The recent question by Bill Schaefer about having corps perform to fans seated on BOTH sides of a stadium (and the example of a show where this was done), reminded me of an interesting experiment.

Some years ago, a band in Highland, Indiana ran a band contest where they hired an extra panel of judges for the show. The show was run under ISSMA rules, but was NOT a competition.

Each band was judged for their performance, but at the completion of their performance, the judges panel went down to the end zone to review tapes and comments with the staff AND the band members! This was a real hoot and was a lot of fun! The band members enjoyed hearing the judges comments and even asking questions.

Meanwhile, the second panel of judges were judging the next band. Then, they did the same review and the first panel went back to judge again.

Obviously, NOT something that would work at a DCI show.

This is fairly common with concert bands, where they play their main three pieces, then move to sight-reading where they are immediately critiqued by another judge. In some cases, a judge who heard the main performance may also give immediate feedback.

As an experiment one year when I was a high school band director, we went "non-competitive" for one year. We performed at marching shows, but for comments only - no scores given. The students understood what we were trying, and they enjoyed the experimental aspect of it, but they missed getting trophies (especially since we were pretty good and would have received several). But what was interesting was the response of the judges, who absolutely LOVED the idea! I had so many say how nice it was to simply critique a performance and not have to come up with a number at the end.

But bands exist (or SHOULD exist) for different reasons than drum corps. Competition and winning are what drum corps is all about (no matter what some of their mission statements say), whereas bands are (or SHOULD be) about education. We got more education out of not competing.

What did you do in the Corps? Snare, Drum Major, Drum Instructor/Arranger

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79

Bob, I knew that concert bands did that but hadn't experienced it with marching bands.

As you said, it was great fun for the judges. While we DID give scores, it was just informational. Having a meet with the staff and kids together was great. We gave comments, answered questions and tried to affirm the staff and kids with their shows. But, we also gave "critical" comments when needed .... it all worked fine.

Actually, THIS was the intent of "judges critiques" in drum corps when they were first started by CSJA "eons" ago. But, the pressures of competition and the politics of drum corps changed that soon enough.