After years of planning, Vancouver's FIFA World Cup chief sees the city come alive for a 'summer of soccer'

What keeps the person leading much of Vancouver’s FIFA World Cup preparations awake at night just days before kickoff? According to Jessie Adcock, not much.

The 39-day tournament across North America kicks off this Thursday, June 11. That same day, Vancouver’s official 28-day FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE fairgrounds in Hastings Park will also open.

Then on Saturday, June 13, BC Place Stadium in Downtown Vancouver will host the first of seven matches — a group stage match between Australia and Turkey.

Nearly four years ago, on June 16, 2022, FIFA officially announced Vancouver as one of the 16 host cities of the tournament in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

As Host Committee Lead and Chief Delivery Officer for the FIFA World Cup 2026 Vancouver Host Committee, working under the City of Vancouver, Adcock has spent the last two-and-a-half years leading the team preparing Vancouver for one of the world’s largest sporting events.

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“I think if you look around the city, you’ll now start to see many of those plans come alive,” Adcock told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview last Thursday, while she was performing a site visit of the FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE fairgrounds in Hastings Park in Vancouver.

“I think we were working with some uncertainty until we knew which teams were drawn and what time our matches were going to be,” she noted, before adding that it has been “all systems go” ever since December 2025’s FIFA World Cup draw, when it was confirmed that the teams playing at BC Place Stadium in Downtown Vancouver during the group stage matches would include Australia, Turkey, Qatar, New Zealand, Egypt, Switzerland, Belgium, and Canada. It remains to be seen what teams will compete in Vancouver during two knockout matches of a round of 32 and a round of 16.

For Adcock, whose career spans nearly three decades of project delivery across both the private and public sectors, the FIFA World Cup represents perhaps the ultimate exercise in coordinating complex stakeholders, infrastructure, operations, and public expectations.

She first joined the City of Vancouver in 2013, leading information technology and then the development, buildings, and licensing department, before returning to the private sector in roles with Finning and her own consultancy firm. She returned to the municipal government in January 2024 to lead the City’s local organizing committee for FIFA in Vancouver.

The role, she said, required someone with experience navigating both public- and private-sector environments while overseeing large-scale, multi-disciplinary projects.

Although the FIFA Vancouver Host Committee itself employs roughly 60 people, including recently added contractors, Adcock emphasized that the tournament’s delivery depends on a far larger network of agencies and organizations.

Unlike VANOC, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which functioned as a standalone non-profit organization, the FIFA Host Committee is embedded within Vancouver’s municipal government and relies heavily on collaboration among different levels of government, public safety entities, tourism organizations, and FIFA itself. The committee also works regularly with the organizers in the 15 other host cities, especially Toronto and Seattle.

Adcock said organizers regularly coordinate with Toronto to help create a cohesive Canadian tournament experience, while collaboration with Seattle has become increasingly important because many international visitors view the two Pacific Northwest host cities as a combined destination.

Rather than planning trips around seven Vancouver matches or six Seattle matches separately, many visitors are building itineraries around all 13 matches occurring in the Pacific Northwest.

That dynamic has prompted extensive cross-border planning focused on transportation, tourism, and visitor experiences.

That level of coordination reflects the enormous scale of the FIFA World Cup itself, which Adcock believes many people still underestimate.

“I think the biggest misconception that exists is probably in understanding the scope and scale of what this event means to the world. The event has the largest viewership of any sporting event on the planet,” Adcock told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“The meaning of this sport, this game, and the meaning of this event to countless families around the world is the piece I think that not everybody understands, the depth of the rooted passion for this game and event.”

One of the biggest surprises for Adcock after taking on the role was fully appreciating how the FIFA World Cup differs from virtually every other event Vancouver has previously hosted.

Unlike the Olympics, where the host city largely becomes the centre of the global event, Vancouver is only one piece of a tournament spread across 16 cities in three countries. Meanwhile, FIFA itself directly oversees many aspects of tournament operations inside stadiums, leaving host cities responsible for the broader visitor and community experience outside the stadium walls.

“The scale of the FIFA World Cup, you know, I think became more evident as time went by,” she said.

The FIFA Vancouver Host Committee’s responsibilities therefore extend beyond BC Place Stadium and include ensuring the city is ready to welcome international visitors, managing the FIFA Fan Festival, preparing transportation networks, coordinating public safety, and creating memorable spectator experiences throughout the city.

