Looking back on 2007

In 2007 we saw The Senators winning the DCE European title as first ever UK corps, The Blue Devils becoming the DCI World Champions, and the DCE Competition Manual used by all national drum corps organisations. We listed some highlights of the year in this article.


JANUARY

Videoclips from the DCE European Championships 2006 were published on the media page of the DCE website, and four days after the clips were added, Drum Corps Europe reports almost 6,000 dowloads from the server.

The Cavaliers have decided to forgo their planned June, 2007 competitive tour to Europe and will remain in the United States, beginning their summer competitive schedule on Saturday June 16th, in Annapolis.

Drum Corps United Kingdom officially announce that ason Oates has been appointed as the new DCUK judges administrator. Jason is renowned as a long time supporter of the drum corps activity and brings with him to the role many years of experience as both a judge and an administrator.

The executive board of the Kiwanis Kavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps has decided that the corps is to remain inactive for the 2007 season. The administration will utilize the coming months to plan and prepare.


FEBRUARY

Bristol, UK was the venue for an extremely well attended seminar that covered the entire process of the Drum Corps Europe Competition Manual, concentrating on the responsibilities of the judging system, the philosophies of its application. Contingents from the Judges Association UK (formally known as the DCUK Judges Association), The British Youth Band Association and from The Irish Marching Band Association were present.

DIO Drum & Bugle Corps from Dordrecht - The Netherlands have decided to go inactive after calling a member meeting. In spite of the valiant efforts in previous years, new and old members have not succeeded in keeping their heads above water.


Due to the rising costs of airfare, the Hawthorne Caballeros have cancelled the 2007 plans to tour Europe. Hopefully, the economical situation may be more favorable if the opportunity becomes available in the future, says Corps Director Frank Gerris.


MARCH

The DCUK management team has worked hard on its commitment to reduce the cost of membership and further explored avenues of incentivising participation. In essence while there will be an upfront cost to register with MPA-UK and DCUK at both a corporate and individual level, DCUK are able to offer participation rebates to corps based on the level of their commitment and the number of shows they participate in.

The website idrumcorps.com is a new online community that lets you meet your friends, meet their friends, and just make new friends all through drum corps that links all these people and idrumcorps.com together.

The British Youth Band Association will trial the DCE manual this summer. The first trial of the DCE system will take place at the Academy Brass Show on 14th July 2007 for the Division I and Associate Class, with a further second half of consideration under review at this time.

Users of the online society Second Life are now able to watch DCE drum corps videos. At the virtial clubhouse of KMNL, the video clips are shown on a big screen. KMNL is a project of korpsmuziek.nl, a Dutch website dedicated to marching music.


APRIL

The Blue Lions, the French team that was last involved in DCE during the Championships 2005, has undergone a radical change to its structure during the last ten months. With its 10 years of experience as a marching percussion unit, the board and members decided to embark on a new adventure by laying the foundations of a drum & bugle corps.


Percussion fans were able to enjoy top percussion during the Masters of Percussion event in Gent - Belgium. The European Individuals & Ensembles for percussion, various master classes, an indoor percussion competition, a music academy student�s final project, and Rhythm X in action: it could all be fitted in on one day.

Drum Corps Europe has organised a large-scale training session for judges in Bristol. Dozens of judges from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium took part in the 'Judges College'. The DCE Competition Manual and the judging philosophy were dealt with in depth over two days.

The domain name drumcorps.fr is in use again. Drum Corps Europe has owned the domain for three years, but as a result of a dispute between the company that had registered drumcorps.fr and the French internet authority, the domain, together with thousands of other domain names, was blocked for several years.

In the weekend of 21st-22nd April, Drum Corps Europe organised the third edition of the annual European Adjudication College. Judges from the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Belgium took part in the training course and agreed afterwards that it again proved to be a particulary instructive and practical clinic.


MAY

Ticket sales for the DCE Championships 2007 kicked off with a massive run on the tickets. More than 350 entry tickets were ordered within 24 hours. Half of the VIP section on the stand has been sold in one go.

