According to Jacquelyn Y. Powell, President & CEO of the Dayton Convention & Visitors Bureau “The Bureau is pleased to announce that the WGI Board of Directors voted unanimously to continue to host their WGI World Championships in Dayton for an additional five years – 2020-2024. The CVB, along with our Montgomery and Greene County hospitality partners, aggressively competed against Orlando, Florida to win the bid to host the WGI World Championship events for the five-year timeframe. Annually the WGI World Championship events, held over two long weekends in April, bring nearly 60,000 visitors to our area generating an estimated economic impact of $20 million in our community. This is an important win for the CVB and for the Greater Dayton region. Tourism and conventions represent economic development and contribute significantly to the economic vitality of our area.”
The WGI World Championships include two long weekends of competition. The Color Guard World Championships occur the first weekend and the Percussion and Winds World Championships occur the second weekend. Competition venues include the University of Dayton Arena, Wright State University Nutter Center, the Dayton Convention Center, Hobart Arena, the Cintas Center at Xavier University, and the BB&T Arena at Northern Kentucky University. In addition, a network of approximately 50 individual practice sites provide rehearsal space for the participating groups each April. Hotels throughout Montgomery, Greene, Warren, Butler, and Miami Counties, are impacted by the WGI World Championship participants.
“We are proud to say that WGI, and the WGI World Championships, have become a part of the fabric of our community. WGI has hosted 32 out of their 41 World Championships in Dayton. We feel privileged to be the home of WGI’s world headquarters and their World Championship events and look forward to a partnership that will continue to grow for many years into the future” adds Powell.
WGI Sport of the Arts is the world’s premier organization producing indoor color guard, percussion, and wind ensemble competitions. As a non-profit youth organization, WGI serves as the leading governing body of the winter guard and indoor percussion and winds activities. It is called the Sport of the Arts because it brings music to life through performance in a competitive format. WGI competitions combine the athleticism of an Olympic event with the pageantry of a Broadway stage performance (www.wgi.org).
The Dayton/Montgomery County Convention & Visitors Bureau, an independent, non-profit organization funded by a county-wide customer hotel/motel bed tax, serves as an economic catalyst by marketing and promoting the community as THE Ohio destination and providing services for tourism events, conventions, leisure and business travel and advocacy for destination development.
