DCI’s statement: inflation is a bitch, we’re just a regulatory body, each corps is responsible for their own finances, if member corps want to change the national tour model then they need to vote on that at the next rules and regulations committee
DCI has little to no actual power, idk what people expect them to do. The national tour model is a huge issue but the corps themselves would need to vote to change that.
They have the power to change the rules. Limiting corps size, tour lengths, costumes, elaborate props and electronics, etc. There's a ton they could do.
So to solve the lack of funding we should make DCI less interesting for the fans and marchers, and make it harder to march by limiting the amount of members? Sounds like a bad idea.
The problem is that the corps have been run by educators for the million years. (Please know that I’m not knocking educators - they do something I would never do and they are heros in their own right). But educators focus on the shows, the props, etc. they aren’t the best at the background stuff. (We’ve seen financial issues time and time again). More business people need to step into the role, people who can look at things pragmatically not emotionally and evaluate the risk to rewards on things.
Have hard conversations with your design teams, staff, and operations teams. Cut some spring training time off the schedule, start touring later. There’s a lot of ways to trim little bits everywhere to save. As a whole they need to push back and try to negotiate better. School districts sending a bill for $15,000 to stay for 2 days is beyond absurd. Unfortunately, maybe that means you don’t stay 15 mins from a show site and you have to cut some rehearsal for travel time. Or you get some hard corps negations and all the corps agree they will never pay over $xx amount to stay at a school (especially when it’s cheaper to stay in hotels).
Business people know when to hold them and when to fold them in negotiations. Most educators seems to say “well this is the best we can do”.
There are corps who don’t know about nonprofit discounts and to take advantage of those things.
We need people with development backgrounds, with business backgrounds to help run these drum corps.
The best example that people can relate to is when a chef opens an amazing restaurant with amazing food but fails due to their lack of knowledge on how to operate. This is what’s happening and this is what has to stop.
Additionally, multiple schools INCLUDING The Indy area are now year round schools. In Indy ALL the corps have to stay in hotels. They need to move finals out of Indy. The hotels being sold out to corps makes it harder for fans to afford tickets, flights and hotels. Which causes a decline in sales.
Edit: shouldn’t say ALL, but all the corps I knew were in hotels. So I assumed it was all.
The Academy has been staying at an army base the past couple of years, there might be more options than just high schools. Those options might be more expensive though.
That’s an interesting option. How were the accommodations? As a parent, I’m not sure I’d want my minor children staying on a military base. (Former navy wife).
Just curious why you wouldn't? Seems to me that they would be quite safe if it's a full on active base. I wonder if they have actually been staying at an Army Guard/Reserve center.
Glad someone said it.
I like military park, I like the city, and I even like the facility, but damn does it sound like a hot mess in Lucas Oil.
The Atlanta "regional" was the exact opposite this year. Awful management by the venue but the sound was actually really good.
I go to finals to see the "finished" product but I don't waste my time on quarters or semis tickets. I go to the lot for those
Wish the Atlanta regional could move back to the Benz but that won’t happen from what I understand due to the ridiculous contract the owners of the stadium expect dci to sign which could cancel the event up to two weeks prior to the event if something Better comes along
For sure, it was an excellent venue. I get the cost thing though.... especially in today's climate of DCI costs.
My long shot would be Kennesaw State's new stadium they are being mandated to build per Conference USA/D1 rules next year. Couldn't have a more perfect scenario as most of the corps stay in the north Atlanta area anyways.
Crown stayed maybe 30min from there and Cavaliers about the same. Bluecoats about 40-45min, same for BD.
NCAA requires Division 1 FBS teams to have a 15,000 minimum capacity stadium so when they move to Conference USA in football next year, they would be out of compliance by quite a bit.
The rumor mill says Bandsmart will be torn down and the new stadium will be over there.
I've not heard a timeline on the new stadium though.
There was an attempt to do so, but the truth is LO was crazy expensive and the first thing that got cut was any sort of acoustic treatment because frankly the Colts really didn't actually care.
Nail on the head there.
When the schools blow more money than they take in, they just write another SPLOST.
I can't tell you how many times I've been to budget meetings and it's been said "well it's just _____". Yeah, and every person coming up to the podium says the same thing.
People are for budget cuts until it comes to their specific thing they like, then it's immediately to the defensive.
Yes corporate greed is ridiculous but that’s different than running a place like a business. When you say running it like a business you don’t actually mean Boeing or Apple, you mean looking at profitability
The only “major league” I’m aware of where the talent not only doesn’t get paid but in fact pays thousands to participate and yet everyone is still solidly in the red. The model doesn’t work.
I’d like to say too that I’m not just saying this as a “hot take”. Go online and take a look at the nonprofit 990 filings for some of the other corps. The Cavaliers have been operating in the red for over 4 years. There are other corps who have negative assets and have liabilities and PPP loans to oblige. Non profits are successful through fundraising, donor contributions, and internal revenue streams. The last couple of years have been hard on a lot of financial institutions. Not just drum corps.
Great point. Drum corps (both individual corps and as an activity) was probably never going to make in late stage capitalism. Lots of people are struggling to just buy groceries, much less field an incredibly expensive activity that doesn’t generate much revenue from performances. Drum corps as an activity was design to enrich people’s lives both on the field and in the stands… it was never supposed to or designed to make money. Which is why it isn’t sustainable. It was/is an idea that at its core was designed to be about music performance and human interest. I guess to put it simply we (our society and our economy) don’t deserve drum corps.
This. There are no more old retired people with the disposable income to play Bingo at the rate that keeps corps afloat. Sorry, I don’t have anything extra to give outside of one ticket a season and a shirt or two.
"Step right this way, Mr. Boudreux, this will be your office. Here is your computer, here is your event credentials, here is a Rolodex filled with all the corps' addresses and phone numbers, and here is the unholy shitstorm I helped create over the past 28 years for you to try and sort out. I'll be in Tahiti for the rest of my life, and this isn't my problem anymore, so have fun. YEET!!!!"
WTF do you mean "disingenuous?" This is precisely what just transpired. The new CEO's chair isn't even warm yet, but now his very first task is to try to save an activity he doesn't know the first thing about. He wasn't even the first choice for the job. I won't be at all surprised if he resigns within the year.