As from this year, the Drum Corps Europe judging team will no longer be working with cassette tapes. The introduction of a new system with digital voice recorders means a drastic change in processing judges' comments.

The British Youth Band Association welcomes The Phoenix Youth Band from Dublin - Ireland into membership. The band has enjoyed a successful and varied career, both on and off the competition field.

The drum corps community idrumcorps.com has launched a new, user driven content website: 'Dig It!' Everything on Dig It! is submitted by drum corps fans themselves.

Drum Corps Europe will be placing judges' comments from DCE and DCN contests online. The judging team's new digital recording system makes this method of distribution possible.


JUNE

Southern Aurora and Legion Star have announced a partnership that will see the two corps come together to perform and compete as one unit for 2007 the summer season.

Drum Corps International has opened a new online home. With the re-launching of DCI.org, DCI hopes to provide their website visitors with a new and engaging way to find information and experience multimedia on the web.

Contests held by drum corps organisations in Europe satisfying conditions set by DCE can be regarded as 'certified' from now on. In order to comply, the contest must be judged on the basis of the DCE judging manual and the performances of the corps must be assessed by DCE certified judges.

Spirit of Coventry is a new drum & bugle corps based in the Wyken area of Coventry. Spirit is a non-profit making youth marching band with a mixed sex membership, recruiting from anyone aged 7+. The corps plans to do UK competitions in 2008 as well as carnivals, fetes, parades and concerts.

Senior representatives of the major marching band and drum corps organisations met for the second time to thrash out some further steps to help give their members experiences that will bring them closer together. Several steps were taken to solidify much of the discussions that had taken place previously in Brussels. One significant step forward was the agreement to host a DCE Power Regional in the UK on Saturday 21st June 2008.



JULY

In another exciting turn of events in the 2007 Summer Music Games, the Bluecoats (83.700) won the competition in Centerville - Ohio against the Blue Devils (83.500) and the Cavaliers (82.700). This is the first competition the Bluecoats have won this year after placing a close second at many others.

They say lightening cannot strike twice in the same place. With the current British weather anything is possible - and following the last minute change of venue for the first DCUK Contest at the beginning of June it is the weather that has had a major hand in forcing the second DCUK Contest to move venues.

Winter Guard United Kingdom has announced that at our 2008 Championships on 5th April we will be presenting the first British Indoor Percussion Championships.

Over the last few months the Directors of both Vintage Percussion and 37th Kingswood Scouts have been in discussions about how both organisations can work together to raise both organisations profiles to support a separate winter and summer programme with no impact to their organisation and the activity as a whole.

Sky Blues Drum & Bugle Corps is a new independent corps based in Kenilworth with an aim to recruit from Leamington, Warwick, Stratford, and Coventry. The corps is looking for staff.

Thousands of fans filled the Georgia Dome to watch the top 12 Division I drum corps compete head-to-head against each other at the Coltrin & Associates DCI Southeastern Championships in Atlanta - Georgia. The top seven corps have been switching positions the entire season, but the Blue Devils (88.475) came out on top at tonight's show with the Cadets (88.150) and the Cavaliers (88.125) very closely behind.


AUGUST

The Blue Devils completed their three-day sweep of the 2007 Drum Corps International World Championships Saturday night, winning the final show of the season in impression fashion with a 98.000 and sweeping the Brass, Percussion, Ensemble Visual and General Effect caption awards.

Drum Corps Europe is offering its SMS Service for the second consecutive year. Drum corps fans can register for the SMS Service to receive the scores on their mobile phones during the DCE Championships at practically the same time the scores are announced in the stadium.

The Blue Lions Drum & Bugle Corps from France have annouced that they start working on their first USA Tour in 2009. Next year, the Blue Lions hope to participate in the Drum Corps France and Drum Corps Europe competitions next year.


SEPTEMBER

The Reading Buccaneers completed their 3rd consecutive undefeated season tonight by winning the Open Class title with a score of 98.313, just a few tenths shy of the all-time DCA record high score. The Sunrisers captured the Class A crown scoring 83.988, moving up from second place in prelims.

