Photo via Jon Pesochin
The sixth annual Eastside Arts Festival is coming up this month, bringing 10 days of art-inspired festivities to Vancouver’s vibrant Eastside community.
The festival spans multiple neighbourhoods, parks, art studios, and breweries in the Eastside Arts District, including an all-day outdoor music party at MacLean Park. This year, festival-goers will find a mix of live music, art workshops, public art activations, a beer garden, and an art shop, offering visitors of all ages and abilities the chance to explore and create.
There will also be plenty of opportunities to experience the community through immersive experiences like soundwalks (an active listening experience), artist-led workshops, art tours, and various other immersive experiences that bring out the unexpected.
“What makes the Eastside so special is the density of creativity that exists here–artist studios, community spaces, and longstanding cultural histories all existing side by side,” says Sierra MacTavish, programs and development manager at the Eastside Arts Society.
“At its heart, the festival is about creating opportunities for people to move through the neighbourhood differently, encounter moments of wonder, and connect more deeply with the artists, spaces, and communities that continue to shape Vancouver’s cultural landscape.”
This year’s festivities will see the return of the popular neighbourhood walking tour series, which will add a bunch of new stops in 2026. Artist-led tours will take place across the Eastside, including in Chinatown, Strathcona, and Commercial Drive. Each tour will spotlight a different artistic practice or medium, including photography, soundwalking, public art, and a choose-your-own-adventure heritage tour.
Tour leaders include Hogan’s Alley Society, Bill Yuen of Heritage Vancouver, and local artists Kate MacDonald, Jorma Kujala, Wendy D, and Candice Weber.
The Eastside Arts Festival will also introduce a series of affordable art-making workshops, such as potted plant portrait painting, floral watercolour still-life, glass frit fusing, ceramic mini house making, eco-printing, textile printmaking, goldwork embroidery, and much more.
Even better? You can sip a local brew while trying something new at one of the above workshops, as many are hosted at local breweries and distilleries like Luppolo, Superflux, and Odd Society Spirits, to name a few spots.
The popular plein air drawing workshop will take place at Strathcona Park
According to festival organizers, workshop instructors include Terminal City Glass Co-op, Naomi Yamamoto, Christina Radvak, Janine Schroedter, Candice Weber, Serena Chu, Dima Gurevich, Sunfire Studios Inc., Tara Pople, Pilar Mehlis, and Sonya Iwasiuk.
On July 18, the Whitty Wily Poetry Connection will bring visitors together for an interactive, live performance between noon and 2 p.m. at the Kamloops and Hastings Plaza. Created by artist Claire Davis, the installation will generate and perform poetry in real time, playfully disrupting it through audience participation.
Visitors are encouraged to participate in spontaneous acts of writing, composing poems from unexpected objects, and amplifying their voices through analogue spectacle.
On July 25, the festival will host its annual free, all-day outdoor party at MacLean Park in collaboration with the Rickshaw Theatre and the Strathcona BIA. There will be live music, public art activities, and an array of food trucks to sample, including Dos Amigos, Stik Pop, Midnight Joe’s, and Chickpea.
A beer garden will feature sips from Strange Fellows Brewing from 3 to 8 p.m.
Performers slated to take the stage include DJ Jody Glenham, alt-country solo project Big Rig, longtime Vancouver musician Stephen Hamm: Theremin Man, neo-dance psychedelia band Wack, and grunge pop quartet Buddie.
Festival-goers will also find a collaborative collage led by Enabling Arts, a kid-friendly writer’s prompt led by The Writer’s Exchange, and an accessible activity featuring recycled materials led by Alternative Creations Studio.
There will be so much to see and do throughout the day! So much so, in fact, you could even arrive early to catch the Strathcona Blocks Party, which takes over the 800 block of East Hastings Street from noon to 5 p.m.
The fun at MacLean Park will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. on July 25.
Other events to look forward to at this year’s festival include the return of the Dance Deck, produced by Belle Spirale Dance Projects Artistic Directors Sylvain Senez and Alexis Fletcher. This series of performances will take place on July 18, 19, 25, and 26.
MacLean Park Music will offer an afternoon of free live music at the park the next day, on July 26. Here, park-goers can enjoy free concerts by local performers Mizz Lisa, Lyndsay Wills & the No Frills String Band, and Sinéad X Sanders.
While the Eastside Arts Fest is completely free to check out, if you want to immerse yourself in a new craft, art workshop tickets range from $35 to $55.
Walking tours are priced at $20 per person, and the Dance Deck tickets range from $40 to $70.
The sixth annual Eastside Arts Festival kicks off on July 17 and runs until July 26, 2026.
When: Friday, July 17 to Sunday, July 26, 2026
Time: Varies per event
Where: Various Eastside Arts District (EAD) studios, breweries, and performance venues
Cost: Free and ticketed events
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