The Unknown Comedy Club has announced The Underground Comedy Railroad, a five city stand up comedy tour with 8 shows this month, is coming to Vancouver on February 24th.
The Underground Comedy Railroad Tour 2024
Date: Saturday, February 24, 2024
Time: 7:00pm and 9:00pm
Location: The MOTN (1826 Triumph St, Vancouver)
Admission: Tickets available online for the 7:00pm and 9:00pm shows in Vancouver
Each year The Underground Comedy Railroad invites local Black comedians to perform on each stop of the tour increasing their opportunities to reach a larger audience, and often to perform on stages they might not otherwise have the opportunity to perform on. The showcases celebrate the 12th anniversary of the annual tour that has travelled across Canada during Black History Month since 2012.
Beginning February 3 in Toronto, the tour hits the road with Black comedians from across Canada including tour co-founders Rodney Ramsey and Daniel Woodrow, plus Tamara Shevon, and Keesha Brownie, with special guests Travis Lindsay, Violet Gray, Akeem Hoyte-Charles, Simone Holder, and Peter Bowen.
About the Tour
The tour was created by Rodney Ramsey and Daniel Woodrow in 2012 to create opportunities and introduce the voices of black Canadian comedians to new audiences abroad. Every year a new line-up of comics is selected for their hilarious and uniquely Canadian comedic perspectives on everything from race to everyday life. The Underground Comedy Railroad is now well known for being the first ever all black comedy tour in the country, bringing diverse perspectives to regions who have never experienced this kind of unique cultural event.
The Year of the Dragon is almost here and there are community celebrations, workshops, the parade in Chinatown, and events all around Vancouver to ring in the Lunar New Year.
Chinatown Spring Festival Parade
The Chinatown Spring Festival Parade is happening Sunday, February 11th. Starting out at the Millennium Gate (near 88 Pender St) at 11:00am the parade will feature various dance troupes, community groups, and the largest assembly of lion dance teams in Canada.
The 1.3 km route starts at the Millennium Gate on Pender Street (between Shanghai Alley and Taylor Street), proceeds east along Pender Street, turns south onto Gore Street, turns west onto Keefer Street and then ends on Keefer at Abbott.
Marking the 50th anniversary of the Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown, Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association (VCBIA) expects the event to draw over 100,000 visitors into the neighbourhood to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of the community.
Metropolis at Metrotown Photo Submitted
Attractions
Lunar New Year at Chinese Canadian Museum: The Chinese Canadian Museum is celebrating its first Lunar New Year February 10-11 with special tea tastings, craft workshops, lion dances, added guided tours, and Chinese calligraphy demonstrations.
The Lantern City Lunar New Year in Vancouver: Collaborating with Eastside Arts Society, Indigenous artists, Asian Canadian artists, and more, The Lantern City installations for the Lunar New Year return to four sites around Vancouver in February.
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden: During and after the parade on Sunday, February 11, enjoy Lunar New Year performances, fortune-telling, cultural street cuisines and more to begin a prosperous new year from 12:00pm to 5:00pm. Tickets are available online. Also at the garden, the Lunar New Year Let It Glow! Light Engraving Workshop is February 10th from 10:30am to 12:30pm. Tickets for that are also available online.
Celebrate Lunar New Year with a free family friendly event hosted by the Chinese Village Club at the Museum of Surrey on February 24th.
In the West End neighbourhood enjoy public art displays and an installation at Robson & Cardero, plus a lion dance ceremony at the Robson Public Market on February 10th at 3:30pm.
The Vancouver Chinatown Foundation presents Taste of Chinatown. The three-day festival will run from February 9 to 11 featuring a specialty food pop-up in the Chinatown Storytelling Centre, the Lunar New Year Parade, glowing lights and lanterns, walking tours, and a passport program that offers exciting prize draws, all throughout the 16 blocks surrounding Vancouver’s Chinatown.
Dragon Boat BC is hosting an open house of their new Chinatown Hub on February 11th.
Lunar New Year market at UBC Botanical Garden: The market, February 3-4, has expanded to include 40 vendors and four food trucks. Guests can expect family-friendly crafts workshops, as well as a lion dance and kung fu performances.
MONOVA (Museum & Archives of North Vancouver): On February 10th, explore traditional New Year customs, try writing couplets, and learn about dragon imagery throughout history while drawing your own dragon. Storytelling, snacks, and daikon cake tasting are also available throughout the day.
Oakridge Park is inviting the community to celebrate the Year of the Dragon at the Oakridge Park Lunar New Year Celebration at the Fairmont Pacific Rim. Now in its sixth year, the festivities are happening until February 25, 2024 with daily programming from 11:00am to 6:00pm. This will include family-focused activities such as children’s ballet classes in collaboration with the award-winning Goh Ballet Academy, Lunar New Year family portraits, floral arrangement workshops, live musical performances and more.
Shopping Centres
Guests in Metro Vancouver at CF Richmond Centre and CF Pacific Centre can immerse themselves in vibrant displays, providing picturesque backdrops for memorable moments. Enjoy festive live music featuring traditional Chinese instruments, paying homage to the Year of the Dragon, the zodiac sign for 2024.
Metropolis at Metrotown will host festivities February 9-24. BC’s largest shopping centre will usher in the Year of the Dragon with a series of performances, workshops, and traditional displays.
Lansdowne Centre hosts a LEGO display, artisan market, lions dances, family portrait session and more from February 3-25.
