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DCI All-Age “Unified Format” Explained | Sunrisers Director David Hobart (Quick Sip)
179 Plays15 days ago
Your All-Access Pass to the Marching Arts.
This season’s first Quick Sip is a fast, focused conversation about DCI All-Age’s new “unified format” for 2026.
Trish O’Shea (@trishdish1002) sits down with David Hobart, Director of the Sunrisers Drum & Bugle Corps (@sunriserscorps), who was in the room for the director conversations and vote. David breaks down why the format change happened, what it could improve for the activity, and how All-Age plans to keep honoring the legacy and people who helped build DCA history—while stepping forward into the DCI era.
Also: David teases Sunrisers’ 2026 production “Outlaw” and what fans can expect from the corps this season.
Guests / Hosts
- Trish O’Shea — @trishdish1002
- David Hobart — @hobart_david
- Sunrisers Drum & Bugle Corps — @sunriserscorps
Sponsor
- Guard Closet — @guardcloset
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Quick Sip'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone! This is Trish from On A Water Break with a quick sip. Now, this is not a long water break. This is not even a gush and go. This is just a quick sip.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hey, this isn't a full water break. It's just a quick sip. Let's go!
Introducing David Hobart
00:00:25
Speaker
Joining us today is director of the Sunrisers All-Age Drum Corps, David Hobart. Welcome, David. Thanks, Trish. Glad to be here. Glad to have you here.
Unified Format for All-Age Drum Corps
00:00:35
Speaker
On the last episode, they kind of talked a little bit in the news segment about the new All-Age format for DCI for 2026. I assume it's 2026 starting. Oh, yes, yes. And you were at that meeting, correct? Yes, I was.
00:00:53
Speaker
tell Talk to us about this as DCI is calling it a unified format. Well, I'll tell you that it didn't start at that DCI meeting. Uh,
00:01:05
Speaker
the director had several conversations. You know, and i was going into a couple years ago, a proponent for the three classes, because it was, I used it as growth of the sunrisers in class a that kind of catapulted us into open class. So we, it was very useful for us. um and useful for others. What we're trying to do create
00:01:35
Speaker
create you know We're aligning with open class which is and world class, which is one class each. right So it's um that alignment ah goes with the DCI alignment and how they do things. We are DCI cores now. So nobody is forcing us to do this. This is something that we voted on as as a group.
Alignments: Open vs. World vs. Unified
00:02:04
Speaker
But my personal thoughts and and some of the conversations I've had with other directors and admin is that it allows us to have a unified voice.
00:02:20
Speaker
you know unified voice meaning that if you're 11th, 12th place, you have the same voice as one, two, and three. um So you're not divided by your class. It also, know, it With DCI, you know when you're a finalist, that's a great that's a great thing. right so you In terms of how we market things, we can market ourselves the sunrisers as a finalist in our in our class. and That's kind of ah an exciting thing to do. um
00:02:59
Speaker
Now, you know, some may say, um and I said this in previous years, that we want to compete within our means, right? So it's that's where AA Open and World were.
00:03:12
Speaker
um But I can see us competing still within our means. It's just, you know, what what block do you end up in? You know, is are you in one through four you know, five through nine, or or where
Director Debate on Class Alignment
00:03:27
Speaker
are you? um And also, you know, some some may say that they're an artificial ceiling with a couple groups, that maybe they cut themselves off and with performers so that they didn't move out of their class, so that they would have more of a chance to win instead of using it as a catapult. But, you know, we can't say that's actual fact, but we we know that
00:03:54
Speaker
there were some groups in those categories. So, so I, I just, I appreciate what class a and open class were meant to do. um There is nobody saying that we couldn't vote this back into three classes after a couple of years of trying the, you know, the all age one class, one
Legacy and Honors in Drum Corps
00:04:16
Speaker
division. So it's up to the directors guidance, guidance from our ah leadership.
00:04:24
Speaker
Was there any chatter behind the scenes at the meeting from the opening A-class cores? Like, what should we do? Are you on board with this? How do you feel about this? Was any of that happening?
00:04:36
Speaker
That happened. a lot of that happened prior to us going out to the meeting. um You know, there was, ah in the end, um it was the majority of the cores, you ah voted to move forward with this. And, you know, there were some some discussions prior that that were intense and also...
