As the book closes on the 2023 calendar, this countdown of the most clicked-on DCI.org headlines (as recorded by Google Analytics) tracks the competitive landscape of the 2022 DCI Summer Tour.
10.
As part of the DCI World Championships, caption awards are given out to the top-scoring sections throughout the competition. This list covered all of the World and Open Class winners of 2023.
9.
As the end of the 2023 season neared, Blue Devils' undefeated lead remained intact against an Allentown, Pennsylvania lineup of close contenders.
With just six days until the kickoff of the DCI World Championships in Indianapolis, Blue Devils left J. Birney Crum Stadium in a familiar place, atop the leaderboard on day one of the DCI Eastern Classic.
8.
Carolina Crown made competitive noise in its 2023 debut event, taking top marks against a field of six 2022 World Championship finalists.
Under the lights of Scheumann Stadium at Ball State University, the 2023 DCI Summer Tour reached the second show of the season, DCI Central Indiana presented by Music For All. The members of Carolina Crown, in their season debut, took home top marks at Friday night’s event, with a score of 75.000.
7.
The eventual DCI World Champions opened up a commanding lead against a deep competitive field, outscoring all performing corps by nearly two full points at a marquee late-July event in Atlanta.
Blue Devils took home top marks in all captions except percussion — which went to The Cavaliers — at the DCI Southeastern Championship presented by Ultimate Drill Book. The win is the Blue Devils’ seventh out of the last 10 editions of the annual regional competition.
6.
After missing out on the DCI World Championship Finals in 2022 for the first time in nearly 20 years, Blue Knights stormed back into a coveted "Top 12" spot.
“It’s nothing short of amazing,” drum major Lainie Metsker said of the corps’ opportunity to earn a Top 12 spot, following its Friday performance. “At the end of the day, what matters most to us is that we put on a production that we feel is best representative of what we can do and who the 2023 Blue Knights are.”
5.
Seattle Cascades and Columbians, two corps from the state of Washington, made competitive waves to cap off historic 2023 summer tours on a high note.
The journey to Lucas Oil Stadium requires months of preparation and rehearsals, in hopes of ultimately joining the Top 25 corps that reach the DCI World Championship Semifinals and beyond. For two Pacific Northwest corps, that dream was realized during Thursday’s DCI World Championship Prelims presented by Band Today.
4.
This list of "firsts" — an array of new horizons reached by various competing corps at the 2023 DCI World Championships — summarized the many competitive highlights of the 2023 Summer Tour.
Across the Drum Corps International leaderboard, history was made in 2023. Between all-time high scores, first-time competitive feats, and breakout placements, corps across the DCI landscape made 2023 a year to remember. Here are some eye-catching examples of first-time achievements made this summer.
3.
Before entering the 2023 DCI Tour's final push, Boston Crusaders earned a razor-thin victory over Carolina Crown as part of the second of two nights of Allentown, Pennsylvania competition.
A handful of red-hot competitive finishes highlighted an energetic Saturday night at the DCI Eastern Classic, as an engaged crowd of 10,300 — the highest number at the Allentown event in two decades — witnessed a close victory for Boston Crusaders. The New England corps, which posted the second-highest overall score of the two-night event, just three tenths of a point behind the Blue Devils’ mark of 95.775, earned a substantial advantage in visual captions, and a close edge in music captions.
2.
Blue Devils made a mid-season statement, setting a record-high San Antonio, Texas score as part of a head-to-head meet-up of 20 World Class corps.
The 2023 DCI Summer Tour kicked into a new gear Saturday night. At the season’s first “regional” event, the DCI Southwestern Championship presented by Fred J. Miller, Inc., the Concord, California corps — which hasn’t finished outside of first place at any event since August 8, 2019 — took top marks with an all-time-high San Antonio score of 92.600.
1.
To finish out a memorable 2023 season, the Concord, California corps celebrated its first-ever "three-peat," and earned the corps' 21st gold medal.
With its record 21st World Championship title, Blue Devils finally snagged the elusive three-peat. The Concord, California corps now joins The Cavaliers and The Cadets as the only World Class corps to win three consecutive titles. The conclusion of the 2023 DCI Tour also marked the end of Blue Devils’ second-consecutive unbeaten season. It’s been more than 1,500 days since the corps didn’t finish at the top of the leaderboard at a DCI Tour event.
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