Tickets are now available for the Canuck Place Winter 50/50 draw in support of the only pediatric palliative care provider in BC and the Yukon.
Canuck Place Winter 50/50 Draw
Tickets:Buy online for 3 for $5, 7 for $10, 50 for $20 or 150 for $50
Anticipated Prize: $350,000 to be split with the winner
Ticket Sales Close: Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 11:59pm
Draw Date: Friday, March 1, 2024 at 11:00am PST
Tickets may be sold and purchased only in British Columbia. Ticket purchasers must be 19 years of age or older. Know your limit, play within it.
Since launching in Fall 2020, the Canuck Place 50/50 has raised $3,506,140! Half has gone to the lucky winners, and half goes to support exceptional care in Canuck Place hospices in Vancouver and Abbotsford, and community-based care in-home and in-hospital across BC and the Yukon.
Canuck Place operates 13 patient beds and 8 family suites through two hospices in Vancouver and Abbotsford. Services include in-hospice medical respite and family support, pain and symptom management, provincial 24-Hour Clinical Care Line, music and recreation therapy, education and art, grief, loss, and bereavement counselling, as well as end-of-life care.
For close to three decades, Canuck Place has been providing exceptional complex medical care, while helping children and families embrace living fully with the time they have left together. But not without donor support. That’s where your 50/50 ticket purchase can make a difference.
The Chinese Canadian Museum is celebrating its first Lunar New Year February 10-11 with special tea tastings, craft workshops, lion dances, added guided tours, and Chinese calligraphy demonstrations.
Photo submitted
Lunar New Year at Chinese Canadian Museum
Date: February 10 and 11, 2024
Location: Chinese Canadian Museum (51 E Pender St, Vancouver)
Lunar New Year — also called Spring Festival in some parts of the world — falls on February 10 this year, set to commence the Year of the Wood Dragon.
Saturday, February 10, 2024: master Chinese calligrapher Wai Yin Lau will host calligraphy demonstrations from 11:00am to 2:00pm. Visitors will be able to take home an auspicious Chinese calligraphy greeting to bring in good fortune for the year.
Sunday, February 11, 2024: Chinese Canadian artist Marlene Yuen, whose mural is featured inside the museum’s introductory gallery, will host special Year of the Wood Dragon printmaking sessions from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Visitors will use various relief plate templates to ink, print, and string their own decorative Lunar New Year bunting.
On both days, join in free tea tastings specially curated from Chinatown tea shops, along with snacks and treats. Guided tours of the museum are available every hour from 11:00am to 3:00pm on February 10, and from 1:00pm to 3:00pm on February 11 (which will be held in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin).
Museum staff will be marching in the Vancouver Chinatown Lunar New Year parade on February 11 with hand-stitched and embroidered Chinese Canadian Museum flags and banners, specially designed by Chinese and Quebecois Canadian graphic design firm Studio Pianpian He and Max Harvey, based in Montreal.
Golden Tickets & Red Envelopes
With your admission from January 24 to February 11, visitors will receive a fortune cookie with the chance to find a golden fortune paper inside. Winners can then be entered into a guaranteed prize draw, which includes a trip for two from Rocky Mountaineer; a roundtrip Helijet flight to Victoria with a stay at the Grand Pacific Hotel; gift cards to Kissa Tanto and Bao Bei; two press box seats to a Vancouver Canucks game; a private group ceramics workshop in Chinatown, and more.
The museum has also commissioned Vancouver graphic artist Melanie Choi to design custom red pocket envelopes, with packs available for sale at their gift kiosk. All visitors who buy an annual pass from January 31 to February 11 will also receive one free red pocket. It is Chinese tradition to give out red envelopes (known as 紅包, hóngbāo) filled with money as a symbol and gesture of good luck and prosperity, and to ward off evil spirits.
The Chinese Canadian Museumopened July 1, 2023. It is Canada’s first museum recognizing past, present, and future contributions and stories of Chinese Canadians towards the growth and success of BC and Canada.
The JUNO Awards are coming back to Vancouver in 2025! This will mark the fifth time the awards have been held in the city.
JUNO Awards in Vancouver 2025
The 2025 JUNO Week will be held from Wednesday, March 26 to Sunday, March 30, concluding with the 54th Annual JUNO Awards Broadcast, airing live on CBC and CBC Gem from Rogers Arena.
Vancouver previously hosted the awards in 2018, with Michael Bublé as host. The 2018 JUNO Awards Week was resoundingly well received, with nearly 29,000 attendees. These activities also generated $10.9 million in economic activity in British Columbia, and a $5.8 million boost to the province’s GDP.
The Province of British Columbia is investing $2 million towards the cost of hosting the awards so that British Columbians and visitors can participate in community-driven events throughout the province during the five-day JUNO Week festivities.
“With the strength of our vibrant music industry, British Columbia is the perfect place to host the JUNO Awards, said Lana Popham, Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. “We can’t wait to welcome music lovers and artists from across the country to Vancouver in 2025. Being the host of the JUNO Awards means more than just enjoying good music. It’s also an opportunity to drive tourism, which will create more jobs and support local businesses. This is a unique moment to celebrate our success in transforming B.C. into a national music hub through our Amplify BC investment.”
As the biggest celebration of Canadian music talent, the JUNO Awards are expected to bolster economic activity by attracting tens of thousands of visitors to take part in JUNO Week festivities, resulting in an increase in hotel bookings, more customers for local restaurants, and a boost to various sectors of the hospitality industry.