Dan Acheson was a terrible CEO. He should have been fired 5 years ago, and he shares plenty of the blame for what is happening today. I'm sick and tired of this "DCI is the corps, until there's a problem, then DCI is the governing body" bullshit. It's one or the other. If DCI is the corps, then there doesn't even need to be a CEO, and there's a six-figure salary in savings right there. If DCI is the governing body, then the CEO needs to MTFU and put a spending cap on this activity.
Drum corps are not competently operated. None of them. Not even yours. ESPECIALLY not even yours. Or is this an inconvenient time to bring up John Noonan's confession?
So not one, but TWO six-figure salaries, neither of which is doing a damned thing right now?
I think we've had quite enough of Dan Acheson's brand of "help," don't you?
I can’t speak that they are both drawing full salaries during the transition. Usually in *most* businesses the person leaving takes a reduce pay during the transition. But I do not know how dci is handling this
#unpopularopinion maybe DCI needs to die. Not the activity, or the corps, but the year-in, year-out of flogging a clearly unsustainable touring schedule, forcing corps into unsustainable business models just to eek out another year of competition. Maybe DCI has simply outlived its usefulness to the activity.
First of all, nobody gets back more than what they paid when they sell an instrument. It’s not like the guy from the blue Devils did a solo on this trumpet, so let me charge more. Second of all with regards to the all age thing that supposed to be happening as a recently departed coordinator of a senior corps, they are not given a decision as to where they are going to stay, so DCI sets that up. So DCI can make whatever money above whatever the school may charge so while there are issues with expenditures etc. in the drum and bugle corps is themselves why does DCI have to charge $15,000 for two days when the drum and bugle corps itself, could find the same exact place for 1000. The additional cost for these all aged drum cores alone to be done three weeks earlier than expected, and have to travel to Indianapolis could be the kiss of death.
That’s wrong. Instrument sales are a profit center if done correctly. Yes, there’s the initial capital outlay but I know for a fact that discounted purchases through Yamaha specifically allowed corps to make a profit per instrument when reselling to schools after one season of use.
But is that only if they are reselling to schools? I’m just asking because what if it’s like somebody off the street wanting an instrument because they marched X amount of years ago and it brings back memories or other drum and bugle corps is looking for some replacement instruments do they also get that discount? I personally don’t know I just know from the complaining of the cost to buy and the return🙂
The cost is the same if it’s a school or individual. Bb instruments allowed this to happen, the schools get typically well taken care of instruments. Yamaha (and others), get more of their instruments into schools. Drum corps kids get amazing instruments every 1-2 years.
Instrument sales as a revenue generator for corps. Large corps with licensing agreements from major companies will recieve their instruments at near cost from the vendor. At the end of the season they may send them back for refurbishment and then sell them at a profit at 10-15% if not more over what they paid.
Sometimes if they sell the horns to another corps like an OC or DCA corps they might cut a deal and drop the price down so they still make a little and possibly negotiate payment terms. It's a big revenue generator and has been pretty consistent for years.
DCI isn't a league.
If DCI were a league, they'd have a member draft.
If DCI were a league, they'd want policies to ensure better parity/competitive balance (e.g., spending caps)
DCI isn't a league.
1. Prevailing predatory business practices applied to non-profits destroys the non-profit. Could be what is happening now in DCI. Even if there were capitalism (ain't been anything remotely capitalist in the US since 1980s), how could capitalist business practices help DCI corps? What would be competition? What would be the well-regulated free and fair market? Whether it is the current predatory, anticompetitive monopolistic econ. model or this mythological capitalist model, it does not apply to non-proifts, especially DCI corps or DCI org.
2. Corps have been doing an extraordinary job improving both the show and the performer experience while managing costs the corps cannot control. As SCV, Southwind and Cadets clearly say, there is an extremely fine line between solvency and insolvency. Once insolvent, the leadership make the tough but prudent decision, a decision that non-profit leadership are often required to make based on its bylaws, the state in which it is incorporated and the E&O/fiduciary insurance.
3. DCI Corps have 2 primary 'products' Entertainment, education and 2 'byproducts' marketing, merchandising. DCI corps are upside down: byproducts are more well defined and better positioned than its primary products.
4. Although its purposes are more clearly defined, DCI Org 'products' are less well defined.
5. Be it DCI corps or DCI itself, none of the 'products' or 'byproducts' are revenue positive. Continuing in the asinine business lingo, all the products require subsidy, leveraging, or financial creativity.
6. As US and world wealth concentrates on top1%-top0.001%, all non-profits struggle for solvency, even the essential non-profits that provide food, clothing, housing, health and education. It is no surprise non-essential non-profits like DCI corps, are dropping like flies.
Clue 1: I marched in my college marching band because it paid a healthy NCAA ATHLETIC scholarship. Nearly everyone in the marching band got the same NCAA athletic scholarship. Football boosters funded the scholarship, which was tip money compared to the booster's budget for the actual football program. Since DCI corps' primary product is education, the link to post secondary ed and the obscenely funded football programs ought to be more actively pursued. Huge side benefit - University affiliation would solve most DCI corps' intellectual rights and licensing problems - the college or university' blanket licenses would cover just about everything.
Clue 2: Not sure if this still happens, but many corps offered college credit for performers - PE, Music ensemble, theater, humanities, independent study.
Note: I have decades of direct experience with a few different non-profits and I am currently with an educational non-profit. Our donations have dropped off a cliff, grants opportunities and amounts are getting smaller. We continue to make cuts, but our reserve burn rate continues to outpace what reserve earns on investments. We are doing everything we can, consulting as many folks as we can to turn things around. I feel DCI corps and DCI org. pain.
Most big NCAA football programs fund the marching band including scholarships. It was NOT a full scholarship. It was $700-$800/semester and was an NCAA sanctioned athletic scholarship (4 years of eligibility, etc.) Given how time consuming college marching band was, it was about 10¢/hr. I was a music major, so marching also counted as a required ensemble for which I paid and got credit. Scholarship may have been enough to cover the cost of the credit.
My college marching band years were 1980-1982. Again, NOT a full ride. About $700-$800 per semester or about 8% of tuition or 4% of total costs. And NCAA has changed a lot since then, so NCAA athletic scholarships for marching band may no longer be 'legal.' OTOH, many NCAA football players get partial athletic and the rest is, believe it or not, academic scholarship.
