The ArtsGames announces the Host City for the 2018 inaugural Games!
We are pleased to announce that Montréal will be the Host City for the inaugural 2018 ArtsGames. The games will take place in February 2018 and precede the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games.
Montréal will also host the summer 2017 qualifying rounds — “The Auditions.”
The ArtsGames is returning medaled arts competitions to the Olympic tradition
after a 70-year hiatus. Few today remember that the modern Olympics included athletic and artistic competitions through the 1948 Games, or that the arts competitions were eliminated to maintain the Games’ amateur status.
The ArtsGames will award gold, silver and bronze medals in five art forms — dance, music, literature, media arts and visual arts.
The city of Montreal was selected for its commitment to the arts, its varied performance venues, international flavor and ability to welcome visitors from all corners of the globe.
Olympian, founder and president of the ArtsGames, Ms. Sylvia Sweeney, is a native Montréaler. The ArtsGames mission, she says, is to “celebrate the excellence that exists in all cultures.”
The road to the ArtsGames began many years ago with a request from Ms. Sweeney’s uncle, the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, to stage an event that would bring cultures together.