2026 Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival cancelled due to FIFA World Cup: organizer

A non-profit says an exclusion zone created by the FIFA World Cup is putting their annual marquee event – and their future – in peril.

Organizers of Vancouver’s Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival say the event won’t be going ahead next year due to the FIFA World Cup.

Dominic Lai, the senior development, marketing and operations director with Dragon Boat BC, said the organization only recently recovered financially from the impact of the pandemic, and doesn’t know if it will be able to withstand this hit.

“For us, FIFA represents a second COVID,” he said. “Financially, it is a very significant impact to our operating structure. I mean, we are a non-profit. We do all these great events, but at the end of the day, we still need to pay our bills.”

Lai said the festival – which is the largest of its kind in North America – can’t run as usual in 2026 because part of the festival would be located within a security zone designated for the soccer tournament. An exclusion on events in that zone will be in place for two weeks before the tournament begins and two weeks after it ends.

“That was something that we hadn’t expected,” he said.

Lai said the group has been working with the province and the city since 2022, when it was announced that Vancouver would be a host city for the summer soccer tournament.

“We’ve tried working with everyone throughout this process, but we’ve also been getting inquiries from our racers, from media outlets,” he said. “And so we just needed to be able to say, this is what’s happening and present it in a way that updates everyone.”

City Coun. Lucy Maloney said she learned about the cancellation Thursday.

“I think there’s been concerns about it for several months, but I only found out today where it’s hit a crucial point where its unlikely to go ahead,” she said.

In a statement to CTV News, the province said, it was aware that the event was impacted by the World Cup and understands the challenges major events like this can create.

“FIFA World Cup 26™ was announced in 2022, and event organizers throughout the province have been using this lead time to prepare for changes to events impacted by the FIFA World Cup 26,” the statement said. “Many events are successfully finding alternative dates, and locations for their events in the lead up to FIFA World Cup 26™.”