The 2023 Drum Corps International Summer Tour is off and running, with 10 of the summer’s more-than-80 events already in the books heading into the July 4th holiday.

With an array of competitive data already in the scorebooks, here are three key things we’ve learned from the DCI Tour’s early returns:

2023 Blue Devils | "The Cut-Outs" | Vista, CA

Minds blown 🤯 Rebroadcasts and select #DCI2023 archives available on FloMarching » dci.fan/WatchLive23 #DCI2023 | Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps

Posted by Drum Corps International on Saturday, July 1, 2023


1. 2022’s top scorers are red-hot out of the gates

Out of last season’s top-four finishers, three have already begun their 2023 tours, with Bluecoats — one of 2022’s co-silver medalists — being the lone exception. The other three — Blue Devils, Boston Crusaders and Carolina Crown — have been all but unstoppable within their respective corners of the country.

Each of those three corps have spent the season’s first days leapfrogging one another for the top score to-date, an honor currently held by Blue Devils’ 80.100, earned July 3 in Mesa, Arizona. And they’ve all had one thing in common — they’ve never left an event with a head-to-head margin of victory smaller than three points.

Of course, that will change — and it will change soon. Boston Crusaders and Carolina Crown will meet for the first time Wednesday, July 5 in Mason, Ohio, and be joined by Bluecoats. Blue Devils, meanwhile, will have their first meeting with one of 2022’s top scorers when the defending DCI World Champions go head to head with Boston Crusaders, July 15 in Fort Collins, Colorado.

2023 Phantom Regiment | "Exogenesis" | Rockford, MI

PHANTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM REGIMENT 🗣️🗣️🗣️ Rebroadcasts and select #DCI2023 archives available on FloMarching » dci.fan/WatchLive23 #DCI2023 | Phantom Regiment

Posted by Drum Corps International on Wednesday, June 28, 2023


2. Phantom Regiment picked up where it left off

Regiment finished 2022 on a hot streak, rising from a 10th-place finish at the summer’s midseason event in San Antonio, to an eighth-place ranking at season’s end.

The Rockford, Illinois corps — which scored behind seventh-place Blue Stars at the 2022 DCI World Championship Finals by a margin of 2.1 points — came out of 2023’s gates with a commanding lead over the La Crosse, Wisconsin corps.

Regiment outscored Blue Stars by the same margin, 2.1 points, at the two corps’ June 30 meeting in Muncie, Indiana, and stretched that lead to 2.25 Monday in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

2023 Troopers | "To Lasso the Sun" | Rockford, MI

Troopers are here. Rebroadcasts and select #DCI2023 archives available on FloMarching » dci.fan/WatchLive23 #DCI2023 | Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps

Posted by Drum Corps International on Wednesday, June 28, 2023


3. Troopers make early noise

Troopers’ 2023 season is off to a strong start, as the Casper, Wyoming corps looks to build off of its 2022 finalist finish in its 65th-anniversary season. To kick things off, the corps earned its highest-ever season-opening score in over a decade, tallying 66.500 points at the 2023 DCI Tour’s debut event in Rockford, Michigan.

Troopers also came out ahead of Colts — the Dubuque, Iowa corps earned 11th place to Troopers’ 12th place a year ago at the DCI World Championship Finals — in a string of three early meetings, holding an average advantage of just over a point in those contests.

The Wyoming corps added to its early success story with an eye-catching number at Monday’s event in Cedarburg. Troopers scored just 0.95 points behind The Cavaliers, while scoring as high as second place in the general effect and percussion captions. The two corps scored no closer than 4.175 points from each other in 2022.

Looking ahead, an array of corps will make their 2023 debuts during the week to come, as the 2023 DCI Tour builds into a busy July 8-9 weekend.

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