Hello everyone,

Today Southern Knights is publicly announcing a large-scale change to our summer operations.

The mission of Southern Knights in 2023 is to provide a drum corps experience that is relevant, memorable, and valuable to those who want to join us on our quest. We have worked tirelessly since last June to make this a reality. Over the last few months, we have found ourselves in a loop with many interested folks who want to join us, but ultimately choose not to attend a camp weekend. They decide that Southern Knights is not the right fit for their summer.

Here are the 2 things that we hear every time:

1) SK is too far away to drive every single weekend all summer long. The schedule is too demanding.

2) $1000 in tuition is just more than I can afford right now.

We have continually leaned on our history to point us in the right direction, believing that a traditional drum corps schedule would meet the needs of our members. But we continue to find that this really is just not the case. People want flexibility with their summers. They want to reduce travel expenses with gas being so costly. And while they want to be part of a great team, they do not want to give up every summer weekend in order to do so.

Therefore, we are making a change:

In 2023, Southern Knights will be operating as a Soundsport organization.

Soundsport is a more accessible street performance style of drum corps. If you're not familiar with the activity, click on the link above to learn more. This move will massively change our schedule for the summer, and will also allow us to reduce costs by at LEAST 40 percent.

Here is what you need to know:

We will meet 3 more times for camp weekends leading into our season:

April 29: Saturday camp
May 13: Saturday camp
June 3: Saturday camp

Then, we will meet for our "full season" camp week:

Early July- CAMP WEEK: 6-day week where we house and feed the team, put our show together and prepare a friends & family performance for our final day. We are exploring other performance opportunities during this time.

After this, we will meet 2 more times:

Late July: 1 more Saturday to make sure the show is still in our brains (may also be a show weekend)
August 9-12: Attend DCI Finals week in Indianapolis Indiana, where we will compete in the Soundsport division of competition.

This change in program reduces the maximum cost to $600.

We are continuing to explore options to reduce the cost further. In total, this brings the cost of membership down $400, and cuts the number of drives to town by more than HALF.

If you have been uncertain about how feasible drum corps is, it is our mission to provide for you something that is far more achievable. If you work over the summer, this should provide fewer demands on your schedule. If you travel from far away, this will substantially lower the number of times you travel into town. If you are looking to march a world class corps in the future, we want to equip you with skills that can greatly increase your odds come November.

We are reestablishing this program with outstanding staff fully committed to your success. We invite you to join us on April 29 for our next camp weekend.

Sign up here to take your first step to adventure this summer

We thank you for your support, and hope to see you later this month.

Jordan Pitner
Corps Director