Labor Day Weekend, 2014, will be very special to DCA. It will be the 50th DCA World Championship – Their golden anniversary. An occasion such as this is important to any organization and Gil Silva, DCA President, advises that they are pulling out all the stops to make this event truly memorable for all. He and the DCA Executive Board have formed an ad hoc committee to ensure that the history of DCA and – indeed – the history of drum corps will be properly remembered in the coming year. This committee held their initial meeting on Friday, August 30th in Annapolis, MD.
President Silva made two announcements: First, to accommodate this celebration of 50 years, for 2014, there will be a few changes to the championship weekend schedule. He did pay homage to Rochester – the city that has hosted the world championships more than any other and felt that to be “home” in Rochester for the golden anniversary, was most appropriate indeed.
The City of Rochester in helping recognize the importance of the 50th, has agreed to move their large Labor Day Parade from Labor Day Monday to Friday night, August 29th. The participating corps will join in the parade making it the largest parade of the year in downtown Rochester. In excess of 100,000 people are expected to line the streets – a golden opportunity to show off the DCA participants and expose a huge number of non-drum corps enthusiasts to the activity just in time for the weekend’s events. The last time this was done in Rochester was for the 1996 Championships, and it was done with just the competing corps, a fraction of what will be presented in 2014. That parade preceded the largest “modern era” crowd to attend a DCA Championship Finals.
To make room for the parade, Friday night’s I&E/Mini Corps Championship and street party will be held on Saturday evening, August 31st at 6PM on Main Street and at the Riverside Convention Center in the heart of Rochester. Unlike past Rochester championships, 2014 will see all events either on the street stage or inside the convention center as they will have full use of the center. The domino effect of this is that Prelims will begin Saturday morning at 10AM. This change alone pays due respect to their heritage. For decades, Prelims began mid-morning. It also will allow even more of the participants to enjoy the huge Anniversary celebration and block party that evening. Prelims will again be at nearby Rochester Rhino’s Sahlen’s Stadium. Both the Alumni Spectacular and Championship Finals will remain on Sunday at their normal times, 10AM for the Alumni and 5PM for the Championship – both at Sahlen’s Stadium.
As part of the celebration, a 50th Anniversary drum corps museum will be open to all at the Rochester Plaza headquarters hotel on State St. There will be exhibits that will include such historic memorabilia as: old uniforms, photographs, show programs, media displays, Bugles and Drums through the years and anything else the committee can think of. To this end, if anyone has any items they would like to loan to the 50th Anniversary Committee for display, please contact Allen Buell at vp@dcacorps.org and he will have the appropriate committee member contact you. All items can either be returned to the owner or donated to the appropriate historical group for preservation. Both DCI and DCA are working with several organizations dedicated to preserving the history of drum corps.
Finally, before turning discussion over to the committee, President Silva also announced that there will be “some sort of 50th Anniversary get together” most likely be by invitation and held on Saturday night. The exact nature of this will be decided soon by the committee which is chaired by DCA Vice President and Championship Weekend Chairman, Allen Buell. This large committee includes both a healthy representation of Rochester corps people and many of the activity leaders who have been a huge part of the past 50 years. Suffice to say, the Hall of Fame is well represented on the committee. Much lively discussion took place, and it’s obvious from the great variety of ideas presented – this group (historic unto itself) will be able to guarantee the success of DCA’s Golden Anniversary Celebration – and ensure that a trip to the 50th Annual DCA World Championships will be something special and most memorable for all. For further information, contact Allen Buell at vp@dcacorps.org.