EASTSIDE ARTS FESTIVAL to Return for Expanded 6th Edition in Vancouver

Eastside Arts Society will return with an expanded 6th edition of its summer celebration of Eastside artists, the Eastside Arts Festival. Taking place July 17–26, 2026, the festival spans neighbourhoods, parks, studios, and breweries across the Eastside Arts District, and includes an all-day outdoor music event at MacLean Park. A district-wide celebration of the artists, cultural spaces, and the creative communities that continue to shape Vancouver's Eastside, this year's festival invites people to experience the community in hands-on and unexpected ways through soundwalks, artist-led workshops, public art tours, immersive performances, and live music. 

“As the Eastside Arts Festival enters its 6th year, I'm continually inspired by the creative energy, experimentation, and sense of community that exists across the Eastside Arts District,” says Sierra MacTavish, Programs and Development Manager at the Eastside Arts Society. “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. 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 festival will bring back its popular series of neighbourhood walking tours for the second time, featuring an enhanced number of new offerings in 2026, including artist-led tours across various Eastside communities, such as Chinatown, Strathcona, and Commercial Drive, and featuring a wide variety of topics: photography, soundwalking (an active listening experience that focuses on sonic environments), public art, and a choose-your-own-adventure format heritage tour. Walking tour guides include: Hogan's Alley Society, Bill Yuen of Heritage Vancouver, and local artists Kate MacDonald, Jorma Kujala, Wendy D, and Candice Weber.

The festival will also introduce a series of new unique and affordable art-making workshops–including potted plant portrait painting, floral watercolour still-lifes, glass frit fusing, ceramic mini house creations, and a plein air drawing tour–to complement returning favourites: eco-printing, indigo dyeing, textile printmaking, lino landscapes, goldwork embroidery, landscape painting, and porcelain slip casting. Workshops will be hosted by Eastside artists at a variety of venues, including artist studios, local breweries and distilleries: Luppolo Brewing Co, East Van Brewing Company, Superflux Beer Company, and Odd Society Spirits. The plein air drawing workshop will take place at Strathcona Park. 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 festival will hold a live, interactive performance installation, The Whitty Wily Poetry Connection, hosted by artist Claire Davis at the Kamloops x Hastings Plaza from 12-2pm. Poetry is generated, performed, and playfully disrupted in real time. Audiences are invited to participate in spontaneous acts of writing, composing poems from unexpected objects, co-creating absurd or sincere texts, and amplifying their voices through analogue spectacle.

On July 25, the festival will host its annual free, all-day outdoor event, at MacLean Park, in collaboration with the Rickshaw Theatre, and presented by the Strathcona BIA. The event features live music, public art activities, food trucks (Dos Amigos, Stik Pop, Midnight Joe's, and Chickpea), and a beer garden hosted by Strange Fellows Brewing, from 3-8pm. Performers 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. Free all-ages public art activities will include a collaborative collage led by Enabling Arts, a kid-friendly writer's prompt led by The Writer's Exchange on-site, and an accessible art activity featuring recycled materials led by Alternative Creations Studio. The event will also feature an Art Shop showcasing work by local artists such as ceramics, prints, paintings, textiles, apparel, and mixed-media works. Come early and enjoy the Strathcona Blocks Party, taking place on the 800 block of East Hastings Street from 12:00–5:00 PM, before heading over to MacLean Park for the Eastside Arts Festival Concert in the Park from 3:00–5:00 PM.