Performers are available in Summer Music Games

The annual Summer Music Games will likely bring $10,000 to $25,000 to the Fairfield High School Marching Band program.

Organizer Bruce Brown said about 5,000 spectators will be entertained and future musicians will be inspired.

The event includes more than 500 performers from seven drum and bugle corps and will take center stage June 22.

As part of the Drum Corps International Summer Tour, participants from across the country compete in 115 events from June through August, traveling by tour buses, sleeping in school gymnasiums, and practicing precise drills as many as 10 hours a day in addition to evening competitions.

More than 130 local volunteers will be on hand when the gates open at 5:30 p.m. ahead of the 7 p.m. competition, which will mark the 12th time the games have been conducted in Fairfield.

While the band earns a profit, it must pay $22,500 to bring the games to Fairfield, Brown said.

“We don’t have the modern stadium that they compete at in a lot of other places,” Brown said.

“But they come back to Fairfield year after year because they tell us the crowd enthusiasm here, and everything we try to do for them while they’re in town, is second to none.”

Seven corps will compete: Bluecoats from Canton, Ohio; Blue Stars from Lacrosse, Wis.; Madison Scouts from Madison, Wis.; Troopers from Casper, Wyo.; Crossmen from San Antonio; Pioneer from Milwaukee, Wis.; and Cincinnati Tradition, a group of senior performers from Cincinnati that retired from corps at age 21, but wished to continue performing.

Brown called the show “one of the biggest events in Fairfield,” bringing people in to stay in hotels, purchase gasoline, eat at restaurants and stop at local business establishments.

The Butler County Visitors Bureau uses the National Association of Sports Commissions economic impact formula to calculate estimated economic impact for events in Butler County.

This event, Executive Director Mark Hecquet said, could generate close to $102,000 for the county.

“Anytime you attract out-of-town guests into a community, it is a positive economic stimulator,” he said.