I sent mine a couple hours ago, hopefully not late. It was a good event last season.

Do you guys want my B drumline? They are looking for a league.

The more the merrier!

Who's excited? First contest scores within the hour, Honolulu is a great place to start season 40. IDEA looks to have a good season with it's core of foundation members and new editions. Some old rivalries may get re-ignited from the past. Hey there Cymbalism, yes, you were on my mind. At present we have 10 DI drumlines, 11 DII, and 13 DIII drumlines. I think it will be a very interesting season for us.

awww..... thanks Jim. You're so sweet. glad you were thinking of me. Cymbalism has had some upgrades but still not completely up to snuff. We;ll do our best :P

I wonder how the server being down for the few days will affect peoples scoring with missing the rehearsal time. I know I've been pretty lax on rehearsal since it's came back up. :/

yeah.. it affected my scores pretty badly .. it was a blow to my enthusiasm for this season, but seasons come and go. I guess it's not too late to get back into the grove and of course there's always next season.. maybe.. if the server doesn't crash forever LOL

Jim, looks who already on your tail... those buggers Beatboxers :D

Oh, I just saw that. It's OK, he's a half point back and in the wrong league. Anyways, it's you that I want haha.

Oh those darn servers. Well, it should have affected everyone evenly during the downtime, approximately 2 days, so corps could lose potentially 2.4-2.8 points, give or take. Where it would get you is how much energy did you have when it went down and how long was it back up before you actually came on? I was due to rehearse just before it went down. When I came back on, the site had been running for about 7 hours? I know this from the times on thread entries. So I lost at least 7 hours of rehearsal more than someone who came back on when the site did. Question is, we don't know who came back on or when. It could throw an interesting twist to this season.

Kind of ironic that I'm on vacation in Hawaii when the IDEA Honolulu competition comes along.

Couldn't have been in a better place then. Hope the weather was great and that you enjoyed the show....

the Tornado drum line enjoyed being there, and boy were they hard to drag away lol

Haha Kopar, that's the problem with a show in an exotic vacation destination. I'm sure no one wanted to return to the mainland, but the show must go on. Wait til you experience New Zealand if you ever get into any of my shows.

It just sounds lik a bad idea to take any of my groups to another country! lol

Ok, all talk about exotic contests aside, i have a quick question. How do you guys campaign for money, and the such?

I don't campaign often. All of my fundrasing comes from the shows that I host.

One thing i am trying right now, is at night i set my campaign to 30 energy an hour, because i usually sleep about 8-9 hours, and so i might as well do something with some of that energy that i will miss, and so far it's working, but i dunno.

Haha Kopar, 3 of your 4 groups will be competing out of country this season. All except for your MB, are in one of my shows down in New Zealand. My B groups host the Drums Down Under series of events, while my A groups are hosting all 4 Masters of FMA events this season. Glad to have ya....you will enjoy, it is middle of summer here.

OK, your other question about campaigning for money or influence. You will find many ideas on how people do this here, and personally, I find neither right or wrong. Just a different way of doing it. So far, the only advantage I have found to campaigning/fundraising is that it allows you a break from the rehearsal schedule. Other than that, no real advantage gained as far as score compared to a group who remains actively dedicated and earns money and influence through rehearsal, competitions, and successful event hosting. I would not do campaigning/fundraising before divsion I though. The experience gained through actively competing while in division II/III can be priceless. The first 3-5 seasons in division I will be slow, yet steady, progressing up. So trhis is the time to campaign in my opinion.

Hope this all helps a bit.....

Also Kopar, your system will work for you if you need the sleep. Might as well gain something out of the lost points. I would set the campaign/fundraise to the max though. This way you lose less because it takes longer to hit max. Though, the points you lose could be the difference between a top12 finish or not, possibly even an podium finish. I rehearse every 4-5 hours. The rehearsal energy maxes out at 6 hours. This way I lose no possible point gains. My money and influence is earned through hosting, rehearsing consistently, and competing successfully.

Thanks Kiwi! The reason i am campaigning is because i am trying to get and upgrade staff just so i can improve my score a bit, but I try not to spend to much time worrying about that

I upgrade my staff during preseason week from my event earnings. Always enough there to host my show and do major staff upgrading. But the higher your staff level, the more expensive upgrades get. Just me though....but my score gains are always consistent.