EventsNewsCelebration of Light

No fireworks in downtown Vancouver for New Year's Eve or the rest of 2026

Kenneth Chan
Kenneth Chan
|
Dec 29 2025, 8:39 pm
No fireworks in downtown Vancouver for New Year's Eve or the rest of 2026
Fireworks at Canada Place in Coal Harbour in downtown Vancouver. (James Chen/Shutterstock)

Anyone hoping to welcome 2026 with a fireworks display in downtown Vancouver will be disappointed. There are no public fireworks celebration events planned for New Year’s Eve, and none scheduled anywhere in the downtown Vancouver peninsula for the rest of 2026.

The absence of any public fireworks events in an entire calendar year marks a significant first for the city in decades, which was previously a hotspot for fireworks events in Canada.

Outside of the pandemic years, 2026 will be the first year without fireworks in downtown Vancouver, underscoring how major pyrotechnic celebrations have completely disappeared from the city’s event calendar.

The decline began before the pandemic. The last New Year’s Eve and Canada Day fireworks at Canada Place took place before the pandemic. While the pandemic forced widespread event cancellations in the years that followed, the New Year’s Eve and Canada Day fireworks — organized by a not-for-profit organization and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, respectively — did not return afterward, with rising costs cited as the main reason. Daily Hive was a founding partner and media partner of the New Year’s Eve fireworks.

Then in November 2025, organizers announced the cancellation of the 2026 Honda Celebration of Light fireworks festival. The iconic three-night summer event was called off due to a budget gap of nearly $1 million created by reduced provincial and federal funding, diminished corporate sponsorship, and rising costs. There is still a chance this 2026 event could be saved if new funding partners come forward in time.

For over three decades, the Honda Celebration of Light was Vancouver’s most recognizable event, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators to the areas in and around English Bay each night. Its cancellation, combined with the earlier loss of the New Year’s Eve and Canada Day fireworks, leaves the city without any major downtown fireworks displays throughout 2026.

Aside from the 2026 FIFA World Cup festivities, the cancellation of the Honda Celebration of Light may be just the tip of the iceberg for bad news ahead in the 2026 events season, as other long-running major events and festivals also face the risk of downsizing or cancellation due to the same financial pressures.

Big crowds still expected in downtown Vancouver

While no public New Year’s Eve fireworks celebrations are planned, impromptu gatherings are still expected to draw thousands of people into the streets and public spaces of downtown Vancouver for informal countdowns to midnight.

During the years without New Year’s Eve fireworks, large crowds have traditionally gathered along the Canada Place and Vancouver Convention Centre seawall regardless of whether fireworks are scheduled, as well as on Water Street around the Gastown Steam Clock and along the Granville Strip near the Vancouver Block building’s clock tower and the Best Buy building’s video screen.

Optimal weather conditions without any precipitation are currently in the forecast for Dec. 31.

Once again, TransLink will be providing free public transit services on New Year’s Eve, starting at 5 p.m. on Dec. 31 and ending at 5 a.m. on Jan. 1.

Those looking to begin the new year with a refreshing start can also look forward to the traditional Polar Bear Swim at English Bay Beach at 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 1, which typically attracts thousands of swimmers and onlookers.

If ringing in the new year with fireworks is a must, there will be small-scale fireworks atop Grouse Mountain as part of the resort’s New Year’s Eve programming, with an early fireworks show at 7 p.m. and a pyromusical at midnight. There are also fireworks shows at Skier’s Plaza at Whistler Village (small-scale show at 9 p.m. only) and at Seattle’s Space Needle (midnight spectacular).

Outside the city, suburban municipalities have continued to host their own, comparatively smaller-scale public fireworks events to mark Canada Day. Attendance at these celebrations has grown substantially since the permanent cancellation of downtown Vancouver’s Canada Day fireworks.

The only public fireworks event anticipated in downtown Vancouver in 2026 is a modest display later in the year marking the illumination of the Lights of Hope at St. Paul’s Hospital on Burrard Street.

ADVERTISEMENT