Powell Street Festival

10/09/2026

Japanese Canadian Artist call out! Powell Street Festival Society is looking for an artist to design the poster for the 51st Powell Street Festival.

All Japanese Canadian visual artists are welcome to apply via our online application. Your artwork will represent next year's festival across the festival site and around the city, and will be featured on our merchandise, with credit across print, web, and social media. You'll also receive an artist stipend of $3,500 for your work.

Ideally, you're connected to the festival and familiar with its history and what it means to our community.

Apply on our website by 11:59 PM PT on Friday, November 6th. To apply, you'll need to submit your contact information, a brief artist statement, and portfolio examples of your work. Link in bio.

10/07/2026

Powell Street Festival is excited to promote a film Red Demon that opens at the Firehall Arts Centre this week.

First premiered in Japan in 1996, Red Demon is a darkly funny and thought-provoking play about immigration, borders, belonging, and the ways we respond to those we perceive as different. When a strange creature washes ashore in a small beach town, no one can understand him. The villagers speak Japanese, the Red Demon speaks Spanish, and fear takes over. Hideki Noda's darkly funny play asks what keeps us from embracing those who are different.

Performed in Japanese and Spanish with English surtitles.

October 8 to 18 at the Firehall Theatre
280 E Cordova St, Vancouver

Tickets start at $20 (Twenty Tuesdays), and Wednesday matinees are pay-what-you-can.

Get tickets:

Written by Hideki Noda Translation and Adaptation by Roger Pulvers British Adaptation by Hideki Noda and Matt Wilkinson A rice & beans theatre and Gokko Creative Society production A Firehall Arts Centre Presentation Performance license[s] of the play were arranged through Noda Map, Tokyo (facsimile...

10/06/2026

Powell Street Festival Society is proud to be a community partner of the Vancouver New Music Festival!

Opening October 22, the festival presents the Kuniko Kato Quartet from Japan in a program celebrating Steve Reich's 90th birthday. One of the world's leading percussion virtuosos, Kato is joined by Haruka Aoyagi, Karin Tozaki, Koichi Hosono, and Misaki Matsuno for some of Reich's most complex, hypnotic, and beautiful percussion works. The performance is part of the REICH90 North American Tour.

Kuniko Kato Quartet
October 22, 2026 | 8pm
Artist Talk | 7:15pm
Pacific Spirit United Church (2195 W 45th Ave)

Details and tickets are available on the Vancouver New Music website.

09/29/2026

🧡 Orange Shirt Day | National Day for Truth and Reconciliation – September 30, 2026 🧡

Join us at Grandview Park as we gather in truth, honour Survivors, celebrate resilience, and walk forward together.

The day will include cultural and contemporary performances, an Indigenous market, and an Honour Walk beginning at 11:30 AM. Bring your drums, wear orange, and come together with community. 🧡

This event is proudly hosted in partnership by MVAEC, Slaxin Lelum, Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre Society (VACPC), Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society, Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society (VAHS), Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, Salal, REACH, and Britannia.

📅 Wednesday, September 30, 2026
⏰ 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM
📍 Grandview Park | 1657 Charles Street, Vancouver

Please share widely and help us spread the word throughout our communities. 🧡

09/03/2026

Last chance to catch our exhibition "Return to Paueru G*i: Fifty Years of Powell Street Festival" at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre! This retrospective exhibition curated by Emiko Morita celebrates 50 years of Powell Street Festival's art and activism through photographs, videos and installations.

Check out the exhibition one last time during Nikkei Centre’s Nikkei Matsuri! Also happening this weekend, enjoy the exhibition alongside vibrant traditions, flavours, and sounds of Japan right in Burnaby. Celebrating its 14th year, the festival is expanding with more culture, more food, and an all-new community zone. It's the perfect chance to stop by and explore the exhibition while you're there, before it closes September 6th.

*i

08/26/2026

Check out the 3rd Annual Sumo Basho Vancouver in the Powell Street Neighbourhood!

Join us on Monday, Sept. 7 for our third annual amateur sumo exhibition in Vancouver's historic Powell Street neighbourhood!

08/18/2026

Some of our craft and marketplace vendors from the 50th Annual Powell Street Festival!

Photos by Angus Kwan, 2026

08/04/2026

The Shig Hirai Sumo Tournament at the 50th Annual Powell Street Festival! Thank you to Sumo Sundays | All bodies sumo wrestling in Vancouver, BC for organizing and Fujiya Foods for your family’s long standing support! Congrats to Rain City Sumo and Sumo Sundays | All bodies sumo wrestling in Vancouver, BC for taking home the winning prize of rice!!