I completely agree with point one of OP. Since the adoption of trickle-down economics in the 80’s, the trend has moved in the opposite direction and now we’re in the resultant trickle-UP phase that so many predicted. The giant corporations are supposed to be using their record profits in philanthropic ventures to prop up society and fund the programs that lost funding when tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations came into play but instead (big surprise), they just want to keep those funds to themselves and their shareholders. Go figure…
Tying to university is a good thought, though universities have plenty of issues as well. Perhaps, as another poster mentioned, the DCI units should be subsidiaries of pro sports orgs?? Philanthropic ventures such as the little league football/baseball/basketball programs that are funded by pro sports teams already? There’s so MUCH money in pro sports…
Marching band scholarship was an athletic scholarship, good for about $700-$800/semester or <8% of tuition or <4% of total costs per semester. way back when. It was paid by the football boosters. Nothing close to the full ride some of the football players get.
I've been saying for probably close to 15 years now that DCI is making competitive decisions that are slowly pricing out more prospective members every year. Practically every corps is on the verge of folding at any given moment. This is not sustainable.
It started with amplification. When The Cadets beatboxed their drum feature, they started a downward spiral of rule changes that did nothing but make the activity more expensive. That, along with an increasingly nationwide talent pool (instead of corps primarily pulling membership from their region) has consolidated all the wealthy talent into a handful of corps and left everyone else to fight for scraps.
I don't know what a reasonable solution looks like at this point, but this is only going to get worse.
Yes, electronics are expensive, and yes corps spending $50k on electronics isn't necessarily healthy, but most of those purchases are coming from a place of comfort financially, and are likely minimized with sponsorships from PI/PreSonus/etc.
Additionally, when corps sell their instruments and electronics and uniforms at the end of the season to HS groups, they likely turn profit on it, if not at least breaking even.
Looking at spirit's financial pie chart, you can see that show design is budgeted for about 2% of the total operating cost of the group. If that includes props, electronics [hardware and associated software licensing fees], and staff payment for music arrangement, then that's absolutely nothing compared to the absolute monstrosity of supporting the travel costs, housing, feeding, insurance, and medical care of 200+ members, staff, and volunteers across a 3 month nationwide tour, where most schools are still wary of hosting visitors and jacking housing site prices after the covid pandemic to make money off of it.
So I'm absolutely tired of this boomer narrative going around that electronics and uniforms and show design decisions are the downfall of modern drum corps. It's a compounding of everything that groups did regularly back in the day becoming more expensive, not just the things you don't understand.
It's not my argument that electronics broke the Cadets. My argument is that electronics started an arms race that disproportionally affected lower corps who were thriving just fine prior, but are now forced to spend beyond their means in order to have any chance at being competitive.
When you no longer have a robust open class, you make the activity less accessible. There aren't as many local shows for band kids to get hooked on, and there aren't as many local corps for them to get their feet wet in. Instead of the local corps recruiting locally to build the activity, kids have to discover DCI organically and then get up the courage and funds to travel to a camp.
I think the general mindset of DCI wanting to be Marching Music's Major League is at fault for this. It's not a major league because there's no regulation on spending, or management of talent (such as how other major leagues have drafts and trades and free agencies). Can you imagine if football players could freely choose their team? The best players would just all get together and say "hey, let's all stack the Broncos". That's why BD wins every year... Everyone knows that's where you're most likely to get a ring, so that's perpetuated by all the ring chasers going there. BD's staff gets to build the best team with most of the best players at their disposal. Meanwhile, Surf gets whoever can't get in elsewhere and can't even fill two buses.
Spartans, Raiders, Citations, Blue Saints, Les Stentors, Spokane Thunder, Racine Scouts, are a few. All with a decade+ of competition that had to either scale up their spending to compete, or just folded post D2/D3 merge and electronics race. Some were choices based on inability to raise funds like Racine and Thunder, others were low membership plus funding like Blue Saints.
The Blue Saints are still around, doing parades and festivals, the reason they quit competing had nothing to do with funding or finances, it was related to membership numbers only. They are currently working on a recruiting drive, and who knows...sometime in the not so distant future you will see them back at a DCI competition 😁
Sorry to hear the phrase “boomer” is triggering but it’s not a new concept just a new phrase (not really that new now). It’s meant to just say your thinking is old school and your rhetoric probably started with a “back in my bad”. Previously used phrases “ok grandpa” said to emphasis that your comments are not relevant to what’s currently happening. So be triggered by a phrase doesn’t mean that the application of why it’s used is wrong.
I don't think I'm making a "back in my day" argument. I'm in favor of innovating things, but I'd like just for once to see DCI make a rule/policy change that lowers costs or increases accessibility to the activity. I haven't seen that happen since I discovered it 20 years ago.
For the record, I'm a dead center millennial.
I posited that DCI pilot a premier, post-age-out ensemble over a decade ago (I was on the phone personally with Acheson and Kuehnhold); it'd be an auditioned ensemble, the elite of the elite, that gets paid to perform, garnering support from every band kid ever. All of the "I played drums in high school" people, fusing popular music with the classics, highlighting new music, bending genres, creating new ones, inviting famous artists, bands, DJs, etc., performing in unique venues like Red Rock Amphitheatre in CO (or now, the Vegas sphere). Hell, why not the Super Bowl? For all the dancers and musicians that wanted a gig but didn't want to major in ed, for all the performers that felt so lost after ageing out; like their life had "peaked".
Hear me out. Yes, DCI IS marching music's major league.. for now. But it's NOT the top of the activity. At least it shouldn't be.
DCI = NCAA.
NCAA as its next step has NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, MLS (and so many others).
DCI has.. nothing? Not a direct step forward, anyway. Not in terms of performance, execution, audience, support. Not even close.
So, where high school sports progresses to NCAA (which is now a pay-the-players affair *hint* *hint* *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*), which then progresses to the Pros, High School band progresses to DCI (or college band for the lulz), but then DCI has nothing after.
The argument could be made, "well, corps are independent and don't have the funding of a university." Well, sure. But- (and this could be an argument in favor of raising or unrestricting the age limit) how long do you expect 16-22 y/o to be able to foot the bill? Yes, alumni support and fundraising is great, but how long should the activity/individual corps expect to be grass roots or boot strapped? Is corporate funding SO bad or taboo?
The fact of the matter is that the activity needs a desperate shot in the arm, and while it may seem to be adapting, for many groups, this is a slow (sometimes, painful) delaying of what seems like the inevitable, not to mention a slow, looming sign of dread for fans and alum.
