The local event production company behind some of British Columbia’s largest special events has been chosen to plan, organize, and execute the staging of the almost six-week-long Vancouver FIFA Fan Festival.
After conducting a bidding process, staff with the City of Vancouver are recommending that the coveted contract for local event planners for Vancouver’s official fan festival of the 2026 FIFA World Cup be awarded to Brand Live Management Group. Next week, Vancouver City Council is expected to provide final contract approval.
Brand Live is the organizer of major events such as the Honda Celebration of Light fireworks festival and the Canada Day celebrations at Canada Place and is the past organizer of other prominent events like Squamish Valley Music Festival, Skookum Festival, and street parties for the BC Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps.
Of special note, a decade ago, Brand Live was chosen by the City to similarly plan, organize, and execute the official fan festival for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which was held at the Larwill parking lot city block (next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre). That relatively small-scale event spanning over the course of a month was provided with a budget of roughly $1 million.
For the Vancouver FIFA Fan Festival of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the City is providing the company with a budget that is about 20 times more, with a base budget of $20 million for planning and production costs (not including management fees), based on FIFA’s 2022-created hosting standards and requirements for a world-class event.
This is comparable to the City’s allocated total budget of $18 million for the high-calibre official Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games fan festivals of Live City Yaletown and Live City Downtown.
Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Inventa)
Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Inventa)
A City staff report this week suggests that the $20 million figure could potentially fluctuate, based on FIFA providing an updated fan festival manual in May 2024 specifically for the 2026 event.
“The third-party provider will be instrumental in working with the City to validate the budget, develop the business plan for the event and ultimately deliver a uniquely Vancouver and British Columbian Fan Fest,” reads the report.
The official fan festival has been a long-running tradition for the FIFA World Cup, and all 16 host cities of the 2016 tournament are required to stage such an event following the manual.
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.
2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Fan Festival in downtown Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Fan Festival in downtown Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Fan Festival in downtown Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
Under the contract, Brand Live will also be leading the creative concept and programming content planning.
In an email to Daily Hive Offside on Thursday, Brand Live president Catherine Runnals shared that her team has partnered with Vancouver-based experiential marketing agency Inventa, which has nearly three decades of experience creating interactive campaigns for major brands like Coca-Cola and Nintendo.
According to Inventa’s website, the firm organized all 186 daily celebration shows of the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay in communities across Canada, including the Coca-Cola crew and trailers that followed the Olympic Flame’s trek. Inventa also hired over 1,000 staff to run major sponsor activations for the 2010 Olympics, including the Coca-Cola Happiness House pavilion at Live City Yaletown.
Inventa subsequently provided similar services for the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games and the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay. (Inventa)
Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay. (Inventa)
Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Alfred Shum/Flickr)
Live City Yaletown at David Lam Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Alfred Shum/Flickr)
In June 2024, following FIFA’s approval, the City of Vancouver formally announced the PNE fairgrounds at Hastings Park will be the site of the Vancouver FIFA Fan Festival.
This location strategically takes advantage of the construction of the new PNE amphitheatre — an outdoor venue with a capacity for 10,000 spectators under a visually striking mass-timber roof, with ample permanent built-in facilities and amenities, unlike the previous old amphitheatre.
Construction on the new amphitheatre began earlier this year, and it is expected to reach completion in Spring 2026. In July 2024, City Council provided the project with up to an additional $30 million as a contingency fund to cover unexpected costs due to inflation and for any required expenditures to speed up construction, if necessary, to ensure the venue is ready for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. If the contingency fund is fully used, the project’s costs would increase to about $138 million.
Although the project is timed for the tournament, planning for the new amphitheatre and its 2026 scheduled completion began years before Vancouver decided to bid for the rights to be a 2026 host city.
Artistic rendering of the new PNE Amphitheatre. (Revery Architecture/PNE)
Artistic rendering of the new PNE Amphitheatre. (Revery Architecture/PNE)
Artistic rendering of the new PNE Amphitheatre. (Revery Architecture/PNE)
The Vancouver FIFA Fan Festival will open and close on the same days as the tournament — running between June 11 and July 29, 2026.
Based on past FIFA World Cups, the fan festivals in each host city operate on nearly all days of the tournament period but are closed on select rest days and when no matches are being played in any host city (typically over the last week of the tournament when there are no matches being played between the semi-finals and finals). As well, the fan festival is traditionally free to attend for the general public.
In the procurement files seeking an event production company, the City estimates that the Vancouver FIFA Fan Festival could attract an average of 15,000 visitors per day.
BC Place Stadium in downtown Vancouver will host a total of seven matches, including two coveted knockout matches. General ticket sales for the matches begin in 2025.