Marching Music Media Days

Having just spent an entire post putting DCI corps in a college athletic conference framework, allow me to about face.

One of the truest harbingers of the college football season - Media Days - is right around the corner. Media days offer an opportunity for fans to get optimistic about their still-undefeated teams as coaches and players get put through the rigamarole and address members of the media. For the college-football-starved populace, their beginning in mid-July is a sure sign that the season itself is right around the corner.

I've speculated - sometimes publicly - about media days encompassing more of the college football experience, namely, the bands. It wouldn't be much to throw a band director and a drum major on the bill for each school. That said, I recognize that the audience for that is limited (me and perhaps you, dear reader), at least among the football crowd. So if you're going to do marching music media days, why not put it on where you know fans of the activity will be?

While DCI pushes event attendance largely to high school students, the fact is most of the marchers at the world class level are college-aged. Knowing that some of your student leaders may be on tour, while many more are attending shows, why not use DCI shows a host for Marching Music's Media Days?

Again using the conference framework - since that's how media days are structured - as a model, roughly the same time frame used for college football would work for 3MD. The Southwestern Regional in San Antonio could host media days for the Pac-12 and Big 12. The SEC would find itself right at home in the Georgia Dome during the Southeastern Championship in Atlanta. The ACC could find its home a week later at the Eastern Classic in Allentown, and Big Ten bands could start their season in the same place they all hope to end it: Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. In each location, the "marching media" would have their crack at conference band leadership while taking in some drum corps to boot. Where do I sign up?