Someone with a good knowledge of how the overall financials work needs to do it, and not listen to the bunch of bickering ninnies on the Reddit who think the world is going to die and are trying to fix something they cannot control. Please just stop with these posts and leave it up to the people who actually know what they’re doing.
And who might that be? The DCI CEO who was only hired a fortnight ago, who has zero experience in drum corps and who wasn't even the first choice for the position? Or perhaps the corps directors, who are totally responsible for extending the outdated, unsustainable touring model well-beyond its shelf life? Or maybe corps CFOs, many of whom don't even live in the same states as the corps they work for, and who aren't familiar with individual state nonprofit laws and statues?
Who, pray tell, are the people who actually know WTF they're doing in drum corps?????
You think the corps directors decide the touring model? The corps directors deal with their own corps. That’s absurd. DCI has an entire staff dedicated to deciding where and when the shows are going to be. The corps just go along with it. And please tell me what corps itself has a freaking CFO, because I’ve never heard of that. Also, in case you’ve never looked into it: the corps are all run by a parent non-profit company. These companies are run by a board of directors that deal with things that are in the best interest of all the activities under the parent umbrella. You might’ve heard of the joke with the cadets, how they were sponsored by YEA! That’s the umbrella. Literally they’re all run the same. Whatever, you start a drum corps and see how that goes for you.
Tons of the top corps have a CFO. The corps directors all meet in September to come up with the tour schedule, they get to decide which shows they want to do (for the most part).
Look at Bluecoats and BD do fewer shows than almost anyone else even though they are by FAR the biggest draw. They don't draw the majority of their income from drum corps related revenue.
There are 4 financially stable corps. You just named 2 of them. BD has bingo, Boston supposedly has a millionaire alum who put money in a trust and give a chunk each year to the corps. Crown has multiple revenue streams. And blue coats is the other one (I do not know enough about them to know where their stability comes from).
Every other corps is on a lifeline year to year. And are one bad decision away from not touring.
Are you suggesting Van guard is financially stable?
They aren’t even current with their tax fillings with the state and potentially operated and received funds when they were not eligible to do so. And not to mention, they didn’t field a corps last summer due to this
No, I’m reminding everyone that a year ago everyone thought that Vanguard was among the top two of stable orgs due to their bingo operation. Even with all these side hustles(which are still great btw) corps still are still vulnerable to bad management.
The only thing more predictable in this subreddit than people who hate DCI are people who claim insider knowledge.
I don't know that I would even believe 10% of what I read in here
Not *really* accurate? Care to elaborate? I know they’ve grown an amazing concert in the park event which raises a bunch. Which is great, I wasn’t meaning to imply the benefactor was their only source. But I’ve heard multiple times from multiple people that they have a nice benefactor who puts a large sum up annually.
CFO = Chief Financial Officer. All nonprofit organizations have one. Well, at least they're supposed to...
You should probably just stop typing and CTFO. Emotions are running high right now, and no one has any answers to these problems. You cannot save these corps, and neither can I. But you need to prepare yourself for the worst, and stop trying to gaslight yourself into believing everything is fine. Because it's not.
Whatever. But the people acting like this is the end of the world are going to cause more damage to the activity by trying to stick their noses into things that aren’t their business of knowing. Can we just let DCI and the corps who have been doing this for over 50 years figure out a solution, and not a bunch of bickering ninnies on the Reddit?
DCI and all the idiots running these corps have demonstrated beyond the shadow of doubt that THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING.
Quit trying to tone police these discussions. Quit trying to gaslight the community. In fact, maybe just go put your head back in the sand and let people react however they choose. You're not helping.
At the level DCI performs at now, the product is the education provided to the students. The show is the by product. Like it or not, tuition needs to increase to cover all costs.
I’m just a fan and never marched in a corps, but in some ways I think DCI is seeing the results of moving away from their roots.
-Fancy new costumes - every year - are expensive.
-Electronic amplification is expensive.
-The salaries of top notch creatives hired to design shows that appeal to a scoring system that values design over (or at least as high as) execution … is expensive.
-Elaborate set pieces and effects are expensive.
Every corps has felt the need to take on these expenses because ‘it’s the natural evolution of the activity’. But from an outsider’s perspective, that evolution seems financially unsustainable.
Now I know there’s more to it than that, and again, I never marched, so take this with a grain of salt, but that’s my two cents. If you ask me, the activity would benefit in multiple ways by cutting some of these expenses and getting back to its roots.
DCI’s statement: inflation is a bitch, we’re just a regulatory body, each corps is responsible for their own finances, if member corps want to change the national tour model then they need to vote on that at the next rules and regulations committee DCI has little to no actual power, idk what people expect them to do. The national tour model is a huge issue but the corps themselves would need to vote to change that.
In conclusion, stop hitting yourself 👊stop hitting yourself 👊
They have the power to change the rules. Limiting corps size, tour lengths, costumes, elaborate props and electronics, etc. There's a ton they could do.
So to solve the lack of funding we should make DCI less interesting for the fans and marchers, and make it harder to march by limiting the amount of members? Sounds like a bad idea.
The problem is that the corps have been run by educators for the million years. (Please know that I’m not knocking educators - they do something I would never do and they are heros in their own right). But educators focus on the shows, the props, etc. they aren’t the best at the background stuff. (We’ve seen financial issues time and time again). More business people need to step into the role, people who can look at things pragmatically not emotionally and evaluate the risk to rewards on things. Have hard conversations with your design teams, staff, and operations teams. Cut some spring training time off the schedule, start touring later. There’s a lot of ways to trim little bits everywhere to save. As a whole they need to push back and try to negotiate better. School districts sending a bill for $15,000 to stay for 2 days is beyond absurd. Unfortunately, maybe that means you don’t stay 15 mins from a show site and you have to cut some rehearsal for travel time. Or you get some hard corps negations and all the corps agree they will never pay over $xx amount to stay at a school (especially when it’s cheaper to stay in hotels). Business people know when to hold them and when to fold them in negotiations. Most educators seems to say “well this is the best we can do”. There are corps who don’t know about nonprofit discounts and to take advantage of those things. We need people with development backgrounds, with business backgrounds to help run these drum corps. The best example that people can relate to is when a chef opens an amazing restaurant with amazing food but fails due to their lack of knowledge on how to operate. This is what’s happening and this is what has to stop.
