Honda Celebration of Light fireworks cancelled in 2026 amid major funding collapse
In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized, Paul Runnals, executive producer of the Honda Celebration of Light and a founding partner of event production company Brand Live, says the financial reality has become a “perfect storm” and an “unmanageable situation.” Federal and provincial government contributions — a critical backbone for the free public event ever since the event’s pandemic restart in 2022 — have plummeted.
Combined grant funding from the federal and provincial governments reached $700,000 in 2023, but it has fallen to just $100,000 for 2026.
“Basically, the Province has slashed all of their funding, in our case, by over 60 per cent. We’re not alone… there’s a number of other major events that are dealing with similar slashes to their funding. And then the feds have entirely stopped funding programs like ours,” he said.
The reduction comes as every line of the festival’s budget has risen 20 per cent to 40 per cent since the pandemic due to market inflation, along with heightened logistical and public-safety costs. Meanwhile, the federal and provincial governments are producing austerity budgets due to their own financial challenges of staggering annual deficits and growing debt, and private-sector sponsors have remained much more cautious amid global economic uncertainty.
“We can’t just pivot from government to corporate at a time where corporate is being very careful… They kind of need to stash their cash away for whatever’s coming next,” Runnals said.
The event’s annual operating budget of just over $3 million belies the enormous economic value generated for the province. The financial gap organizers face in 2026 is nearly $1 million, which does not include the in-kind services the City of Vancouver provides every year due to the event’s “civic status,” including covering policing, traffic control and crowd management, engineering, and sanitation costs.
Estimates peg the economic benefit from the critical mass of crowds from the summertime fireworks event to be about $260 million each year, with about $5 million to $6 million per year in provincial tax revenue from the sales tax paid on food, shopping, dining, accommodations, and other services to local businesses that benefit. He says this represents a 1,300 per cent return on the provincial government’s long-standing $250,000 annual grant dating well before the pandemic, which was never adjusted for inflation.
“Free events require government to participate in order for them to be able to happen. That’s just the bottom line. And if they’re not going to do that, then sadly, we’re going to see this go away and quite possibly other events go away that just can’t manage on goodwill,” he said.
Major corporate sponsors such as Honda, Concord Pacific, and Tymac remain on board — for now. But several major partners have withdrawn in recent years, including Scotiabank and Seaspan, tightening revenue even before the latest government cuts.
Brand Live has absorbed some of the annual financial losses in previous years — including $150,000 in 2025 alone — but Runnals says the risks are now too great for their business to bear.
Crowds for the Honda Celebration of Light fireworks at English Bay Beach. (Honda Celebration of Light)
Beyond economics, the emotional and civic impact is immense.
Runnals says hundreds of thousands of families have grown up with the tradition — the fireworks became a multigenerational ritual for many Metro Vancouver residents.
“Having these giant free community events that people can look forward to and bring their families down, bring their visitors in from out of town… these are these are like the lifeline of our communities. And it just boggles my mind that we’re not prioritizing that kind of investment in keeping communities healthy and resilient,” he said.
“There’s nothing that comes close in terms of the impact, the number of people that have experienced it, and the and the positive impacts economically and tourism and all those things like nothing. Nothing comes anywhere close to it.”
Losing the Honda Celebration of Light, he warns, may be just the beginning. Other major Vancouver festivals — including Vancouver Pride, Vancouver Folk Fest, and Vancouver Jazz Fest — are facing similar strain.
Similarly, the Vancouver Pride Society publicly acknowledged significant financial challenges this past summer, unusually confirming the 2025 event just three weeks before it was set to take place — and even then, at a considerably reduced scale, including the parade route cut to just half its historic length.
In February 2025, dozens of major events and arts and culture organizations also signed an open letter to the provincial government, warning of a “looming crisis” in the events scene and urging the renewal of provincial grant funding or the creation of new replacement sources.
“We’re talking about unwinding the cultural fabric of our city… I don’t think we’re going to be the only thing that falls by the wayside,” continued Runnals.
With tourism at record highs and the city’s international reputation growing, the disappearance of one of its most iconic and largest free events raises hard questions about priorities at both corporate and political levels.
Organizers had been lobbying behind the scenes for months, speaking with potential sponsors and the federal and provincial governments, hoping a last-minute rescue might keep the 2026 event alive. But planning for a major event of this size requires a lengthy runway — and time has run out.
