How TSN's stunning Vancouver waterfront FIFA World Cup studio came together | Daily Hive

How TSN's stunning waterfront FIFA World Cup studio and viewing zone came together in Vancouver

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver's Jack Poole Plaza. (Vision Event Photography)

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and free public live match screening site at Jack Poole Plaza in Downtown Vancouver closed earlier this week, after a nearly month-long run that turned Downtown Vancouver’s Coal Harbour waterfront into one of the most visible Canadian backdrops of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The Bell Media-branded pavilion, which opened in time for the start of TSN and CTV’s tournament coverage on Thursday, June 11, closed on Tuesday, July 7, after the seventh and final FIFA World Cup match at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver.

It was incredibly well received — not only as a broadcast facility for Canada’s FIFA World Cup television broadcast rightsholder, providing viewers across the country with a stunning harbour, Stanley Park, mountain, cruise ship, and float plane backdrop, but also as a public gathering place, with tens of thousands of people cumulatively drawn to Jack Poole Plaza to watch matches over its operating period.

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It also left many Metro Vancouver residents wishing the setup, including its pair of giant outdoor screens for free live match screenings, could have remained in place through the championship final on July 19.

However, from the outset, ever since the activation was first announced, Bell Media’s decision to close its broadcast set and live match screening experience had always been aligned with the start of the overall tournament period and the end of Vancouver’s match schedule window.

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The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Vision Event Photography)

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The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Vision Event Photography)

tsn ctv fifa world cup broadcast studio jack poole plaza vancouver june 12 2026 2

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Kenneth Chan)

tsn ctv fifa world cup broadcast studio jack poole plaza vancouver june 12 2026

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Kenneth Chan)

Over a decade ago, BC Event Management (BCEM) was the company behind the plaza’s previous Fox Sports pavilion for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, when the U.S. television broadcast rightsholder made Vancouver its home base for the entire women’s tournament. Vancouver was one of the host cities for the 2015 tournament, staging nine matches, including the championship final.

For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, BCEM began working with Bell Media on this project about a year and a half ago, after receiving a good referral from the team at Fox Sports.

BCEM’s previous experience building temporary pavilion structures, combined with its specific familiarity with transforming Jack Poole Plaza, was a key reason the company was brought in for the project

In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized on Wednesday, as BCEM crews began the nine-day process of removing the installations from Jack Poole Plaza, CEO David Clark said the site is highly complicated to build on because it was never originally designed to support large, heavy structures.

What many people may not realize is that the 50,000 sq. ft. public plaza sits directly above some of the interior spaces of the Vancouver Convention Centre’s West Building, including a below-grade vehicle parkade and part of a vast exhibition hall with 30-ft-high ceilings — essentially, a man-made cavern beneath the plaza. The elevated platform at the northernmost end of the plaza, where both the TSN/CTV and Fox Sports broadcast pavilions were built, is also positioned directly above commercial retail/restaurant units.

“We’re the subject specialists for building on the plaza because it’s very, very difficult to build there. It was never designed to have buildings on it because of everything underneath it,” said Clark.

That meant the TSN/CTV pavilion had to be engineered with strict weight limits in mind. Clark said BCEM relied on the same broad approach it used for the Fox Sports pavilion in 2015 — using lightweight materials and event-industry construction methods instead of conventional building methods.

The roof of the TSN/CTV pavilion was the very first major component to be built. Weighing just under 40,000 lb, it was lifted into place before the rest of the pavilion structure was constructed separately beneath it. Unusually, the roof was never directly attached to the same part of the structure as the components below. This entire approach was intentional, allowing the project team to keep the overall weight low and distribute it as evenly as possible across this portion of the plaza.

The other major part of the design strategy was the use of lightweight materials, specifically aluminum. This not only limited weight loads, but also reduced setup time.

He also drew on techniques commonly used in the film and television production industry, including ultra-lightweight cladding such as painted foam to recreate the look and texture of natural stone.

The overall weight of the entire TSN/CTV pavilion setup was about 85,000 lb — equivalent to the weight of roughly 20 Tesla Model 3 cars stacked on top of each other. It is a single level, spanning an area of 3,875 sq. ft.

Given the nature of the space, they also had to use specialized forklifts to move equipment and materials onto the plaza.