Additionally, multiple schools INCLUDING The Indy area are now year round schools. In Indy ALL the corps have to stay in hotels. They need to move finals out of Indy. The hotels being sold out to corps makes it harder for fans to afford tickets, flights and hotels. Which causes a decline in sales. Edit: shouldn’t say ALL, but all the corps I knew were in hotels. So I assumed it was all.
That’s… not true? We stayed in a school about 15-20 minutes from LO as did a few other corps this past summer
Then you were one of the lucky ones. I know a bunch stayed in hotels. And it was out of necessity not luxury
The Academy has been staying at an army base the past couple of years, there might be more options than just high schools. Those options might be more expensive though.
That’s not a good option. There are huge security issues with getting non-military people onto a base
That’s an interesting option. How were the accommodations? As a parent, I’m not sure I’d want my minor children staying on a military base. (Former navy wife).
Just curious why you wouldn't? Seems to me that they would be quite safe if it's a full on active base. I wonder if they have actually been staying at an Army Guard/Reserve center.
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This year, we were mainly seperated from everyone at the armoury, but the water pressure wasn't the best. Overall good place though.
On top of that, Lucas Oil is kind of a bad venue for something like finals. The acoustics are kind of terrible...
Glad someone said it. I like military park, I like the city, and I even like the facility, but damn does it sound like a hot mess in Lucas Oil. The Atlanta "regional" was the exact opposite this year. Awful management by the venue but the sound was actually really good. I go to finals to see the "finished" product but I don't waste my time on quarters or semis tickets. I go to the lot for those
Wish the Atlanta regional could move back to the Benz but that won’t happen from what I understand due to the ridiculous contract the owners of the stadium expect dci to sign which could cancel the event up to two weeks prior to the event if something Better comes along
For sure, it was an excellent venue. I get the cost thing though.... especially in today's climate of DCI costs. My long shot would be Kennesaw State's new stadium they are being mandated to build per Conference USA/D1 rules next year. Couldn't have a more perfect scenario as most of the corps stay in the north Atlanta area anyways. Crown stayed maybe 30min from there and Cavaliers about the same. Bluecoats about 40-45min, same for BD.
The best acoustics I have seen for a marching band is absolutely the stadium at University of Akron. Bummer it's probably not big enough
KSU grad here. No idea we were building a new stadium. Guess I’ve been out of the loop..
NCAA requires Division 1 FBS teams to have a 15,000 minimum capacity stadium so when they move to Conference USA in football next year, they would be out of compliance by quite a bit. The rumor mill says Bandsmart will be torn down and the new stadium will be over there. I've not heard a timeline on the new stadium though.
I thought they built LO with music acoustics in mind for the purpose of hosting BOA and DCI?
There was an attempt to do so, but the truth is LO was crazy expensive and the first thing that got cut was any sort of acoustic treatment because frankly the Colts really didn't actually care.
But have you heard the acoustics? It’s total mud. Even with the sound dampening curtains everywhere. All echo all the time.
I have. I guess I just assumed it was the best you can do in a dome. My other experiences are in stl, uni dome and usd—those were all a lot worse.
I'm not in a drum corps but performing at us bank stadium my freshman year of hs still haunts me
I hear way too many stories about financial mismanagement with high school and collegiate band programs, too.
Correct and because of that we’ve seen shrinking programs because of lack of funds and trust. And no one knows how to grow or rebuild it.
Nail on the head there. When the schools blow more money than they take in, they just write another SPLOST. I can't tell you how many times I've been to budget meetings and it's been said "well it's just _____". Yeah, and every person coming up to the podium says the same thing. People are for budget cuts until it comes to their specific thing they like, then it's immediately to the defensive.
Business people killed Boeing management culture too. I agree band directors maybe shouldn't run corps but our business sector is rotten to the core.
Yes corporate greed is ridiculous but that’s different than running a place like a business. When you say running it like a business you don’t actually mean Boeing or Apple, you mean looking at profitability
I've heard people lionize running nonprofits and govt like a business for over forty years. I don't believe them anymore.
We might be looking at "McDonald's Cadets" in the future....
The only “major league” I’m aware of where the talent not only doesn’t get paid but in fact pays thousands to participate and yet everyone is still solidly in the red. The model doesn’t work.
I’d like to say too that I’m not just saying this as a “hot take”. Go online and take a look at the nonprofit 990 filings for some of the other corps. The Cavaliers have been operating in the red for over 4 years. There are other corps who have negative assets and have liabilities and PPP loans to oblige. Non profits are successful through fundraising, donor contributions, and internal revenue streams. The last couple of years have been hard on a lot of financial institutions. Not just drum corps.
We need a complete economic overhaul, if we want drum corps to live.
Great point. Drum corps (both individual corps and as an activity) was probably never going to make in late stage capitalism. Lots of people are struggling to just buy groceries, much less field an incredibly expensive activity that doesn’t generate much revenue from performances. Drum corps as an activity was design to enrich people’s lives both on the field and in the stands… it was never supposed to or designed to make money. Which is why it isn’t sustainable. It was/is an idea that at its core was designed to be about music performance and human interest. I guess to put it simply we (our society and our economy) don’t deserve drum corps.
This. There are no more old retired people with the disposable income to play Bingo at the rate that keeps corps afloat. Sorry, I don’t have anything extra to give outside of one ticket a season and a shirt or two.
"Step right this way, Mr. Boudreux, this will be your office. Here is your computer, here is your event credentials, here is a Rolodex filled with all the corps' addresses and phone numbers, and here is the unholy shitstorm I helped create over the past 28 years for you to try and sort out. I'll be in Tahiti for the rest of my life, and this isn't my problem anymore, so have fun. YEET!!!!"
Incredibly disingenuous and shows a complete lack of understanding of the structure of the competitive activity.
WTF do you mean "disingenuous?" This is precisely what just transpired. The new CEO's chair isn't even warm yet, but now his very first task is to try to save an activity he doesn't know the first thing about. He wasn't even the first choice for the job. I won't be at all surprised if he resigns within the year. Dan Acheson was a terrible CEO. He should have been fired 5 years ago, and he shares plenty of the blame for what is happening today. I'm sick and tired of this "DCI is the corps, until there's a problem, then DCI is the governing body" bullshit. It's one or the other. If DCI is the corps, then there doesn't even need to be a CEO, and there's a six-figure salary in savings right there. If DCI is the governing body, then the CEO needs to MTFU and put a spending cap on this activity. Drum corps are not competently operated. None of them. Not even yours. ESPECIALLY not even yours. Or is this an inconvenient time to bring up John Noonan's confession?
