One-night Vancouver fireworks event approved to replace Honda Celebration of Light this summer
This is intended to be a one-year bridge to not only fill the gaping hole in Vancouver’s major public events calendar, but also help ensure the decades-long momentum of the hugely popular summertime fireworks competition tradition continues this year, while efforts are made to find a solution for the multi-night events in 2027 and beyond.
“When these events go away, they’re so hard to bring back,” said Sim, explaining the rationale for providing just enough support to keep a form of this event going in Summer 2026.
The City will also ask senior governments to renew their funding commitment levels for the Honda Celebration of Light, with federal funding since the pandemic restart of events evaporating, and longtime provincial funding reduced. Moreover, Vancouver’s historically weak corporate sponsorship market for major public events has been compounded by the current economic challenges.
Non-profit organization Vancouver Fireworks Society and local event production company Brand Live first announced the 2026 event’s cancellation in November 2025 due to a budget shortfall of nearly $1 million. Brand Live absorbed some of the event’s financial losses emerging out of the pandemic, but the projected 2026 losses were deemed to be too great for the company to bear. Brand Live is also the same company contracted to produce the five-week-long 2026 FIFA Fan Festival from mid-June to mid-July at the PNE fairgrounds.
City staff will report back to City Council before the end of March 2026 to provide an update on the planning of a single fireworks night this summer, after the FIFA World Cup.
Each year, for more than three decades, roughly 400,000 people descend onto the beaches and parks in and around English Bay for each night of the Honda Celebration of Light, originally known as the Benson & Hedges Symphony of Fire. The critical mass of residents and tourists provides a major boost to shops, restaurants, entertainment establishments, hotels, and services across large areas of the city.
“Think of it as the largest event in the province and the effect that it has on restaurants, all the local shop owners, the taxi drivers, Uber drivers, you name it,” said Sim.
“If you own that little shop, you know what, that one day can make or break your month or your summer. It is that significant. And I think that’s what we should be fighting for.” The Mayor also highlighted that this spending on local businesses also generates significant sales tax revenues for the provincial and municipal governments.
ABC city councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung added, “I think that in addition to being a beloved festival and a free event, that’s so iconically Vancouver, there is nothing like sitting and watching the fireworks with that spectacular view of English Bay. People don’t necessarily realize the significant economic impact.”
Kirby-Yung said that before entering politics, she spent years working on the event as part of her career in Vancouver’s tourism industry, serving in various roles, including as marketing chair and helping to secure corporate sponsorships.
“There’s always been challenges and ebbs and flows in this event, but it always managed to sustain and hang on,” she said.
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.
“There’s an economic impact… but you [also] cannot put a price on how beloved this event is. It has been going for a long, long time. So let’s give a little bit of breathing room. Let’s have one this summer, and let’s know that we did everything we can, just like we’re trying to keep the Whitecaps in Vancouver. These are quintessentially Vancouver things, and they are worth fighting for,” she added.
City Council approved the motion in a 7-3 vote, with Green city councillor Pete Fry, COPE city councillor Sean Orr, and OneCity city councillor Lucy Maloney opposed.
The three city councillors who opposed the motion did so mainly on financial and prioritization grounds.
Fry argued that spending a total of up to about $2 million on a one-night event was irresponsible during an austerity budget with no property tax increase, and when there are layoffs with City staff and service pressures. Orr stressed the opportunity cost, saying the money could instead support core services or maintain City staff positions, while Maloney argued that if the funds are available for this event, they should instead be spread across multiple arts and festival organizations rather than concentrated in a single fireworks show. A proposed amendment by Maloney to Mayor Sim’s motion to effectively kill the plan was rejected by the ABC Vancouver party’s governing majority.
However, it was reiterated that the plan represents an incremental increase of $600,000 for this year only, drawn from the contingency reserves, and that the City has already been spending $1.2 million to $1.6 million each year to support this civic event for decades.
“The point of keeping property taxes low… is to support affordability, but people still need to have joy and things to do in their city. The argument sort of falls flat to me, if you’re arguing about affordability, because this is one of those things that allows a family to go and have a night out without costing anything,” said Kirby-Yung.
Addressing suggestions that the funding should instead be redirected to arts and cultural organizations, Kirby-Yung said the City already provides roughly $14 million a year in grants to support those groups’ spaces, events, and programming, which are typically smaller, ticketed, and generate very limited economic impact compared with the fireworks.
“Arts and culture in general doesn’t work as a business model, but we don’t stop investing in it,” Kirby-Yung said, responding to opposition councillors who argued the Honda Celebration of Light should no longer be supported because of its current financial struggles.
“I feel like I’ve been an episode of a Christmas Carol with Scrooge, and I’m hoping that, you know, people will wake up and realize that this is just something that brings people joy. It makes them smile,” continued Kirby-Yung.
As recently as before the pandemic, Vancouver had up to five fireworks nights per year, with non-profit organizations behind the Honda Celebration of Light and New Year’s Eve fireworks, and Vancouver Fraser Port Authority organizing Canada Day fireworks.
Annual public fireworks events elsewhere in Metro Vancouver are directly organized and funded by municipal governments, with the City of Burnaby, City of Coquitlam, City of Port Coquitlam, and City of Surrey spearheading their own Canada Day events, for instance. Since the cancellation of the port authority’s Canada Day fireworks in downtown Vancouver, attendance at other Canada Day fireworks in the region has seen an explosion.
In stark contrast, the City of Vancouver has traditionally relied on the goodwill of volunteer-based, non-profit organizations and other third-party entities to fill its year-round major public events calendar.
The only exception is the annual Polar Bear Swim at English Bay, which is organized by the municipal government through the Vancouver Park Board.
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