captncontra]

I posted this in another thread. I think it pertains:

QUOTE(i_play_percussion @ Jun 24 2007, 02:48 PM) *

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that music education continues to get worse every year. Therefore, mass appeal becomes increasingly harder. If music education programs (especially in inner city areas) continue to lose funding or decrease across the country, it will be harder for DCI to garner participants. It's entirely unfortunate, IMO, because music can help kids in so many ways.

And regarding to the entertainment quality of shows, it's all subjective. IMO, today's shows are incredible and entertaining. smile.gif

I agree completely. I've been teaching h.s. marching since 1993 and have noticed a steady decline of support from the school districts. Music education is deemed an extravegence to most administrators and with the 'no student left behind, no student allowed to excell' policy, students are pushed to spend all their time in study or sports. I remember the days when marching band gave you P.E. credit, but those days are gone and we're losing students to badminton for christs sake! My old high school became an arts magnet school and they STILL can't pull more than 50 kids a year from the entire district. Feeder systems in the middle and elementery schools are all but non-existent. And don't think for a second its because the kids now-a-days aren't interested in music. Every time I take a peforming group to an elementery school the kids' eyes light up and they hang on every note we play. They come swarming up after the performances to touch the instruments and try to play them. They ask questions and they tell their parents that they want to play the drums or the trumpet and sadly there's usually no program in that school to get them hooked at a young age.

You want to know why there are less and less drum corps now? Heres a perfect example that I had posted on MySpace a while back (its a great article):

One of the worlds best musicians (Joshua Bell - violin) teams up with the Washington Post and plays in the subway to see what happens:

Article

Makes you think and wonder what you would have done if you were in a hurry... Notice what it says about the childrens reactions vs. the adults.

"... the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."

Want to improve the state of drum corps? Start making demands that your childrens schools have a musical arts program, or take them out of schools that don't and enroll them in ones that do. Write to the administrators, the local city council, your congressmen, your senators... anything. Make yourselves heard to people that can make a difference rather than preaching to the choir here.

[vferrera]

IMO, cost is never a factor.

Lucky you. But for most people cost is a huge factor. Corps are struggling to keep dues down so they can fill their ranks and still have enough money to tour. Kids are struggling to pay dues plus other expenses while compensating for lost income from summer jobs. And suggesting that people drop out of school to march drum corps is just silly.

The way to increase the number of corps is to replace dues revenue with box office, merchandising and charitable contributions from an expanded fan base.

IMHO.

[Tony Flores]

I posted this in an Acedemy thread that was in rsponse to the "their not doing a fill tour" arguement some were making

What Academy is doin is what was good about the "regional" alliances...you get some exposure in your region (DCM, DCW, DCE, DCsouth, etc.) get some judging and improve your score then you tackle the DCI regionals (East, southwest, west, etc.) snd some smaller outside your region shows to prepare you for the big time at finals week. I would lay odds that there would be more corps if there could be some "regional alliance" type organization resprouted (under DCI of course) and do more touring that way.

The jist of my post is that the loss of the "regional alliances" over the last decade have hurt many of the smaller Div I corps and a ton of div II/III corps in my opinion. Just look at the number of div II/III corps in their championsips on corpsreps.com over the last decade or so (like 13-15 years). Mind you I really think that the DCM's and DCE's of the world were not run very well in the end, but when I was putting on a uni amd marching I think that they were run fairly well. The fact that there were more shows in small places in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconson, Michigan, Illinois...Whitewater, WI, Oshkosh, WI, Streator, IL Charles City, IA, etc. Made for chances for these units to perform without having to travel to the east coast or west coast to perform. At alot of these shows there were lineups of 3-6 Div II/III corps. Many tours were broken down into 3 or 4 segmants...1st tour (regional)...2nd tour (regional alliance championships...3rd tour (DCI regionals...4th tour (DCI championships).

As mentioned before these units were able to go out for a week to 10 days, get in 5 or 6 shows, and not have to travel 1000 miles from show to show.

I think if DCI wre to start or restart the likes of a DCM, DCE, DCW style regional alliances...I think more corps would be able to stay alive and give them a chance to have more opportunities.

[horn_star]

It's not DCI's job to add more corps, but it is their job to expand the market, which would in turn spur the creation of new corps.

Currently, drum corps is supported mainly by the members. Their dues provide about half the operating budget for most corps. Hence, the number of corps is limited by the demand for membership.

If audiences were bigger, there would be more box office and merchandising revenue. This would replace some of the membership dues in the operating budget. It would then be cheaper to march corps and demand for marching spots would increase.