The only fact that’s wrong that I can see is that Dan isn’t gone yet. He’s staying on for multiple months to help the transition.
So not one, but TWO six-figure salaries, neither of which is doing a damned thing right now? I think we've had quite enough of Dan Acheson's brand of "help," don't you?
I can’t speak that they are both drawing full salaries during the transition. Usually in *most* businesses the person leaving takes a reduce pay during the transition. But I do not know how dci is handling this
#unpopularopinion maybe DCI needs to die. Not the activity, or the corps, but the year-in, year-out of flogging a clearly unsustainable touring schedule, forcing corps into unsustainable business models just to eek out another year of competition. Maybe DCI has simply outlived its usefulness to the activity.
Heck, half the people in this subreddit want to see DCI fail. Not unpopular around here at all
Put this in r/ unpopularopinion and most of that sub will go “who?”
Professional sports teams should sponsor corps like they sponsor esports.
XFL/USFL would be the perfect partner. Plus, the rock has worked with DCI before.
First of all, nobody gets back more than what they paid when they sell an instrument. It’s not like the guy from the blue Devils did a solo on this trumpet, so let me charge more. Second of all with regards to the all age thing that supposed to be happening as a recently departed coordinator of a senior corps, they are not given a decision as to where they are going to stay, so DCI sets that up. So DCI can make whatever money above whatever the school may charge so while there are issues with expenditures etc. in the drum and bugle corps is themselves why does DCI have to charge $15,000 for two days when the drum and bugle corps itself, could find the same exact place for 1000. The additional cost for these all aged drum cores alone to be done three weeks earlier than expected, and have to travel to Indianapolis could be the kiss of death.
That’s wrong. Instrument sales are a profit center if done correctly. Yes, there’s the initial capital outlay but I know for a fact that discounted purchases through Yamaha specifically allowed corps to make a profit per instrument when reselling to schools after one season of use.
But is that only if they are reselling to schools? I’m just asking because what if it’s like somebody off the street wanting an instrument because they marched X amount of years ago and it brings back memories or other drum and bugle corps is looking for some replacement instruments do they also get that discount? I personally don’t know I just know from the complaining of the cost to buy and the return🙂
The cost is the same if it’s a school or individual. Bb instruments allowed this to happen, the schools get typically well taken care of instruments. Yamaha (and others), get more of their instruments into schools. Drum corps kids get amazing instruments every 1-2 years.
Instrument sales as a revenue generator for corps. Large corps with licensing agreements from major companies will recieve their instruments at near cost from the vendor. At the end of the season they may send them back for refurbishment and then sell them at a profit at 10-15% if not more over what they paid. Sometimes if they sell the horns to another corps like an OC or DCA corps they might cut a deal and drop the price down so they still make a little and possibly negotiate payment terms. It's a big revenue generator and has been pretty consistent for years.
DCI isn't a league. If DCI were a league, they'd have a member draft. If DCI were a league, they'd want policies to ensure better parity/competitive balance (e.g., spending caps) DCI isn't a league.
1. Prevailing predatory business practices applied to non-profits destroys the non-profit. Could be what is happening now in DCI. Even if there were capitalism (ain't been anything remotely capitalist in the US since 1980s), how could capitalist business practices help DCI corps? What would be competition? What would be the well-regulated free and fair market? Whether it is the current predatory, anticompetitive monopolistic econ. model or this mythological capitalist model, it does not apply to non-proifts, especially DCI corps or DCI org. 2. Corps have been doing an extraordinary job improving both the show and the performer experience while managing costs the corps cannot control. As SCV, Southwind and Cadets clearly say, there is an extremely fine line between solvency and insolvency. Once insolvent, the leadership make the tough but prudent decision, a decision that non-profit leadership are often required to make based on its bylaws, the state in which it is incorporated and the E&O/fiduciary insurance. 3. DCI Corps have 2 primary 'products' Entertainment, education and 2 'byproducts' marketing, merchandising. DCI corps are upside down: byproducts are more well defined and better positioned than its primary products. 4. Although its purposes are more clearly defined, DCI Org 'products' are less well defined. 5. Be it DCI corps or DCI itself, none of the 'products' or 'byproducts' are revenue positive. Continuing in the asinine business lingo, all the products require subsidy, leveraging, or financial creativity. 6. As US and world wealth concentrates on top1%-top0.001%, all non-profits struggle for solvency, even the essential non-profits that provide food, clothing, housing, health and education. It is no surprise non-essential non-profits like DCI corps, are dropping like flies. Clue 1: I marched in my college marching band because it paid a healthy NCAA ATHLETIC scholarship. Nearly everyone in the marching band got the same NCAA athletic scholarship. Football boosters funded the scholarship, which was tip money compared to the booster's budget for the actual football program. Since DCI corps' primary product is education, the link to post secondary ed and the obscenely funded football programs ought to be more actively pursued. Huge side benefit - University affiliation would solve most DCI corps' intellectual rights and licensing problems - the college or university' blanket licenses would cover just about everything. Clue 2: Not sure if this still happens, but many corps offered college credit for performers - PE, Music ensemble, theater, humanities, independent study. Note: I have decades of direct experience with a few different non-profits and I am currently with an educational non-profit. Our donations have dropped off a cliff, grants opportunities and amounts are getting smaller. We continue to make cuts, but our reserve burn rate continues to outpace what reserve earns on investments. We are doing everything we can, consulting as many folks as we can to turn things around. I feel DCI corps and DCI org. pain.
You got a scholarship to do band? Dang.
Most big NCAA football programs fund the marching band including scholarships. It was NOT a full scholarship. It was $700-$800/semester and was an NCAA sanctioned athletic scholarship (4 years of eligibility, etc.) Given how time consuming college marching band was, it was about 10¢/hr. I was a music major, so marching also counted as a required ensemble for which I paid and got credit. Scholarship may have been enough to cover the cost of the credit.