There will also be a different way to access BC Place Stadium for the tournament. On match days, the vast majority of spectators will be required to use the “Last Mile” car-free pedestrian route along Quebec Street and Pacific Boulevard from Terminal Avenue — just outside SkyTrain’s Main Street-Science World Station — to Carrall Street, where security screening will occur. There will be no stadium access for general ticketholders from the typical Beatty Street, Expo Boulevard, and Griffiths Way entrances.

Stadium-Chinatown Station will also not be a direct access point to reach the venue, although it will remain open for local access. Instead, all spectators are strongly encouraged to arrive and leave through Main Street-Science World Station. For those arriving from the Downtown Vancouver peninsula, there will also be a secondary walking route east along Keefer Street and then south on Quebec Street, which will then join with the main route on Pacific Boulevard.

Adcock says this approach for stadium ingress and egress better distributes crowds while creating a more immersive and memorable arrival experience. This pedestrian route will be highly activated and themed, including a FIFA World Cup merchandise store.

However, for most Metro Vancouver residents, the defining FIFA World Cup experience may not occur inside BC Place Stadium at all.

A combined total of roughly 350,000 tickets is available across all seven matches held at BC Place Stadium — roughly 23 per cent of the number of tickets that were available for the 2010 Winter Olympics. With ticket prices for many matches remaining beyond the reach of some fans and stadium attendance limited to a fraction of the region’s population, with locals competing with die-hard fans from around the world and other visitors for tickets, the FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE is expected to serve as the primary gathering place for residents and visitors alike.

Adcock believes the transformation of the PNE fairgrounds will surprise many people when they see the scale of what has been built in terms of both the temporary fixtures for the FIFA Fan Festival and the newly completed PNE amphitheatre, the Freedom Mobile Arch, which features a landmark mass-timber roof and can fit up to 10,000 spectators. It should be noted that the venue’s name will not be used during the tournament due to FIFA’s sponsorship rules.

She emphasized visitors should expect something unlike anything previously hosted at Hastings Park.

“I think that the fan fest will absolutely be somewhere where people that don’t have a ticket can come and enjoy that World Cup-class World Cup experience,” said Adcock.

“The scale of what people will see, what they will experience, it’s going to be very unique, very different than other visits to this property in the past.”

The fairgrounds — nearly all of the PNE Fair’s typical indoor and outdoor footprint, except for Playland, Pacific Coliseum, Agrodome, and Livestock Barns — will be blanketed with official tournament branding, sponsor activations, a wide range of curated food and beverage options, official FIFA World Cup merchandise sales, live music, other entertainment and programming, and free live match broadcasts on numerous outdoor giant screens across the fairgrounds.

There will be free admission to enter the fairgrounds for the FIFA Fan Festival, with an estimated daily capacity of over 25,000 attendees. But there will also be ticketed premium experiences as well, particularly for those looking to enjoy live match screenings and major concert acts from the comfort of guaranteed seating under the amphitheatre roof.

The amphitheatre’s free general admission floor area will have an estimated capacity of 2,600 per match and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Altogether, up to about 10,000 spectators can be accommodated in the amphitheatre.

Perhaps no FIFA World Cup-related project has attracted more public attention than the transformation of Science World’s geodesic dome into a giant soccer ball.

Visible from a considerable distance away, on frequent passing SkyTrain trains, on the False Creek waterfront, and the crowds that will descend on BC Place Stadium along the “Last Mile” walking route, the installation at Science World has quickly become one of the defining tournament landmarks not only in Vancouver but for the tournament in general.

But Adcock views the project as representing something much larger than a decorative tournament feature.

She said major events should be evaluated not solely by the matches they host or the entertainment they provide, but also by the benefits they create for local businesses.

“The investments that we’re making in this event are really important for not just immediate benefits and for immediate enjoyment or to watch the matches,” said Adcock in the interview with Daily Hive Urbanized. “It’s really important for us to think about these events and the long-term benefits that they have.”

She pointed specifically to the economic opportunities created through FIFA World Cup-related contracts.

Local suppliers, engineering firms, production companies, fabricators, construction teams, event specialists, and other businesses have been heavily involved in bringing tournament projects to life. Those experiences, she said, help strengthen Vancouver’s ability to compete for future international events.

“As I was walking out across Fan Fest today, a lot of this investment is going into local companies, local businesses, local suppliers,” said Adcock.

Science World’s “The Beautiful Dome” installation also serves as a showcase of local expertise. It is a visual replica of this tournament’s match playing soccer ball, called the adidas Trionda.

In early May, a small crew of highly specialized rope access technicians began the process of installing 131 banner panels — custom-designed to fit within each hexagon-shaped opening in the 40-metre-diameter geodesic dome’s exoskeleton structure. Last week, the installation process reached completion.

