Bill Schaefer recently posted some reports from Bloomington ... and added some questions. Let's look at each and offer comments.

Here is one.. do fan/ crowd reactions have any impact on the judges?

As Bill put it: "Well... the Phantom Phans sure showed up last night. They were the loudest fans of the day. Do you think that crowd cheering influences the judges at all?"

In my opinion, the answer is NO! The judges are (normally) too involved in the detailed analysis of the corps performance to notice. And, the reactions can be from "partisan fans".

What did you do in the Corps? drummer

What years were you a Corps member? 1958- 63

Sometimes I felt when we were in certain contest's
way back when,this was a true statement.I feel it
really hasn't changed no matter what judges they
have now or how the Corps are judged today,I'm
sure their influenced one way or another.To me
some things never change.

What did you do in the Corps? French Horn

What years were you a Corps member? 1957 thru 1963

I think that the judges have been hearing the crowd and reacting to them, probably unconsciously. Crowd noise puts pressure on judges to see it the way the crowd does. Same in sports. Oh well, that's my opinion.

If the judges listened to fans, Norwood would have won the 1963 Dream Contest. The crowd reaction to the sunburst formation actually drowns out the music on the recording. Those people were not Norwood alumni, families or supporters. They were hardcore East Coast fans.

When the Troopers first came to compete in the midwest (early 1960s) they used to get a similar reaction the fans, but they didn't and early in their history would usually end up in 4th or 5th.

So a favorite with the fans doesn't and never did mean anything.

What did you do in the Corps? Baritone

What years were you a Corps member? Cadets 1959 to 1961 Imperials 1962 to 1966

You're wrong; I'm right. ha ha ha

Do you know who gets the credit with DCI for creating the sunburst? The Troopers. I just read this a few days ago. Not one word is said about the Norwood Park Imperials and the sunburst.

When I was judging I really didn't have time to pay attention to the crowd. When the crowd was so loud that it was impossible to not pay attention, something almost always was going on that was either well performed or pleasing and I would be aware of it myself. As to putting down numbers based on crowd reaction, that was not my way of operating because it was very obvious when there was a large grouping of fans for a particular corps, and they would be enthusiastic no matter how their favorite performed that night. I just put down my score and comments based on the performance, not the crowd reaction.

In some shows the corps that got the most reaction from a crowd actually ended up in the middle of the pack. I was trained to judge by the criteria on the back of the sheet. Either they met and/or exceeded the criteria, or they would end up in lower boxes and with lower scores. At DCI it had to be incredibly tough to make the calls because they were all so close and each had very loud and vocal followings.

What did you do in the Corps? Brass Instructor, Corps Manager

I fully agree with Jerry. Not only are the judges supposed to ignore the fans (and focus on the standards for performance), they must sometimes BLOCK OUT the very noisy and unruly fans nearby!

There are actually some GE locations where noisy fans make it difficult to hear the corps performance!

What did you do in the Corps? drummer

What years were you a Corps member? 1958- 63

Regarding judging... be it Olympics or DCI...

On the Internet, this morning:

BEIJING (AP) For the first few minutes, [USA's] Nastia Liukin didn't even know the score, unable to see anything beyond the "2" in front of her name.

When she finally did look, she figured she had to be seeing double.

"I turned to my dad and said, 'Dad, we got the same score.' He looked up and said, 'Oh yeah.' We started getting a little confused," she said.

They weren't the only ones.

The Olympic all-around champion finished with the same score as China's He Kexin in Monday night's uneven bars final, but He got the gold medal and Liukin went home with a silver thanks to gymnastics' convoluted tie-break system that sent everyone scrambling for the rulebook. Reading hieroglyphics might be easier than explaining why He won. (end of quote)

SOUNDS LIKE REGIMENT AND BLUE DEVILS, 10 DAYS AGO! Not too many years ago at all, they would have tied for first. Now DCI doesn't allow that. I wonder how they separated those two corps 10 days ago. I would have loved to have been in the judges' room for that one!

It's strange, because if you tie in a timed event, they give out double medals (I saw two bronzes given out in a swimming race). Why is gymnastics so special that they can't do the same? And why are the announcers so biased against the US's competitors that they have no problem ripping a teenage girl's performances if they are not American. I say, "Lighten up on the kiddies!", this is not a competition of importance like drum corps.

A tie is a tie. Why can we not have ties? I do agree with you, Jim. There is nothing wrong with having co-champs. As for drum corps, in several of the last years, there could have been and should have been a tie for first, even a 3-way tie or two. If a tie occurs, it occurs. Why must there be a splitting of hairs in a contrived effort to separate competitors. In this regard, timed events are much more acceptable than are judged events, in sports.

Why did DCI go away from ties for first place? Anybody here know?