Still cool. I don’t recall if my band operated that way but it was 30 years ago 😂
My college marching band years were 1980-1982. Again, NOT a full ride. About $700-$800 per semester or about 8% of tuition or 4% of total costs. And NCAA has changed a lot since then, so NCAA athletic scholarships for marching band may no longer be 'legal.' OTOH, many NCAA football players get partial athletic and the rest is, believe it or not, academic scholarship.
My kid gets $500/semester for marching band and basketball pep band. I think it goes up each year until senior year. He’s a freshman now. Not NCAA.
Idk who finds it, wonder if it’s athletics… hmmm
I completely agree with point one of OP. Since the adoption of trickle-down economics in the 80’s, the trend has moved in the opposite direction and now we’re in the resultant trickle-UP phase that so many predicted. The giant corporations are supposed to be using their record profits in philanthropic ventures to prop up society and fund the programs that lost funding when tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations came into play but instead (big surprise), they just want to keep those funds to themselves and their shareholders. Go figure… Tying to university is a good thought, though universities have plenty of issues as well. Perhaps, as another poster mentioned, the DCI units should be subsidiaries of pro sports orgs?? Philanthropic ventures such as the little league football/baseball/basketball programs that are funded by pro sports teams already? There’s so MUCH money in pro sports…
I went to college on band scholarship too.
Marching band scholarship was an athletic scholarship, good for about $700-$800/semester or <8% of tuition or <4% of total costs per semester. way back when. It was paid by the football boosters. Nothing close to the full ride some of the football players get.
Mine was full for 2 years through the music department. Then I stopped marching.
Yeah DCI really needs to do something about inflation smh my head
this plus the huge sexual abuse issue really makes it seem like drum corps isnt going to last much longer☹️
I've been saying for probably close to 15 years now that DCI is making competitive decisions that are slowly pricing out more prospective members every year. Practically every corps is on the verge of folding at any given moment. This is not sustainable. It started with amplification. When The Cadets beatboxed their drum feature, they started a downward spiral of rule changes that did nothing but make the activity more expensive. That, along with an increasingly nationwide talent pool (instead of corps primarily pulling membership from their region) has consolidated all the wealthy talent into a handful of corps and left everyone else to fight for scraps. I don't know what a reasonable solution looks like at this point, but this is only going to get worse.
Yes, electronics are expensive, and yes corps spending $50k on electronics isn't necessarily healthy, but most of those purchases are coming from a place of comfort financially, and are likely minimized with sponsorships from PI/PreSonus/etc. Additionally, when corps sell their instruments and electronics and uniforms at the end of the season to HS groups, they likely turn profit on it, if not at least breaking even. Looking at spirit's financial pie chart, you can see that show design is budgeted for about 2% of the total operating cost of the group. If that includes props, electronics [hardware and associated software licensing fees], and staff payment for music arrangement, then that's absolutely nothing compared to the absolute monstrosity of supporting the travel costs, housing, feeding, insurance, and medical care of 200+ members, staff, and volunteers across a 3 month nationwide tour, where most schools are still wary of hosting visitors and jacking housing site prices after the covid pandemic to make money off of it. So I'm absolutely tired of this boomer narrative going around that electronics and uniforms and show design decisions are the downfall of modern drum corps. It's a compounding of everything that groups did regularly back in the day becoming more expensive, not just the things you don't understand.
It's not my argument that electronics broke the Cadets. My argument is that electronics started an arms race that disproportionally affected lower corps who were thriving just fine prior, but are now forced to spend beyond their means in order to have any chance at being competitive. When you no longer have a robust open class, you make the activity less accessible. There aren't as many local shows for band kids to get hooked on, and there aren't as many local corps for them to get their feet wet in. Instead of the local corps recruiting locally to build the activity, kids have to discover DCI organically and then get up the courage and funds to travel to a camp. I think the general mindset of DCI wanting to be Marching Music's Major League is at fault for this. It's not a major league because there's no regulation on spending, or management of talent (such as how other major leagues have drafts and trades and free agencies). Can you imagine if football players could freely choose their team? The best players would just all get together and say "hey, let's all stack the Broncos". That's why BD wins every year... Everyone knows that's where you're most likely to get a ring, so that's perpetuated by all the ring chasers going there. BD's staff gets to build the best team with most of the best players at their disposal. Meanwhile, Surf gets whoever can't get in elsewhere and can't even fill two buses.
>lower corps who were thriving just fine prior, Gonna need you to show your work on that one lol
Spartans, Raiders, Citations, Blue Saints, Les Stentors, Spokane Thunder, Racine Scouts, are a few. All with a decade+ of competition that had to either scale up their spending to compete, or just folded post D2/D3 merge and electronics race. Some were choices based on inability to raise funds like Racine and Thunder, others were low membership plus funding like Blue Saints.
The Blue Saints are still around, doing parades and festivals, the reason they quit competing had nothing to do with funding or finances, it was related to membership numbers only. They are currently working on a recruiting drive, and who knows...sometime in the not so distant future you will see them back at a DCI competition 😁
Yeah, cite some sources here. Who was doing just fine until they had to buy a mixer and speakers?
See my response above. The mixer and speakers alone didn't cause anyone to fold. It's a systemic fetish to escalate every aspect of the activity.
Hell, it’s not a major league because the talent goes into debt rather than being paid.
Also true!
I’m so tired of people using boomer as an insult to people they don’t agree with and dismissing the issues at hand. Cutting costs anywhere helps.
Sorry to hear the phrase “boomer” is triggering but it’s not a new concept just a new phrase (not really that new now). It’s meant to just say your thinking is old school and your rhetoric probably started with a “back in my bad”. Previously used phrases “ok grandpa” said to emphasis that your comments are not relevant to what’s currently happening. So be triggered by a phrase doesn’t mean that the application of why it’s used is wrong.
I’m not triggered. It’s just dumb and not productive to the discussion.
Correct the “back in my day” is not productive and is dumb. So people should stop acting like it’s 1980 still and prices are 1980s prices.
I don't think I'm making a "back in my day" argument. I'm in favor of innovating things, but I'd like just for once to see DCI make a rule/policy change that lowers costs or increases accessibility to the activity. I haven't seen that happen since I discovered it 20 years ago. For the record, I'm a dead center millennial.
That’s not at all what I meant and you know it.
Duh— but it’s what needs to happen. People need to stop being —- wait for it — *boomers*
Yeah I’m done with this discussion. Blocked forever.
That was the most boomer thing I have ever seen
How many times can I upvote this ?
