Photo by Ken Martinson/Marching.com
The Glassmen Drum and Bugle Corps from Toledo, Ohio, announced that it will go inactive for the 2013 season of Drum Corps International (DCI). “The board had a massive level of debt and felt it best to go inactive and work on paying our debt off before we go out again on the road,” says Brad Bell, vice president of the Board of Directors for the Glassmen. “We decided 2013 would be the year to do that.”
Bell cites the demise of its bingo fundraisers as the main reason for the corps’ financial problems. “We had a bingo operation that used to make $500,000 a year; slowly that bingo operation declined to the point where it cost more to run it than the profit,” Bell says. “We’ve been trying to make up that income one way or another but to no avail as we end up creating more debt for ourselves.”
Founded in 1961, The Glassmen corps holds the distinction of the only unit in DCI history to have improved its placement for 10 years in a row, from 31st in 1986 to 8th place in 1995. The organization hopes to be back for 2014.
