Someone willing to tell the truth

WHYY.com has a blog by Tom Ferrick about the Mummer's Parade:

What would you call a big parade that hardly anyone shows up to watch? I would call it a failure. In Philadelphia, we have a different name for it. We call it the Mummer’s Parade. News reports in the Daily News and the Inquirer made it clear that the crowd that lined up on Broad Street Thursday to see the Mummer’s strut their stuff wasn’t… well…a crowd. There were long stretches of Broad Street that remained empty all day. Even at prime locations (at the Bellevue, to name one) parade watchers ran only two deep.
Parade enthusiasts offered the usual excuses for the lack of audience. It was cold. The publicity about the city cutting off the subsidy money may have kept people away. The parade was shorter this year, but maybe there were fewer people because the usual string band performance spots were also cut back. Etc. and so forth But here is the reality: attendance at the parade has been slipping for years. It has defied various attempts to juice it. (Remember the parade on Market Street years?) Cold is not an excuse, because the parade used to draw five to six times the crowd it does today on more frigid New Year’s Days.
Lose your audience and you lose your reason for being. But, if the Mummer’s want to get serious about reclaiming their place as anything more than a folk curio, they are going to have to address these issues:
1. It is not a parade. A parade is where you stand and witness a continuous stream of performers, marching bands, floats, etc. that go by at a continuous pace. The Mummer’s Parade is a stop-and-start affair. And sometimes more stop than start - especially when it comes to the string bands, which is why 90 percent of the people go to the parade. You often have to invest four hours on a street corner to hear 60 minutes of music. In terms of pacing, it resembles the Stations of the Cross.
2. It is monotonous. I won’t go as far to say that, if you have seen one string band, you have seen them all, but if you have seen four or five you have. There is a reason for this sameness: The Mummers are wedded to tradition. Changes in performance, selection of music, choreography, and costumes come slowly and incrementally. There may be differences in the polish of the performances, but not in their basic structure. They follow rules and rubrics handed down from one generation to another. That’s why it is hard to tell one string band (or comic or fancy division) from another. Now, ask yourself this: would you stand on a cold street corner for seven hours to watch thirty troops of Boy Scouts pass by? Same uniforms. Same marching style. Same insignias. Same. Same. Same. The charm wears off quickly.
3. It is too long. Nine-to-eleven hours parades are the norm. This year, because of the cut in the city subsidy, the parade time was trimmed to a more manageable six-plus hours. Necessity is the mother of invention. The Mummer’s did it only because they would have been forced to pay additional police overtime and other costs associated with a longer parade. A shorter parade is a better parade.
4. It has too many string bands. Nominally, there are eighteen string bands. In reality, there are about six top-notch bands, six middling bands and six truly pathetic bands. Has anyone ever seriously thought of consolidating the twelve bottom-feeders into maybe five or six stronger bands? Ditto the comics and the fancies.
5. It has too many drunks. I don’t want to mythologize the past. I am sure there were always drunks at the parade (and in it, as well). But, the lid seems to have come off in recent years. Are you going to take your family to a parade where it seems like every third person is either throwing up, peeing against a wall, bobbing and weaving, shouting and screaming, or blowing on one of those #@*$! plastic horns in your ear? I think not. The drunks have driven away regular folks because no one has done anything about the drunks.
6. It isn’t about the audience. The Mummers all have the same line: “We do it all for the folks who come to the parade.” But that rings hollow to me. If the Mummers existed for the audience, heads would roll among its leadership because it is losing its audience. They would jazz it up. Change the pace. Try new things. Try anything to get the folks back. And they don’t.
Take the string bands, please. Their performances have become more and more elaborate, with the kind of flats and sets that you usually see on Broadway shows. But suppose you went to Broadway to see a musical, and entered the theater to discover that there were no seats facing the stage; they were all on the side. You’d have to watch the show from the wings. Would you pay $100 for that ticket? Ditto with the string bands. They don’t orient their performances to the audience. They play to the empty street in front of them. A lot in the audience are relegated to staring at the back of their flats. Does this make sense? No, unless you consider this fact: the parade is not about the audience. It's about the Mummers. It’s about the tribe of guys who make up the various divisions. It’s about them, not about you. So, if you are a member of the audience, you’d better get used to that fact.
This is my list. Maybe you can think of a few reasons more. And this desk is open to suggestions on how to improve the parade. But, let us be realistic. Don’t expect much to change. When it comes to the Mummers, tradition rules - expect for one. The tradition of people going to the parade.

Rico says he agrees totally, which is why he doesn't even watch the damn parade on television...