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 There are few student performing
organizations that I can think of that travel more each year than the
members of Drum Corps International. The summer performance schedule
takes corps across the United States and back again over the brief
summer break from school. The very thought of the sky high energy
costs associated with moving bus loads of people and equipment each
cross country is enough to make a person fear for the financial
stability of member corps, but these local corps are not the only
ones affected by the crunch. It appears that the broader economic
downturn has already driven the national DCI organization to make
some
drastic changes, including killing the annual 2008
championship broadcast on ESPN.
A Decision That May Come Back To
Haunt DCI
In a statement
last November, Dan Acheson,
Executive Director and CEO of Drum Corps International stated:
“We
know our fans will be disappointed with this announcement and are
likely to feel as badly as we do. We also anticipate that some fans
will want to know if we can shift back to PBS in light of this
decision, but that is not possible at this time. We hope that our
loyal fans will continue to support Drum Corps International and its
corps by attending and enjoying our live events, and by taking
advantage of our audio and video productions, our cinema events and
our ever expanding Web-based media.”
In truth, even though this was
obviously a very hard decision for DCI I honestly feel that it was
the wrong one. In this era of the Internet a company must be willing
to give something away for free in order to build and maintain a
valid community of fans. By removing the ESPN broadcast DCI removed
the last of these free outlets. The amount of publicity and interest
that the championship broadcast provided each year helped to drive
hundreds of students down the path of becoming a corps member. The
broadcast served to help schools with drumming up support for their
marching band programs, and in general helped to boost the overall
status of music as a vocation. Where else could you see music being
treated with the same level of respect and gravitas as a national
sporting event? While I honestly hated the move to ESPN and the new,
shorter format I must admit that it did have a positive effect. Now,
with the loss of this broadcast, one can only wonder if its absence
will serve to make a bad situation for DCI even worse.
Tags: drum corps international dci espn world championships broadcast
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