Arts, Sports, Festivals, etc

Print PDF

The Dayton Region has and makes available just about everything our citizens can imagine here in the Midwest. Within approximately a 60-minute drive, we offer world-class amenities in:

Dayton Dragons

• 913 overflow sellout crowds since inaugural year in 2000 (thirteen straight seasons)
• Dragons 13 year total attendance figure is 7,708,169
• In 2009, Baseball America named Fifth Third Field the 7th best Minor League ballpark out of all 160 Minor League Baseball facilities.
• In 2012, the Dragons were nominated as the “Organization of the Year” by Street and Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal. It was the first time any minor league team had been nominated for the honor.
• At the conclusion of the 2012 season, the Dragons were awarded with the Midwest League’s John H Johnson President’s Award. It honors a “complete” baseball franchise that has demonstrated franchise stability and significant contributions to its community, its league, and to the baseball industry.

• In 2012, the Dragons:
  • Averaged 8,532 fans per game
  • Had a total attendance of 588,689
  • Ranked 3^rd in 2012 in attendance among all Minor League teams (out of 160 teams)

Arts/Culture/Entertainment Data

Per capita, Dayton offers more arts organizations (85) than 79% of all similar sized cities. The Dayton Region is ranked 33rd in the nation out of 373 metropolitan areas in arts and culture. Source: Cities Ranked & Rated

Below are just some of the highlights from our various art organizations:

• Culture Works is community’s largest private supplier of general operating support to the arts, conducting the only community wide united arts fundraising campaign in the Region. Through a partnership between Montgomery County and Culture Works, the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance performances are made possible.
• The Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center is recognized as the premiere acoustically perfect performance hall in the country.
• Dayton Contemporary Dance Co. (DCDC) “is one of the greatest arts institutions in the nation. It’s Dayton’s great art export,” Michael Kaiser, President, Kennedy Center.
• The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, recently formed in July 2012, represents a merge among the Dayton Ballet, the Dayton Opera, and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. The alliance is a collection of the larges performing arts organizations in the Dayton community, offering a tremendous variety of performance and education programs.
• Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra (DPO) is led by Music Director Neal Gittleman. Through his leadership, DPO has won 9 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming and is the only one in the US that has created a rock-with-symphony concert series. One of its core missions is to work in the community, evident in its various youth outreach programs; DPO reaches 50,000 students in a dozen countries.
• The Dayton Ballet is the second oldest dance company in the nation and the only dance company in the nation that funds the development of new ballets. It is the only ballet company identified in the nation that has established a fund specifically for the creation of new works and produces a world premiere ballet every two years. Source: The Dayton Ballet
• Cityfolk presents the very best in American roots music and artists from around the world. Its summer Cityfolk Festival and year round concerts and educational programs have drawn national acclaim.
• Muse Machine, one of 12 national participants in the partners in education program at the Kennedy Center, 2005. The program recognizes and continues to develop the relationship between schools and local arts organizations.
• The Greater Dayton Arts Community serves an estimated 3,000,000 audience members annually, generates more than $122,000,000 in local economic activity, supports 3,774 full time jobs, and delivers more than $8,000,000 in local and state government revenue.
• The Dayton Art Institute ranks in the top 3% of all North American art museums in 3 out of 4 measurements. It rates among the 10 best art museums for children and is the 3rd in the nation behind The Art Institute of Chicago and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The Dayton Art Institute’s collection spans 5,000 years of art history.
• Springfield Arts Council is the arts resource for Clark County, hosting annual events such as the Summer Arts Festival and the Broadway & Beyond Series.