“Not for 2026… we’re already too late in the cycle… We tried to hold on as long as we could,” said Runnals, although he later added, “Never say never, I suppose.”
Runnals says he will be “interested to see” whether the inevitable public outcry shifts anything — but whether it is renewed government support or a surge in private sponsorship, any potential champions to save the event will need to act quickly.
“Unless somebody unexpectedly steps out of the shadows to say we can’t let this happen… I just don’t see that happening,” Runnals told Daily Hive Urbanized.
“I’m certainly not optimistic based on the kind of response we’ve been getting out of both levels of government and the fact that we’ve been talking with a lot of corporate partners. When you’re talking about corporate partners needing to make six-figure contributions and in some cases even more, those are those are very hard to come by right now just because of because of all this [economic] uncertainty.”
Vancouver showing up for the first night of the 2024 Honda Celebration of Light.
No event truly showcases the city and its people, with their diversity and all walks of life, like our annual international fireworks competition. #CelebOfLight pic.twitter.com/n51Sjps8xu
— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) July 21, 2024
Post-fireworks exodus on Davie Street. #CelebOfLight pic.twitter.com/b5nZ3YlulI
— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) July 25, 2024
This is far from the first time the event has faced financial hurdles.
The event first launched in 1990 as the Benson & Hedges Symphony of Fire, but a federal ban on tobacco sponsorship of cultural events in the early 2000s forced a major rebrand and raised concerns over its long-term financial future.
Renamed the Celebration of Light, the festival secured HSBC as its title sponsor throughout most of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, until Honda stepped in to take on top billing in 2012.
The event also narrowly survived a major financial threat during the 2008/2009 recession, which was also a period when sponsorship interest gravitated toward the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at the expense of some local annual events. In February 2009, organizers announced the cancellation of that summer’s event — only for it to be rescued weeks later after a wave of public outcry and the signing of three new sponsors.
Since 2010, Brand Live has produced the event on behalf of the non-profit Vancouver Fireworks Society, serving as its operational partner each year.
In 2011, under their new management, the event was also completely recalibrated with new creative approaches — shortened from four fireworks nights to three nights each year to make it more financially manageable for organizers, and enable the introduction of significant pre-fireworks entertainment and other programming, such as concert stages, air shows, drone shows, food trucks, and other activations. That same year, Brand Live also introduced the Honda Celebration of Light’s first-ever ticketed premium viewing and corporate lounge experiences at English Bay Beach to provide the event with a new revenue stream — experiences that have returned every year since, and have proven to be popular and consistent sellouts.
And for the past two years, organizers held a 50/50 draw. In 2025, the Honda Celebration of Light 50/50 raised a total of $27,295, with the winner taking home half the jackpot and organizers taking the remaining half to help support the event.
Runnals paints a picture that something is different about this latest round of financial challenges, which are not isolated to just the fireworks event but impacting the entire events landscape and arts and culture scene.
“Unless, if some philanthropist wants to step up and save the day, of course, we would take any meetings we could. But I just don’t see that happening. I hate to sound pessimistic, but I’ve been doing this for 15 years and, you know, we’ve ridden some cycles out over those 15 years,” said Runnals.
“We tried everything we can. We’re kind of at our wits’ end with it all.”
Concord Pacific Grandstand at the Honda Celebration of Light fireworks in English Bay. (Honda Celebration of Light)
Although the 2026 fireworks have been cancelled, next summer is still poised to be exceptionally busy — thanks to one major global spectacle. Vancouver will host seven matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup at BC Place Stadium, along with the five-week-long official FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE fairgrounds — an event also organized and produced by Brand Live.
Based on recent scheduling patterns — which have seen the fireworks begin a week earlier than their traditional dates, coinciding with the B.C. Day long weekend — the 2026 edition would have kicked off on July 18, just one day before the World Cup championship final in New York/New Jersey.
This event has only been cancelled twice in its entire history — in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic-time health safety restrictions on large gatherings. It was also the only remaining mass crowd public fireworks event in Vancouver, following the cancellation of the Canada Day and New Year’s Eve fireworks at Canada Place.
Runnals also acknowledged that local developer Concord Pacific has been the event’s longest-running sponsor, spanning 25 years to date.
“We are the longest running sponsor of the event and are saddened to hear it has been cancelled indefinitely,” said Terry Hui, president and CEO of Concord Pacific, in a statement reacting to the event’s uncertain future.
“We support many events in the city and hope that it comes back, reinvented and rejuvenated in the near future.”
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