For those of you who have always wished for a “Drum corps on the big screen†experience, this is your year! On Thursday, Aug. 5, at Regal Cinemas around the country, Division I quarterfinals will be aired on 92 big screens in 43 theaters nationwide in a special, closed-circuit broadcast!
If you can't make it to Denver for finals, this is absolutely the next best thing. Imagine taking in the power, precision and pageantry of drum corps while enjoying popcorn and Skittles in the friendly confines of your local theater!
Tom Blair, longtime executive producer of the DCI World Championships DVDs as well as the DCI television broadcast, put it simply: “Grab your popcorn, put your feet up, grab on to the armrests and prepare to be blown away,†Blair said.
Blair said he wants to emulate the World Championships experience closer to home. “The whole idea is to give the fans the in the theater an experience similar to being at the World Championships site. I'm going to gear this to people who wish they could be there, and give these people a flavor of the championships experience,†Blair said.
Blair noted that the cinema broadcast is another opportunity for fans who can't fly to Denver to enjoy an awesome drum corps evening.
“I think this part of the big picture, another one of the unique of ways that we can now present the World Championship experience to a whole different fan. We've got the DVDs that are the ultimate experience in the home, for the afficionado, who wants to know every detail for a corps' performance. We've got the PBS broadcast, which allows us to reach out to the people who aren't familiar with drum corps, which features background on performers and the entire experience -- a little less than the pure drum corps experience. The theater experience gives us the opportunity to take 35,000 people who can't come to Denver, take them into that stadium and give them the same experience that they might have being at World Championships. It's another way to expand into different audiences,†Blair said.
The broadcast will begin at 5 p.m. mountain time and will show the last 17 corps performing in their entirety. Clips of the first seven corps performing will be shown before the live broadcast, so all 24 corps will have exposure for this live event. We expect the show to end around 10:30 p.m. mountain time, after the last score is announced.
It will be broadcasted in standard definition but will be shown in Regal's high definition theaters and in stereo surround sound.
Ticket information:
     ADVANCE: $15 (available 6/22-8/4)
     WALKUP: $18 (8/5)