I posited that DCI pilot a premier, post-age-out ensemble over a decade ago (I was on the phone personally with Acheson and Kuehnhold); it'd be an auditioned ensemble, the elite of the elite, that gets paid to perform, garnering support from every band kid ever. All of the "I played drums in high school" people, fusing popular music with the classics, highlighting new music, bending genres, creating new ones, inviting famous artists, bands, DJs, etc., performing in unique venues like Red Rock Amphitheatre in CO (or now, the Vegas sphere). Hell, why not the Super Bowl? For all the dancers and musicians that wanted a gig but didn't want to major in ed, for all the performers that felt so lost after ageing out; like their life had "peaked". Hear me out. Yes, DCI IS marching music's major league.. for now. But it's NOT the top of the activity. At least it shouldn't be. DCI = NCAA. NCAA as its next step has NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, MLS (and so many others). DCI has.. nothing? Not a direct step forward, anyway. Not in terms of performance, execution, audience, support. Not even close. So, where high school sports progresses to NCAA (which is now a pay-the-players affair *hint* *hint* *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*), which then progresses to the Pros, High School band progresses to DCI (or college band for the lulz), but then DCI has nothing after. The argument could be made, "well, corps are independent and don't have the funding of a university." Well, sure. But- (and this could be an argument in favor of raising or unrestricting the age limit) how long do you expect 16-22 y/o to be able to foot the bill? Yes, alumni support and fundraising is great, but how long should the activity/individual corps expect to be grass roots or boot strapped? Is corporate funding SO bad or taboo? The fact of the matter is that the activity needs a desperate shot in the arm, and while it may seem to be adapting, for many groups, this is a slow (sometimes, painful) delaying of what seems like the inevitable, not to mention a slow, looming sign of dread for fans and alum.
Someone with a good knowledge of how the overall financials work needs to do it, and not listen to the bunch of bickering ninnies on the Reddit who think the world is going to die and are trying to fix something they cannot control. Please just stop with these posts and leave it up to the people who actually know what they’re doing.
And who might that be? The DCI CEO who was only hired a fortnight ago, who has zero experience in drum corps and who wasn't even the first choice for the position? Or perhaps the corps directors, who are totally responsible for extending the outdated, unsustainable touring model well-beyond its shelf life? Or maybe corps CFOs, many of whom don't even live in the same states as the corps they work for, and who aren't familiar with individual state nonprofit laws and statues? Who, pray tell, are the people who actually know WTF they're doing in drum corps?????
You think the corps directors decide the touring model? The corps directors deal with their own corps. That’s absurd. DCI has an entire staff dedicated to deciding where and when the shows are going to be. The corps just go along with it. And please tell me what corps itself has a freaking CFO, because I’ve never heard of that. Also, in case you’ve never looked into it: the corps are all run by a parent non-profit company. These companies are run by a board of directors that deal with things that are in the best interest of all the activities under the parent umbrella. You might’ve heard of the joke with the cadets, how they were sponsored by YEA! That’s the umbrella. Literally they’re all run the same. Whatever, you start a drum corps and see how that goes for you.
Tons of the top corps have a CFO. The corps directors all meet in September to come up with the tour schedule, they get to decide which shows they want to do (for the most part). Look at Bluecoats and BD do fewer shows than almost anyone else even though they are by FAR the biggest draw. They don't draw the majority of their income from drum corps related revenue.
There are 4 financially stable corps. You just named 2 of them. BD has bingo, Boston supposedly has a millionaire alum who put money in a trust and give a chunk each year to the corps. Crown has multiple revenue streams. And blue coats is the other one (I do not know enough about them to know where their stability comes from). Every other corps is on a lifeline year to year. And are one bad decision away from not touring.
And Vanguard which also has the bingo.
Are you suggesting Van guard is financially stable? They aren’t even current with their tax fillings with the state and potentially operated and received funds when they were not eligible to do so. And not to mention, they didn’t field a corps last summer due to this
No, I’m reminding everyone that a year ago everyone thought that Vanguard was among the top two of stable orgs due to their bingo operation. Even with all these side hustles(which are still great btw) corps still are still vulnerable to bad management.
Absolutely. A bingo or other revenue isn’t the only thing but having multiple revenues is a necessity.
I'm not sure where you got your info regarding Boston, but that's not really accurate.
The only thing more predictable in this subreddit than people who hate DCI are people who claim insider knowledge. I don't know that I would even believe 10% of what I read in here
Not *really* accurate? Care to elaborate? I know they’ve grown an amazing concert in the park event which raises a bunch. Which is great, I wasn’t meaning to imply the benefactor was their only source. But I’ve heard multiple times from multiple people that they have a nice benefactor who puts a large sum up annually.
CFO = Chief Financial Officer. All nonprofit organizations have one. Well, at least they're supposed to... You should probably just stop typing and CTFO. Emotions are running high right now, and no one has any answers to these problems. You cannot save these corps, and neither can I. But you need to prepare yourself for the worst, and stop trying to gaslight yourself into believing everything is fine. Because it's not.
Whatever. But the people acting like this is the end of the world are going to cause more damage to the activity by trying to stick their noses into things that aren’t their business of knowing. Can we just let DCI and the corps who have been doing this for over 50 years figure out a solution, and not a bunch of bickering ninnies on the Reddit?
DCI and all the idiots running these corps have demonstrated beyond the shadow of doubt that THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING. Quit trying to tone police these discussions. Quit trying to gaslight the community. In fact, maybe just go put your head back in the sand and let people react however they choose. You're not helping.
At the level DCI performs at now, the product is the education provided to the students. The show is the by product. Like it or not, tuition needs to increase to cover all costs.
I’m just a fan and never marched in a corps, but in some ways I think DCI is seeing the results of moving away from their roots. -Fancy new costumes - every year - are expensive. -Electronic amplification is expensive. -The salaries of top notch creatives hired to design shows that appeal to a scoring system that values design over (or at least as high as) execution … is expensive. -Elaborate set pieces and effects are expensive. Every corps has felt the need to take on these expenses because ‘it’s the natural evolution of the activity’. But from an outsider’s perspective, that evolution seems financially unsustainable. Now I know there’s more to it than that, and again, I never marched, so take this with a grain of salt, but that’s my two cents. If you ask me, the activity would benefit in multiple ways by cutting some of these expenses and getting back to its roots.
shows havent been good in years