Vancouver Festivals
The New Play Festival on Granville Island
www.playwrightstheatre.com
Featuring some of Vancouver's best actors and directors, the New Play Festival on Granville Island is a vivid, week-long celebration of extraordinary new Canadian plays and the playwrights who pen them.
Vancouver International Children's Festival
www.childrensfestival.ca
The Vancouver International Children's Festival at Vanier Park features the finest theatre, music, dance, puppetry, storytelling, and comedy from around the world. This annual week long event is a favourite for children, their families, school groups, teachers and everyone who loves the arts for young audiences. In addition to the mainstage performances in tent theatres, the Festival presents open-air shows at the bandshell, roving performers as well as a range of hands-on creative and educational workshops.
Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival
www.bardonthebeach.org
Every summer from June through September, Vancouver's professional Shakespeare Festival presents three classic productions of plays by the worlds greatest Bard. Staged in open-ended tents on the waterfront in Vanier Park, the plays are performed against a spectacular backdrop of mountains, sea and sky. In 2004 the Festival offers Much Ado About Nothing and The Merry Wives of Windsor on the Main stage, and Macbeth on the Studio Stage.
Tickets: 604-739-0559.
The VanDusen Flower and Garden Show
http://www.vandusengarden.org
A grand festival for flower fanciers, this show features more than 200 displays on everything from flowers to furniture, garden gnomes to gargoyles, peonies to parsley. This is the place to find inspiring ideas, beautiful displays, great shopping, tasty treats, fabulous entertainment and loads of fun! This year's show features more than a dozen Theme Display Gardens, more than 250 exhibitors, presentations by garden gurus and some of Vancouver’s top chefs all in a spectacular 15 acre outdoor setting.
Info: 604-687-4780
Alcan Dragon Boat Festival Plaza of Nations, False Creek
www.adbf.com
Vancouver hosts the largest dragon boat celebration in North America. More than 180 teams plus entertainers, marketplace and food vendors and thousands of visitors take part in this unique 3-day event. Join us June 18, 19 and 20, 2004 at Concord Pacific Place, Science World and the waters of False Creek. Help celebrate our 16th edition and find out why there's more to the rhythm than a race!
Info: 604.688.2382
Vancouver International Jazz Festival
www.jazzvancouver.com
Vancouver becomes "Jazz Heaven" during the city's largest annual festival. The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is recognized internationally as one of the finest and most adventurous music festivals in the world, presenting a huge range of jazz, world, improvised music and blues. The Festival features over 400 performances by famous, infamous and emerging artists from across Canada and around the world at 40 venues. Enjoy both ticketed shows and many free events including the free extravaganzas "Gastown Jazz", and "Jazz at the Roundhouse".
Dancing on the Edge Festival
July 8 - 24, 2004 ; Firehall Arts Centre
www.dancingontheedge.org
The Dancing on the Edge Festival of Contemporary Dance will celebrate its sixteenth anniversary this year. The festival programs professional Canadian and international dance works from both established and emerging choreographers.
Info: 604.689.0926
Vancouver Folk Music Festival
www.thefestival.bc.ca
The Vancouver Folk Music Festival is a world-renowned event in a spectacular venue, Jericho Beach Park, on English Bay with mountains and the sea as backdrop. Our Family Area provides activities for children and their adult companions. Food vendors, artists and artisans sell their wares. Over 1,200 volunteers join with an expert production and artistic staff to present over 100 performances during the Festival weekend. Associated events take place in the days before and after the festival weekend.
Vancouver Chamber Music Festival
http://www.vanrecital.org
The Festival brings together the finest young leading chamber musicians from Canada and abroad. It is held on the park-like campus of Crofton House School, which is situated away from the bustle of the downtown core. Fun, informal, and absolute magic, the annual Vancouver Chamber Music Festival will captivate all your senses. Hear electrifying performances by some of the world's most scintillating young musicians. Feast on gourmet picnics while feasting your eyes on one of the city's prettiest settings. Come experience a haven of fragrant gardens, and emerald lawns. The mood? Most definitely casual. Think shorts, sandals and pure enchantment. The Vancouver Chamber Music Festival takes the formality of classical music and turns it on its ear!
Caribbean Days Festival
www.caribbeandaysfestival.com
The Caribbean Days Festival is the Trinidad Tobago Cultural Society of BC's annual feature event at Waterfront Park in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is the largest annual cultural festival of its kind in the province of BC. The event is open to the public and draws in tens of thousands of people each year. This festival has an amazing track record of great weather and good times, reflective of its status as BC's premiere summer Caribbean gala.
Vancouver International Comedy Festival
www.comedyfest.com
The Vancouver International Comedy Festival is an annual summer event aiming to present the finest in comedy arts from a wide range of disciplines It takes place every summer on Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia. The festival is a multi-disciplinary celebration of all forms of comedy. From the international cast of characters featured in more than 100 free outdoor performances during the day, to the celebrated stars that take to the stage each evening, the Vancouver International Comedy Festival has something for every funny bone.
Vancouver Early Music Festival
www.earlymusic.bc.ca
One of North America's leading early music festivals, featuring acclaimed performers and ensembles from the international scene, often in consort with Vancouver's finest musicians. This eclectic festival offers a unique series of concerts devoted to vocal and instrumental music from the Mediæval, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras, with occasional forays into 'early music' from other cultures as well as contemporary music.
HSBC Powersmart Celebration of Light
www.celebration-of-light.com
Vancouver's annual fireworks are watched by 1.6 million people over the four-night event. English Bay is the setting as three competing countries will try to amaze us all with a spectacular display of fireworks in this international competition. Best viewing points: English Bay, Kitsilano, Vanier Park, Jericho Beach, West Vancouver. The event is free to watch from public parks and beaches. Music simulcast begins at 10:00 p.m. on radio station ROCK 101 (101.1 FM).
Festival Vancouver
www.festivalvancouver.bc.ca
Brilliant voices, intimate sounds, electrifying rhythms and an operatic masterpiece – Festival Vancouver invites you to explore this pre-eminent music event happening in one of North America’s most spectacular cities. Vancouver’s concert halls will be filled with some of the best music the world has to offer. More than 45 outstanding classical, jazz and world music concerts will be featured over 14 days in venues across the city.
The Vancouver Fringe Festival
www.vancouverfringe.com
The Vancouver Fringe Festival is Vancouver's premier theatre festival, dedicated to its mission of providing "Theatre for Everyone". The festival draws crowds of over 35,000 each year and brings together performers from local, national and international theatre companies in traditional and non-traditional venues. Come join the festival on and around Granville Island.
