Vancouver seeking organizer for 2026 FIFA World Cup Fan Festival

Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Alfred Shum/Flickr)

“FIFA Fan Festival is an important element of Vancouver’s vision to deliver a world-class event experience in 2026. Delivering the FIFA Fan Festival is not just about logistics; it’s about creating an unforgettable experience for fans locally and from around the world.”

That is the City of Vancouver’s callout for an experienced event organizer to help stage the 2026 FIFA World Cup Fan Festival, as part of Vancouver’s hosting duties for the tournament. All 16 host cities in Canada, the United States, and Mexico are required to stage a FIFA Fan Festival.

The municipal government has kicked off the procurement process for selecting a contractor to help design, organize, and stage a massive fan festival that aligns with FIFA’s standards and requirements for the tournament.

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“This event is an important element for the overall success of the FIFA Word Cup, and is generally regarded as the best place to participate in the FIFA World Cup outside of the stadiums. It is also an important meeting point for fans from all over the world to celebrate together and it serves as a powerful content, communication, and promotional platform for FIFA, its stakeholders, and in particular for the Host City,” reads the procurement file.

“Each Host City Fan Festival will be reflective of the location’s specific culture and heritage, with the aim to create a unique, exciting, and inclusive destination to enjoy the FIFA World Cup celebrations. Vancouver’s hosting vision seeks to maximize this opportunity for businesses and fans alike.”

All 16 FIFA Fan Festival sites across North America will focus on live broadcasts of the tournament’s matches, and there will also be live entertainment, recreational and cultural programming, commercial and sponsorship activations, hospitality offerings, food and beverage activations, merchandise sales, and more.

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2022 FIFA World Cup Fan Festival in Doha, Qatar. (FIFA)

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2014 FIFA World Cup Fan Festival at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. (Andre Luiz Moreira/Shutterstock)

Rio de Janeiro’s FIFA Fan Festival during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. (A.RICARDO/Shutterstock)

But there will also be some creative freedom for the “development of world-class event creative concepts and plans,” and the “creation and execution of a food and beverage program that showcases local and international cuisines.”

The procurement file also specifically highlights the need for an organizer with proven experience working with “sophisticated corporate sponsors,” namely Budweiser, Coca-Cola, and Visa.

Additionally, the organizer will create a “large-scale volunteer recruitment, training, and delivery plan” for the fan festival.

The procurement file states the specific location of the fan festival has not been released.

However, in February 2024, upon inquiry, the City told Daily Hive Offside that it is recommending to FIFA that the PNE fairgrounds in Hastings Park in East Vancouver be used for the five-week-long Vancouver festival. However, the City says a final decision has yet to be announced by their delivery partners and FIFA.

At the time, the City also stated that the final details of its FIFA Fan Festival will not be available until FIFA has completed their process for announcing sites in all host cities, which the City expects to be made before this summer.

The possible siting of Vancouver’s FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE — about six km from the tournament venue of BC Place Stadium, well outside of downtown Vancouver — also presumably takes advantage of the new 10,000-seat outdoor amphitheatre being built at the fairgrounds. The $104 million world-class amphitheatre, featuring a landmark mass-timber roof, will be backdropped by the North Shore mountains. Construction is expected to reach completion by early 2026.

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Artistic rendering of the new PNE Amphitheatre. (Revery Architecture/PNE)

Artistic rendering of the new PNE Amphitheatre. (Revery Architecture/PNE)

However, the April 2024 procurement file does note that early estimates indicate an average of 15,000 people may attend the fan festival each day throughout the tournament.

As well, the selected event organizer’s responsibilities will cover transportation planning — the “development and delivery of an arrival and departure concept integrating transportation offerings, including working with public transit operators, parking operators, and shared mobility providers to create optionality and efficiency for attendees.”

For decades, such fan festivals have been a longstanding tradition for each host city of the FIFA World Cup, and they provide locals and visitors with another way to enjoy the tournament, especially if they are unable to attend a match at the stadium. These fan festivals have been typically free to attend.

About six years ago, during the early bidding phase for the rights to become a host city for the tournament, the City estimated the 2026 FIFA Fan Festival could carry a staging cost of between $10 million and $20 million.

World-class fan festivals were also created for the duration of the 2010 Winter Olympics — called Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park and Live City Downtown at the Larwill parking lot. For the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Larwill parking lot, which is now being developed into the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new building, reprised its role as the site of a major fan festival.

The FIFA World Cup will take place from June 11 to July 19, 2026. As announced earlier this year, BC Place Stadium in downtown Vancouver will host a total of seven matches across seven dates spanning from June 13 to July 7, with the last Vancouver match being a coveted knockout Round of 16 match.

Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Alfred Shum/Flickr)

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