Raising of the TSN/CTV FIFA World Cup broadcast pavilion’s roof in May 2026 at Jack Poole Plaza, next to Vancouver Convention Centre. 2/2 #FIFAWorldCup #WeAre26 #WeAreVancouver https://t.co/RDJ8Tpb4R6 pic.twitter.com/anUqclbrkp

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) July 10, 2026

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Construction work for the temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (BC Event Management)

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Construction work for the temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Kenneth Chan)

Shane Droucker, the president of BCEM, told Daily Hive Urbanized the TSN/CTV project was designed to be lighter than the 2015 Fox Sports structure — which was far heavier with its two levels and an interior space spanning 7,500 sq. ft. — partly because of the schedule and allocated budget by Bell Media, but also because of the plaza’s physical constraints.

In 2015, the commercial retail unit directly below the pavilion’s footprint happened to be vacant, allowing BCEM to access the space and shore up the ceiling — effectively the floor of the plaza above — to secure approval for the heavier structure.

“The TSN project was a lot lighter, thankfully. We designed it intentionally that way knowing that we didn’t have, number one, the budget or the time to put in such an elaborate structure as Fox did for the 2015 Women’s World Cup,” said Droucker.

The more elaborate Fox Sports pavilion went on to earn the American network and its project partners a Sports Emmy Award for the remote studio’s design. But landing that opportunity in the 2010s was not straightforward: BCEM first had to persuade the network to break from its usual suppliers and contractor relationships, and place its trust in a Vancouver-based company it had never worked with.

Beginning in mid-May 2026, the temporary TSN/CTV pavilion took about three weeks to construct. Despite its short-term use, Clark said the project still had to go through the full permitting and inspection process before occupancy, as if it were a permanent building.

Droucker added that the municipal government’s temporary bylaw relaxations that applied to some FIFA World Cup-related activations did not apply to the Jack Poole Plaza site. As a result, the pavilion still had to meet more rigorous standards.

“We are specialists in these temporary construction projects, but we’re primarily in the event industry. So, we’re using that technology to make these things work.

“So, truss is part of our DNA. Lighting truss. Rigging truss. We’re using lighting and rigging truss in ways that construction companies wouldn’t think of.”

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Fox Sports’ temporary broadcast studio at Jack Poole Plaza for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, designed and built by BC Event Management. (Sergei Bachlakov/Shutterstock)

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The temporary competition venue built at Jack Poole Plaza by BC Event Management for the 2022 Canadian Squash Championships. (Squash Canada)

The signature feature of the TSN/CTV studio was its postcard-perfect view of Coal Harbour, Stanley Park, the North Shore mountains, multiple large cruise ship movements each day, and the frequent takeoffs and landings of float planes.

Clark said delivering that framed backdrop for the studio broadcasts was the central design priority from the very beginning.

“The vision was always that view. People think it’s green screen or AI. It’s so bloody clear and perfect,” said Clark.

“People don’t believe it. If you go on Instagram or TikTok, they’re all talking about how is that real? So, it was all about delivering that view.”

But that open-air setting also created technical challenges, particularly with regularly scheduled float planes taking off and landing just beyond the pavilion, with the float plane terminal situated immediately adjacent to Jack Poole Plaza. To address this issue, Clark said the hosts used handheld microphones because they were better suited to limiting background noise.

“The float planes taking off are phenomenally loud and yet there’s no glass behind the studio desk. So, that’s why all the hosts were always using handheld mics, if you notice, not lavalier mics into their lapels,” continued Clark.

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (@tosaintricketts/Instagram)

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Kenneth Chan)

And beyond its use for national television broadcasts, the installation also became a free public gathering place for live match screenings on the giant outdoor screens, accommodating thousands of people at any given time. On several occasions during high-interest matches, access to the plaza was closed off after it reached capacity.

Droucker said Bell Media’s main focus was creating a unique broadcast studio, while the free public viewing component was an added initiative.

“Bell Media wanted to create an opportunity, a free-to-the-public opportunity, and it certainly exceeded our expectations,” said Droucker.

Droucker said the crowds that turned out met the best-case hopes for the site and were well behaved, while Clark similarly described the atmosphere as positive.

“Yeah, it was such a good-natured crowd. There was never any real security issues. Everybody was happy. It was just wonderful,” Clark told Daily Hive Urbanized.

Clark pointed to the crowds for Mexico’s matches as a reflection of Vancouver’s diversity, with the plaza becoming a lively gathering place for different communities throughout the tournament.

“Mexico filled the plaza. So, Vancouver is such a cosmopolitan city. You don’t appreciate how cosmopolitan we are until these different communities come out and fill the plaza. It’s amazing,” he said.

Droucker said the project also showed what is possible for Jack Poole Plaza as a more intensive venue for large-scale free public events, provided organizers and contractors properly account for the site’s weight loading limits and logistical requirements.

