It was another banner year for Winnipeg’s business events scene, while our marketing team was also singled out for one of the biggest awards in tourism marketing for our Winnipeg+ campaign.
For 2025, we’re continuing our emphasis on hosting sustainable business events, along with celebrating Indigenous experiences in our city that has become such an important incubator for Indigenous-run businesses.
We have so much in store for in 2025, and many highlights from 2024, so let’s jump right in.
2024 business event highlights
Each month brought a new citywide conference or special event to the city, and we, Tourism Winnipeg (TW), loved working with the numerous boards, event planners, and decision makers to welcome everyone to Winnipeg.
It all started in January with one of our personal favourites, the fun-loving Western Retail Lumber Association for their Building and Hardware Showcase. Its members could be found all over downtown from January 14-20, adding $2.8-million to the local economy.
February brought the 2024 Educational Travel Consortium Conference (ETC; Feb 4-8), which brought 300 delegates from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States, to the city to discover why Winnipeg is a living classroom like no other. During the conference, field experiences and Learning Labs were hosted by TW’s Sarah Robinson and her Travel Manitoba colleagues, which showcased everything from The Leaf at Assiniboine Park to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, along with how we celebrate winter in all its icy glory with so much creativity.
This was followed by the 2024 Sport Events Congress (SEC24; March 13-15) featuring 400 delegates and 650 room nights, contributing $202,000 to the local economy. This meeting of the top minds in sport tourism welcomed sport tourism professionals, decision-makers, and provincial and national sport organizations, all while showcasing our top-tier sports facilities.
At a glance, a few massive citywides in 2024 that generated well over $1 million in direct economic impact each included the 2024 Aboriginal Finance Officers Association (AFOA) National Conference (March 5-7), with 1,000 delegates, 1,950 room nights, and an EIC of $1,543,630; the Canadian Rheumatology Association 2024 CRA Annual Scientific Meeting (Feb 26 – March 3) with 1,000 delegates, 1,525 room nights, and an EIC of $1,568,347; Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 2024 National Sector Council Conference (Oct 6 – 10) with its 1,000 delegates, 3,090 room nights, and EIC of $1,142,000; and the fully charged 2024 CIGRE Canada Conference and Exhibition with 500 delegates, 2,250 room nights, and an EIC of $1,003,589.
And that’s just a sampling of some of the larger conventions we helped bring to the city which continued to do so much for the local economy.
Looking to 2025, and beyond
Massive stand-up festival returns
One of the largest events in the city for 2024 was the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival, which Crystal Seman, our business development manager for sports and special events, was instrumental in landing.
Taking place from July 19-21 in beautiful Assiniboine Park, the event featured headliners like Nate Bargatze, Tom Segura, Gerry Dee and Bill Burr, selling 21,000 tickets including 5,000 tickets that were purchased from outside Manitoba. This huge draw for locals and tourists alike was such a smashing success that tickets are already available for the 2025 festival (July 18-20), with headliners including John Mulaney, Jim Gaffigan, Whitney Cummings, Ms. Pat and Bert Kreischer.
Getting sporty
Winnipeg is always ready to play ball, and our live sports scene will welcome two blockbuster events in 2025.
In August we’ll host the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL)’s 2025 Championship Weekend, flaunting to hoops fans from across the nation why our Sea Bears continue to draw sold-out crowds under the guidance of their president Jason Smith, who has been named the CEBL Executive of the Year for two straight years.
Then November 16th will see the 112th Grey Cup take place at Princess Auto Stadium, with a full of house of 32,343 fans assured (so book your rooms today!). Considering our Blue Bombers have made the last five consecutive Grey Cups (let’s not bring up last month’s final, but congrats to the Argos), the boys in blue and gold will be looking to make it 6, along with a third CFL championship in that space of time.
Notable citywides
For citywide conferences, for starters there’s Rendez-vous Canada 2025 (May 27 – 30), which we are co-hosting with Travel Manitoba that will bring hundreds of tourism operators, international buyers and travel media to the city while generating upwards of $5-million in direct and indirect revenue for the city.* Plus, there’s the Family Medicine Forum (Nov 5-9), with 3000 delegates.
We’d also like to personally thank recent conferences that have signed on in Winnipeg including Society of Rural Physicians of Canada 2025 Annual Conference and the Canadian Public Health Association 2025 Annual Conference.
Business events are reconciliation in action
We were also thrilled to announce that the World Indigenous Business Forum (WIBF) will be coming to Winnipeg in 2026. This landmark achievement didn’t happen overnight. It was the result of years of relationship-building, planning, and a shared vision among local leaders, Indigenous organizations and government officials, and we were thrilled to make the announcement in Albuquerque, New Mexico in October alongside the Manitoba Métis Federation, the Indigenous Leadership Development Institute Inc., the Southern Chiefs' Organization and The Long Plain First Nation, all of whom have been making huge waves here on Treaty 1 Territory.
With more than 1,000 delegates from 20 countries expected to gather here, the forum isn’t just about the $3.1-plus million in economic impact — it’s about trumpeting Winnipeg as a global hub for Indigenous business events, reconciliation and collaboration.
Next year, we’ll also host the 2025 Assembly of First Nations General Assembly, further demonstrating how Economic Development Winnipeg and Tourism Winnipeg is making a conscious effort to work with local Indigenous communities and organizations to make Winnipeg an international hub for Indigenous business events.
This step towards economic reconciliation is a mandate focus that EDW and its Indigenous Advisory Committee are working towards. Hosting 2026 WIBF and the AFN 2025 General Assembly are just the beginning.
Edged-out by the world’s best tourism commercial
Also in October, Tourism Winnipeg’s Frances Wellink and Tyler Walsh traveled to Abu Dhabi to present our Winnipeg+ campaign, which was a top 3 finalist against VisitOSLO and Tourism Australia for the 2024 ICCA Best Marketing Award at the 63rd ICCA Congress.
The reception from the crowd of more than 1,500 delegates was rousing as we showcased our saucy campaign that literally stars our business development team across a series of reality tv trailers.
While top prize went to VisitOSLO for their viral “Is it even a city?” campaign (it really is the best tourism commercial we’ve ever seen) we were honoured to be named as a finalist after beating out countless entries. We’re also proud of the fact that Winnipeg+ was conceptualized, written and planned in-house, with our regular production companions Handcraft Creative shooting and editing all the “programs”, including Venue Hunters International, Modern Marvels of Manitoba, The Amazing Space, and Selling Winnipeg: Season 3 – Sizzling Site Visits.