One thing I constantly ask myself, being a NYC resident, is why there is almost zero DCI presence in this city. There is a DivIII corps in Brooklyn and that's it. In a city of 8 Million people where people will pay $1000 for a six year-old to attend soccer camp and several times that to send them to the Poconos or Catskills for a couple of weeks in the summer. It's baffling that DCI has not even tried to crack this market.

I think a contributing factor is the lack of quality high school music programs in New York. If you take a look at highly successful high school programs across the country, they are almost always located in high income communities. They receive most of their financial support from large, highly organized, band booster associations administered by parents and other volunteers. Few if any get by on what they receive from the school district.

Now take a look at high income families in New York and many other areas in the Northeast. They send their kids to private schools because the public school system is quite poor in many areas, particularly in the city. Without kids getting the right level of music education and exposure to competitive marching music in high school, you won't see support for drum corps.

How many notable private school music programs can you think of, and how many out of those have a notable marching music program. I can think of maybe three in the whole country and really only one that serves as any kind of example: Marion Catholic High School, Chicago Heights, IL.

Just a thought...

[JimF-LowBari]

It's not DCI's job to add more corps, but it is their job to expand the market, which would in turn spur the creation of new corps.

Writing this one down for future reference... great

One thing I constantly ask myself, being a NYC resident, is why there is almost zero DCI presence in this city. There is a DivIII corps in Brooklyn and that's it.

Which brings up the differences between how DCI handles Div I and Div II/III. My first thought on reading Div III in NYC was "Who the #### is that?" until I thought about it. To go with Bruckner8s idea on changing behavior, let's start with the reheaded bastich stepchildren way Div II/III is treated by DCI, potential marchers and fans. Great example is expanding Div I to 150 marchers so more kids can march. Ahhh, could not the same be done by having the young folks fill the holes in Div II/III corps that are struggling. But.... I have yet to see that idea even mentioned.

[X DM]

OK folks we've b-worded, moaned, groaned, excused and finger pointed all around the fact that the number of corps has gone down over the years. Now it's time either to come up with ideas that might help the situation or just say things are fine, thank you very much.

To kick things off, my first idea is looking into the reasons why some non-top 15 corps, including Div II/III are going inactive and what might be done to help the situation. Secondly, what might help the environment in which these new corps operate. Yes, Top 12 are DCIs money maker but unless you have Bill Cooks wallet it's next to impossible to create a Finalist corps from scratch. More possible to start with a smaller corps as has been done over the last few years. But if a large percentage of the these corps go under it kills whatever gains are made. IOW, if we want growth in number of corps it has to start at the bottom as DCA has done over the last few years.

BTW - Every flippin' time I mention anything like this I get "it's not DCIs job" which is a cop out and kills any discussion. JUST FOR ONCE could we have a REAL discussion....

It's too late to adopt now because of the sheer lack of Corps we have today ( although it's not all bad, as the numbers in Div.1 seem better today than just a few short years ago ), but DCI should never have gone on a national touring model in it's infancy. Instead they should have adopted a Regional Model where corps competed for regional championships. The top 2 or 3 Corps, and only those Corps, then would advance to the Championship ( 8 Corps in 3 days of Competition then vie for the DCI Title ). This model is not unique. In fact it is commonplace in NCAA, in Little League, Babe Ruth, Legion Ball, and most other national sports. Had this model been adopted early on, it is my opionion that we would have not seen the demise and loss of so many numbers of Corps. In almost every instance, it was not " mismanagement " per se that we often hear as the reason for the loss of so many Corps. I don't buy this reason as a predominent factor in most failures of Corps at all. There were lots of intelligent and talented managers in charge of Corps. What caused the loss of the numbers of Corps was not " mismanagement ". It was Finances. Corps left and right succumbed to a mountain of debt. Debt that primarily was caused by too many Corps traveling thousands of miles for 7-12 weeks across the country and not placing in the money in most of their competitive shows. Had these Corps stayed mostly local, or occassionally gone regional, they would have saved themselves literally tens of thousands of dollars at the end of each summer and many would still be with us today in my opinion.

Edited June 25, 2007 by X DM

[vferrera]

Corps left and right succumbed to a mountain of debt. Debt that primarily was caused by too many Corps traveling thousands of miles for 7-12 weeks across the country and not placing in the money in most of their competitive shows.

Travel which is by and large unproductive. You've got corps traveling thousands of miles to perform in small venues for a few hundred fans. The box office barely covers expenses. And it is neither educational nor fun for the kids. I'm not against having shows in Iowa, but how about just one show in NYC? As far as I know DCI has not had a show anywhere in the 5 boroughs in the past 10 years.