The northern end of the plaza, where the broadcast pavilion was built, has often been used for the setup of lightweight concert stages during previous events over the past decade and a half. But the popularity of the site over the last several weeks suggests Jack Poole Plaza may have far greater potential as a major public gathering space. This outdoor space is operated and managed by the Vancouver Convention Centre, provincial Crown corporation PavCo.

“It’s a great location for those type of free public events. I think it could be more so utilized for that in the future regardless of the restrictions and the methodology of building out there on the north end. It is possible,” said Droucker.

“It takes a little bit of extra due care and attention, but it’s a fantastic location for these kind of free public events.”

We say goodbye to Jack Poole Plaza in Vancouver 👋

Here are just some of the highlights! 🇨🇦 #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/h6BuJaabIm

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) July 7, 2026

The Jack Poole Plaza watch party downtown Vancouver is going nuts for Mexico vs. Ecuador. 🤯🇲🇽🇪🇨 #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/vmrKD9vsim

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) July 1, 2026

A big moment for Mexican fans at Jack Poole Plaza tonight, watching El Tri beat Ecuador 2-0 at the TSN/CTV Vancouver broadcast studio’s live match screening.

Mexico advances to the round of 16. 🇲🇽⚽🇪🇨 #FIFAWorldCup #WeAre26 #WeAreVancouver pic.twitter.com/9hTbZ406Z7

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) July 1, 2026

Underrated outdoor watch party spot by the temporary TSN studio at Jack Poole Plaza pic.twitter.com/K7eGTwyy76

— Rob Williams (@RobTheHockeyGuy) June 14, 2026

Jack Poole Plaza erupting in cheers as Canada defeats South Africa! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 @CityNewsVAN pic.twitter.com/mkSTZUAX6C

— Cecilia 🎤 (@ceciliahuatv) June 28, 2026

With the Switzerland vs. Colombia Round of 16 game in the books, the TSN World Cup panel bids farewell from Jack Poole Plaza in BC where it has broadcasted live for more than three weeks at the FIFA World Cup. #KevinBratch #fifa #Vancouver pic.twitter.com/xz8E56BgCi

— Kevin Bratch (@kevinbratch) July 8, 2026

📍Jack Poole Plaza – Vancouver 🇨🇦
De l’énergie folle des célébrations marocaines🇲🇦 à la sérénité d’un coucher de soleil à Vancouver🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/yQvGsXk6sO

— Fouad Cmoi ⭐️⭐️ (@Cmoi_Fouad) July 1, 2026

The temporary TSN/CTV broadcast studio and 2026 FIFA World Cup match screening zone at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza. (Kenneth Chan)

Clark said the success of the TSN/CTV pavilion also served as indirect marketing for the Vancouver Convention Centre and Jack Poole Plaza, given the national exposure the location received throughout the tournament.

“People all over Canada are googling Jack Poole Plaza, which they mentioned five times a minute and seeing that it’s right beside the convention centre,” said Clark.

“So, the residual benefit is lots more demand will come for their convention centre because it has the same view.”

Jack Poole Plaza is also, of course, home to the iconic giant landmark Vancouver Olympic Cauldron — located closer to the south end of the plaza. It was first lit by Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky at the end of the 2010 Winter Games Opening Ceremony, after he was transported from BC Place Stadium to light the permanent outdoor legacy cauldron on the waterfront. The flames have been briefly reignited at the start of every subsequent Olympic Games, both winter and summer, for more than a decade.

The plaza is named after the late Jack Poole, who led Vancouver’s bid committee for the 2010 Olympics and later served as chair of VANOC, the organizing committee for the Games. Poole died of cancer at the start of the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay. This public space was completed in 2009 as a part of the convention centre’s West End, for its use as the International Broadcast Centre for the Olympics. During the Games, NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams was also broadcast from a small tent at Jack Poole Plaza, taking advantage of the same sweeping waterfront backdrop.

For BCEM, the TSN/CTV pavilion project added to a long list of major temporary event builds. Clark said the company has worked on high-profile private and public events over four decades, but the FIFA World Cup studio stood out because of its visibility.

“This was probably one of the most high profile projects that the public sees,” said Clark, who first began the company in 1987 — a year after he was involved in designing and building many of the pavilions fir the Expo ’86 World’s Fair in Vancouver.

“A lot of what we see is confidential corporate clients… But this is nice that the whole world sees our work.”

Construction work on the temporary TSN/CTV FIFA World Cup broadcast studio at Jack Poole Plaza, with the Vancouver Olympic Cauldron also depicted. (Kenneth Chan)

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