DCI

Is The West Coast Really The Best Coast?

Is The West Coast Really The Best Coast?

With The Cadets' recent announcement that they will be beginning their 2018 Drum Corps International Tour on the West Coast, we decided to take a look at what exactly happens when a corps from the Eastern United States takes the trip out to California. Le

Sep 29, 2017 by Andy Schamma
Is The West Coast Really The Best Coast?
With The Cadets' recent announcement that they will be beginning their 2018 Drum Corps International Tour on the West Coast, we decided to take a look at what exactly happens when a corps from the eastern United States takes the trip out to California. Check out The Cadets' announcement below on Facebook! This will be the corps' first trip West to start their season since their most recent Championship in 2011, but we'll get to that later!


What draws corps to the Pacific Ocean?

From an educator's perspective, it is critically important to receive feedback on your work so that you know if your pedagogy and design works. In Drum Corps International, that line of criticism comes from the judges -- and depending on which shows you attend, you may be performing for either eight OR five judges (special considerations for regionals and World Championships). 

In the early season, getting to perform your show for eight judges rather than five can be a huge asset for the designers and performers. This gives the staff and members an opportunity to receive more feedback, on a more detailed level due to the additional captions being judged. With a five judge panel, only one of the individual performance captions (percussion, brass, color guard, visual proficiency) will be covered. However, with an eight judge panel, all performance captions are judged independently.

In 2016 and 2017, every single show in California provided an eight judge panel (and all but two shows in 2015). This makes it relatively advantageous for corps to take the trip out West if they are looking for detailed, subcaption-specific feedback to get their season off on the right foot... so to speak. The feedback is only the first step of the process, however, as it is entirely on the corps' staff to act on that feedback or not act -- and that is what will have the potential to have an affect on their score. 

Now let's take a look at the two most recent West Coast tours from East Coast corps that resulted in a World Championship for the corps.

2013 - Carolina Crown

In 2013, Carolina Crown started their tour in Arizona then quickly shifted northward for the rest of June. They spent their next seven shows in California, with six of them being in front of an eight judge panel. They repeatedly saw the northern California corps Santa Clara Vanguard and Blue Devils, with Crown and BD trading wins back and forth for the first couple weeks of the season. Their production "E=MC2" eventually went on to win their first ever World Championship, that August. 


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2011 - The Cadets

Although the 2011 tour began in Texas, the same corps that normally frequent the early season West Coast shows were joined by The Cadets in the Summer of 2011. After brief stops in New Mexico and Arizona, the corps headed further North only making three stops in California on their way up to the Pacific Northwest. Unlike Carolina Crown in 2013, however, The Cadets only performed for an eight judge panel a few times rather than an overwhelming majority of the shows as they toured the western United States.

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What's this mean?

In general, simply performing for more judges gives the members more opportunities to get better, but it is on the corps to decide in which direction they take the feedback. One thing is certain: the potential for improvement is higher when you have nearly a third's more eyes on the show.


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