00:05:04
Speaker
so ah A little bit heated emotional. That's kind of what we directors do because we're passionate about the activity. So we hear hear everybody out.
00:05:15
Speaker
Everybody was heard in this decision. so And then, again, it wasn't a force of the arm by anyone. it was so yeah by the membership of the LH.
00:05:30
Speaker
Okay, awesome. We'll see how it goes, sister. Yeah. Try it out. Absolutely. i wasn't aware that there was um the ah you know, that there was discussion about if this if we don't like this, we can vote to change it
Committee for Honoring Historical Figures
00:05:46
Speaker
again. i I wasn't aware of that. um' Just on a personal note for me, this might will ah affect other people, but just a personal note for me as a friend of the Gisualdo family and as a former brigadier who was really close to Joe Gisualdo and the family. The A-Class Trophy was donated by the Giswaldo family in memory of Joe. Was there any discussion of what? And I don't know if there was an open class um trophy that was dedicated. I know that the A-Class Trophy was from the Giswaldo family in honor of Joe Giswaldo, who did so much, not only for the Syracuse Brigadiers, but for the activity. Was there any chatter as to like, does that end now? Does that trophy just not exist anymore? Yeah.
00:06:26
Speaker
i I'll tell you, Joseph Gisualdo was a good friend of mine also. i mean, we've had many, many lunches in Syracuse at the super top secret Italian restaurant down the street kind of thing. Oh, the super top secret. Yeah, yeah. So um I will say that we formed a committee of which I'm on the committee so that we can honor those names.
00:06:53
Speaker
We're going to talk about You know, we're we're DCI now. DCA. Right. Has that history there. ah with Very important history to all of us. So we will continue continue.
00:07:11
Speaker
to have those families involved ah with something that we do. We're just not sure where that is yet, but there will always be a place for the founders and the people that set us up for success. And then, you know, we're talking about how do we how do we start doing that as DCI All-Age?
00:07:38
Speaker
Right. So we had DCA all age where these people were very, very important. to out How do we now ah maybe have some new people involved?
00:07:50
Speaker
Well, continuing to continuing that legacy that that was left behind. So it's something that that a few of us are on committee. We're going to be discussing it. But I will tell you that there will be a place somewhere where we continue to honor those people such as Joe.
00:08:11
Speaker
Love that.
Sunrisers' 2026 Production 'Outlaw'
00:08:16
Speaker
um So getting back to the sunrisers a little bit, you've already announced your 2026 production Outlaw. Can you give us sort of just little, mean, don't give, a you know, don't give us, you know, don't give it all away right now, but you just want to share a little bit about that to get us all excited for 2026.
00:08:37
Speaker
Sure. I mean, it's... it's The show is is going to be very exciting. It's a modern take of what an outlaw may be, right? So you're going to see modern Western-type feel to it. The costuming is going to be out there um and very outlaw-ish.
00:09:01
Speaker
um You know, where we're doing a show... that one would think that the troopers would do right and okay but it's something totally different than what the troopers would do.
00:09:14
Speaker
I spoke my good friend, Mike Goff, and talked to him about the show and what we're we're doing. And he was really digging it because of the style of the music and and so on. But it is something, you know, we're not, you know, we're not playing How the West Was Won or or those Western heritage kinds of things. So it's all right it's kind of a, ah but it's going to be,
00:09:40
Speaker
very whimsical, I could say. and just You're going to be able to follow the show. you know Last year, were doing more of a contemporary type of thing, which was great for us. But I think year...
00:09:56
Speaker
you know Being a modern outlaw could be could be a great thing for our membership. and it's The music is pretty intense and exciting. and i think this is going to crowd appealing show and competitive at the same time. Awesome. I love everything about that. I really can't wait to see it.
Closing and Credits
00:10:17
Speaker
And that was a quick sip. But before you close out of your listening app, don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube and all of the social media platforms at On A Water Break and feel free to write us a review. Well, David, we're getting called out from the box to get back out on the field. So we better get out there. And everybody, thanks for joining our quick sip.
00:10:44
Speaker
The On a Water Break podcast was produced by Jeremy Williams and Christine Rehm. The intro and outro music was produced by Josh Lida. To learn more, visit LidaMusic.com.
00:10:55
Speaker
And until next time, thanks for tuning