The finished result has become one of the tournament’s most successful public-facing symbols.

“The Trionda soccer ball demonstrates our ability to engineer something so magnificent, but also highlights how beautiful and stunning our city is, preparing it to host these mega events for years to come,” said Adcock.

The transformation of Science World did not originate from a single organization.

According to Adcock, the idea emerged through a collaborative process involving the Host Committee, municipal and provincial governments, Science World, Destination Vancouver, PavCo, FIFA, and numerous technical and funding partners.

What began as a simple conversation about possibilities gradually evolved into a highly complex project involving engineering design, approvals, fundraising, logistics, and execution. Planning for the dome’s soccer ball look first began in January 2025.

“It started off as, you know, wouldn’t it be nice if we could do this story? And, you know, a vision, a spark of a vision,” said Adcock.

“But as we got sort of closer and closer, just the idea of being able to deliver something of that nature just became a passion for everybody, and we’re so happy,” she added, noting that “it really has served as a catalyst to really build momentum for us.”

Adcock repeatedly returned to one theme during the interview: Vancouver’s experience matters.

She noted that Vancouver occupies a unique position among global host cities, having previously staged the Expo ’86 World’s Fair, the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which saw BC Place Stadium host nine matches, including the championship final.

In her view, each event leaves behind infrastructure, institutional knowledge, relationships, and expertise that become the foundation for the next one.

“I think we build on foundations. So we have companies that have experience, we have people that have experience, we have legacies, both operational and infrastructure legacies. And so, every one of these events makes us capable of more, and every one of them makes us capable of overcoming more complex scenarios,” Adcock told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“This is a testament to all the events that have preceded us, and all of the preparation that we’ve been able to then layer on to that really strong foundation.”

It includes project management systems, communications strategies, event operations procedures, vendor networks, public safety planning, and experienced professionals who have worked on previous major events.

“Your starting point is where the last event left you,” she said.

More recently, Vancouver’s hosting of Taylor Swift’s last The Eras Tour concerts in December 2024 and the Invictus Games in February 2025 provided fresh operational experience that organizers have been able to draw upon as FIFA World Cup preparations intensified.

While FIFA establishes detailed standards and requirements across all 16 host cities, Adcock said considerable flexibility exists for local customization.

The host city agreements create a baseline level of consistency across venues, training sites, and fan experiences, ensuring visitors encounter a recognizable FIFA World Cup regardless of which city they visit.

However, she says Vancouver’s downtown stadium location creates opportunities unavailable to many host cities.

Unlike suburban stadiums surrounded by vast surface parking lots, which is the environment of the majority of the other FIFA World Cup stadiums, especially in the U.S., BC Place Stadium sits in a dense urban environment amid restaurants, bars, hotels, major public transit services, and waterfront views.

Those characteristics, which also come with major logistical and public safety challenges, have allowed organizers to shape what Adcock describes as a distinctly Vancouver version of the tournament experience.

“With our stadium being in downtown, that also lends itself to probably what’s going to be one of the most fun experiences,” she said.

As preparations near completion, Adcock hopes residents view the tournament as an opportunity to create lasting memories, much as previous generations remember Expo ’86 and the 2010 Olympics.

She urged residents to participate even if they do not have match tickets, whether through the FIFA Fan Festival, public celebrations, citywide activations, or simply taking in the atmosphere that will spread across the region throughout June and July.

Similarly, organizers have spent months encouraging businesses to embrace the tournament through decorations, activations, and promotions designed to create what Adcock described as a cohesive “summer of soccer” experience across the Lower Mainland and British Columbia.

With the countdown now measured in days, Adcock said the city is on the verge of stepping onto one of the world’s largest stages.

“The eyes of the world are going to be on our beautiful amphitheatre, on that Trionda ball, and on our gorgeous setting. Our beautiful stadium set across the backdrop of the North Shore mountains,” she told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“I just hope that everyone will come be a part of it.”

You might also like:
• 10,000-capacity Freedom Mobile Arch amphitheatre opens, ushering a new era for PNE
• A look inside BC Place Stadium after all of its FIFA World Cup upgrades
• Vancouver FIFA Fan Festival tickets are a tough sell so far
• All 32 vendors joining Vancouver's FIFA Fan Festival's stacked food lineup
• How Grouse Mountain installed the largest Canada flag ever made, just in time for the FIFA World Cup
• The Beautiful Dome: Science World's FIFA World Cup soccer ball dome transformation is now 100% complete