Best In Show: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Best In Show is and who runs it

WV Living Magazine publishes Best In Show as the landing page for its annual Best of West Virginia reader survey. The magazine started that survey in 2013 to let readers recognise the dining, shopping and services that make West Virginia a good place to live. The ballot is published on the magazine's own domain at wvliving.com/best-in-show/ and carries no third-party contest platform between the reader and the vote form.

The survey covers the entire state. There is no city or county qualifier: a reader in any part of West Virginia votes in the same ballot and sees the same category list. The vertical is best-of, meaning the programme asks readers to pick a favourite business, place or service in each category rather than nominate individuals or judge entries.

The magazine describes the survey as a way to discover the current best in travel, restaurants, retail, recreation and more. Because WV Living owns both the publication and the ballot page, every rule, category name and date on the page comes from the same editorial desk.

The dated record for Best of West Virginia

The survey is annual. WV Living Magazine started Best of West Virginia in 2013, and the programme has confirmed editions in every year from 2018 through 2026. Each cycle follows the same shape: a nomination round in July, a final voting round in September and October, then a winners reveal in the magazine's winter issue. The magazine describes this on its own FAQ page as its way to let readers recognise excellent dining, shopping and services across the state.

For the 2026 cycle, readers nominated candidates between July 14 and July 28. The final voting round opened September 22 and closes October 12, 2026. The magazine puts both windows on its Best of West Virginia 2026 ballot page in a single sentence, and the same page carries a line asking readers to vote for their favourite finalists across that September-to-October span.

The one gap the ballot page leaves open is the full category roster. WV Living Magazine has not published a single list naming what each category covers; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

No edition year between 2018 and 2026 is unaccounted for on the ballot page. The most recent three cycles, 2024, 2025 and 2026, all carried live voting text on the page itself.

How a supporter votes in Best In Show

The ballot is a public vote published on the magazine's own domain. Any reader can participate without joining a panel or paying anything. The mechanic is straightforward: once the September window opens, a supporter goes to the ballot page and picks a favourite in each category.

Under the rule WV Living states on its FAQ page, a supporter may vote once per day in each category. Someone who wants to back the same business across the full ballot can return daily and cast a vote in every section. The magazine prints this limit on its FAQ page, making it the clearest per-supporter rule the ballot carries.

The survey spans categories across eats, stays, shops, events and more for the 2026 cycle. The magazine describes them as categories chosen by real West Virginians who know their stuff. Because the daily rule applies per category, a supporter who cares about several sections can return each day and vote in every one of them.

The nomination round in July works differently. Readers submit the names of businesses or places they think deserve a spot on the final ballot. The magazine then takes the top nominees and prints them as finalists for the September vote. A business that missed the July nomination window cannot appear on the final ballot for that year.

There is no third-party platform involved. The ballot form, the daily rule and the category slate all live on the magazine's own domain.

How Best In Show sits beside its West Virginia neighbours

WV Living Magazine is not the only publisher running a best-of ballot in West Virginia, but its programme is the only one covering the entire state under a single magazine masthead. Several county-level and regional programmes sit alongside it in the same market.

Best in the Tri-State, run by the Herald-Dispatch, covers a region that crosses state lines. The 2025 River Cities Best of the Best covers a different set of river towns. Three county-level programmes appear in the 2026 cycle: Best of Harrison, Best of Marion County, and Best of Upshur County. Best of Mineral 2026 completes the sibling set.

What separates Best In Show from each of them is scale and publisher. The county programmes each cover one county within West Virginia. Best In Show covers all of West Virginia. And while the Herald-Dispatch programme answers to a newspaper, Best In Show answers to WV Living Magazine, a lifestyle publication whose entire readership is the state itself.

This matters for a business deciding where to focus. A business anywhere in the state can appear on the statewide ballot without entering a county-level programme. A business inside one of the covered counties could appear on both the statewide and the county ballot, but each programme runs its own nomination round and prints its own category slate, so support built on one does not transfer to the other.

Building support for Best of West Virginia

A business that wants to win Best of West Virginia needs sustained daily support across the full voting window. Because WV Living allows one ballot per day in each category, the ballot rewards supporters who return regularly rather than voting once and forgetting.

The most effective approach inside the rules is to ask customers directly. A sign at the counter, a line on a receipt or a short social post naming the exact category and linking to wvliving.com/best-in-show/ gives a supporter everything needed to cast a vote in under a minute. The daily return is where the margin comes from: a business that reminds its customers to come back each day accumulates votes steadily across the window.

Some businesses look at the daily requirement and the length of the ballot and decide they need outside help. For a plain-English look at what that means, see how to get more votes online or the award-votes overview.