Drum Corps Europe has decided to change the Olympic Retreat. In the afternoon as well as in the evening, the corps will be dismissed after presentation of the prizes.


The Kidsgrove Scouts have won the DCUK International Open Class title at the 2007 British Drum Corps Championships, yesterday in Burton on Trent. The corps scored a total of 88.96, 0.1 point ahead of The Senators.

Ann Legon has joined the Drum Corps Europe team as the new Judges Administrator. Ann will be coordinating the judges� panels for the DCE certified events and the DCE Championships, organising the training days/judges meetings, and the central contact for all judges and external parties.

Drum Corps Europe has again filmed a commercial this year to draw attention to the DCE Championships.The advert will be shown no less than five days, twelve times a day on the regional TV station TV Rijnmond.

Senators, DrumSpirit and Jong Jubal are the DCE champions of 2007. Thousands of drum corps enthusiasts enjoyed the climax of the European drum corps competition at Rotterdam's Sparta Stadium.



OCTOBER

The DCE Championships 2007, that took place in Rotterdam last week, was the biggest ever edition in terms of visitor numbers. There were 2,400 visitors at the event.

Drum Corps Planet has opened their photo archive to public viewing. DCP's photographers have been busy capturing images from several events this past summer, which DCP is going to share with drum corps fans.

The Percussion Class will not be returning to the Drum Corps Europe Championships in 2008. DCE has decided to drop this class as the development of percussion groups is increasingly moving indoors.

Indoor Percussion Europe is a new European based organisation, started by a group of percussion instructors, arrangers, judges and educators who are concerned about the level of percussion training and performance, primarily in Belgium, France, the UK and The Netherlands. The first IPE will be the IPE Championships in March 2008, featuring two US indoor percussion performances.


NOVEMBER

The Senators Drum & Bugle Corps have announced a theatre concept for this winter: 'Raw Rhythm' - a series of stage performances in November, January and February.

Three experts from the Flemish music organisation Vlamo share their knowledge with sixty band leaders of the Field Band Foundation. From Sunday 9th December to Saturday 15th December 2007, a 'Teach the Teacher' workshop will take place in the surroundings of the BAT Community Centre in Durban - South Africa.

Drum Corps International (DCI) announced it will suspend the national television broadcast of its World Championship event on ESPN2, effective with the 2008 season. The DCI World Championship program has aired on the ESPN2 cable sports network for the past three years and was viewed by an audience of more than one million annually.

The members of Beatrix Drum & Bugle Corps from Hilversum - The Netherlands have agreed on a US tour in the summer of 2008. The plane tickets have been booked, which was the one remaining obstacle for the organisation of the tour.

Building the Green Machine is the biography of corps founder Don Warren and a comprehensive history of the magnificent Cavaliers. Author Colt Foutz, a former reporter and columnist at the Naperville Sun, spent two years interviewing Warren to get the 'inside scoop' of this remarkable organisation.


DECEMBER

Drum Corps Europe is introducing a new level of strategic partner, known as 'Certified Partners'. National organisations that use the DCE Competition Manual for all their contests, and also use the DCE judging team may call themselves 'DCE Certified Partners'. Two of Europe's leading national drum corps organisations are pleased have embraced the Certified Partnership scheme.

Drum Corps Europe has appointed Tony Mackenzie-Jones as the DCE Adjudication Manager. Tony will coordinate all judging matters as part of the DCE management team.


The number of North American junior corps that made it to the field in 2007 stands at 53, an overall decline of six corps from the 2006 total. Of that 53, just 48 actually competed on the field, marking the first time in the DCI era that fewer than 50 junior corps made it to field competition.

Winter Guard International has agreed to keep its headquarters and its world championships in Dayton through 2014. WGI's color guard and percussion competitions have a $10 million economic impact annually on the region.

Drum Corps International has created a new division, 'OnQ Performance Education', to give students and teachers the opportunity to tap into the expertise and talent that makes Drum Corps International the pinnacle of marching music.