{"id":159156,"date":"2025-08-02T00:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T00:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/vancouvers-dragon-boat-festival-pushed-out-by-fifa-world-cup-chat-news-today\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T00:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T00:52:07","slug":"vancouvers-dragon-boat-festival-pushed-out-by-fifa-world-cup-chat-news-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/vancouvers-dragon-boat-festival-pushed-out-by-fifa-world-cup-chat-news-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver\u2019s Dragon Boat Festival pushed out by FIFA World Cup – CHAT News Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 Organizers of the annual Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival in Vancouver say the event will be cancelled next year to make way for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Dominic Lai, the operations director with Dragon Boat BC, says the city declined to provide permits for 2026 edition of the festival.
Lai says they have been told Vancouver\u2019s host city agreement for World Cup prohibits cultural and sporting events during a certain time frame and also restricts events within a certain radius of BC Place Stadium.
The dragon boat festival usually takes place in late June, with last year\u2019s event drawing 200 teams from nine countries.
He says the festival takes place in the restricted area, about 20 metres from the stadium that\u2019s set to host seven games during the World Cup next in June.
A statement from Dragon Boat BC says the group had presented the city and the provincial government with different options for locations and time frames for its festival over the last few years, but it had not been successful in finding a solution.
\u201cAt this time, there is no confirmed support from the city and the province for the alternate scenarios we have presented,\u201d it says.
\u201cWithout clear information and support, non-profit organizations like Dragon Boat BC will have to navigate the challenging operational and financial impacts of the host city agreement on their own.\u201d
The City of Vancouver directed a request for comment to the B.C. government.
A statement from the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport says it was aware that next year\u2019s dragon boat festival has been cancelled.
It says the 2026 FIFA World Cup was announced in 2022, and many event organizers have used the \u201clead time\u201d to find alternative dates and locations.
Lai says it\u2019s not as simple as changing the date, as the dragon boat festival depends on water conditions, the availability of docks and when competitors can attend.
He likened the 2026 FIFA World Cup to \u201cthe second pandemic\u201d that is delivering a \u201csubstantial\u201d financial blow to his organization.
Lai says hosting the FIFA World Cup is meant to benefit the entire community.
\u201cThe legacy of FIFA needs to be one where the community comes out stronger than before,\u201d he says.
\u201cThat\u2019s really important to make sure that \u2026 all these community organizations are in a good place to benefit from these impacts after FIFA is gone.\u201d
The city and the B.C. government have said hosting seven matches is estimated to generate more than $1 billion in visitor spending and create some 18,000 jobs.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2025.

Nono Shen, The Canadian Press

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VANCOUVER \u2014 Organizers of the annual Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival in Vancouver say the event will be cancelled next year to make way for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Dominic Lai, the operations director with Dragon Boat BC, says the city declined to provide permits for 2026 edition of the festival.Lai says they have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}