BC Place, Vancouver’s greatest stadium, looms over False Creek.
The Swifties are coming. To not Seattle—that was final 12 months, when Taylor Swift’s Period’s Tour hit Lumen Discipline. No, they’re coming from Seattle this week, streaming throughout the border to Vancouver, BC, for the final cease of the singer’s blockbuster circuit beginning December 6.
Vancouver is not simply a part of the Eras Tour—it is the ultimate cease.
Seattle account supervisor and Swift fan Amie Feintrich deliberate to hit up a kind of Seattle dates again in 2023, tickets bought and the whole lot. Then a nasty flu hit. “I couldn’t stroll two blocks, not to mention stand for 2 hours and be out till 2am,” she says. She offered her Seattle tickets and made plans to journey all the best way to Miami for a future date—till Swift introduced the Vancouver dates. Now she’ll drive simply over 140 miles to catch the singer.
Washington has lengthy been a touchdown pad for Canadians searching for American facilities; simply wait in line in a Bellingham Dealer Joe’s or stroll the streets round T-Cell Park throughout a Toronto Blue Jays collection; Canadian accents abound. However with its 54,500-seat BC Place stadium and enclosed Rogers Area subsequent door, each in dense, walkable downtown, Vancouver pays us again.
Beyoncé hit each metropolises final 12 months; Tyler, the Creator will hop from one to the opposite in 2025. We are able to’t actually name Vancouver a “backup” when the FIFA World Cup descends in 2026; Seattle will host six video games, whereas Canada’s west coast metropolis will host seven. It does double the alternatives for tickets, although.
Prince Harry greets a competitor on the 2017 Invictus Video games in Toronto.
However typically the most important draw is the stuff we will’t get domestically; subsequent 12 months Katy Perry’s live performance tour stops at BC Place however nowhere within the US. The Invictus Video games, well-known philanthropic venture of Prince Harry, lands in Vancouver and Whistler in February with aggressive sports activities for injured navy veterans, together with the primary winter sports activities occasion.
Vancouver boasts its various standing a little bit additional south, too, within the huge terminals of YVR worldwide airport. The screens pop with locations you may’t attain straight from Seattle–Tacoma’s gates—Dubai, Fiji, Sydney, Auckland, Bangkok, Xiamen. The airport’s usefulness as a world hub is obvious by the Fairmont Resort constructed proper into the terminal, its exercise room straight above the counters the place vacationers tag their checked baggage. Detest a connection? Launching a visit from YVR expands the nonstop choices.
I took my very own journey north to Vancouver in fall, grateful for its proximity so we might catch a hockey sport. (Sure, we now have native NHL motion, however not almost sufficient Pittsburgh matchups to serve a Penguins fan like my associate.) The Amtrak practice journey from King Avenue Station took nearly 4 hours, however the scenic Chuckanut-adjacent views made up for the size—to not point out how we had been deposited in Vancouver proper subsequent to town’s stadium district.
Right here, the Yaletown neighborhood sits in downtown’s southeast nook, walkable to the bustling vacationer facilities of Granville Island, Canada Place, and Gastown, however by some means quietly eliminated. Enterprise away from the stadiums for the crusty liege waffles of Café Medina and the fusion delicacies of Kissa Tanto. However the rapid neighborhood is speckled with the 7-Elevens and canine parks of residential life.
The rooftop park on the Parq On line casino—a part of a posh that additionally contains two inns—faces BC Place.
It is a Vancity for guests hungry for greater than museums and aquariums. The waterfront is toes away; a somewhat-secret 30,000-square-foot public park hides on the sixth flooring of the Parq On line casino complicated, accessible via the Douglas Resort. The prongs of the BC Place roof jut into its outside patio, dotted with ponds and greenery. It’s nearly straightforward to overlook the on line casino tucked into the constructing under it, however its huge flooring of baccarat and craps tables will get precise, pure mild.
Some cities toss their soccer fields and live performance complexes within the far suburbs, ringed by parking heaps. Right here, as in Seattle, the massive present is a part of the massive skyline. The Mount Nice neighborhood, dwelling to lots of the metropolis’s Michelin-starred eateries, sits simply past the long-lasting dome of Science World.
Yaletown is not any vacationer district in Vancouver; commuters far outnumber guests.
The world’s so dense that in this weekend’s Eras Tour performances, town has requested non–ticket holders to keep away from hanging out within the streets round BC Place. No “Taygating,” because it’s known as—the ferries and TransLink trains might be full sufficient with concertgoers.
The morning after my hockey sport in Rogers Area—good followers, rowdy, however well mannered—I wandered into Olympic Village, a neighborhood adjoining to Mount Nice and onetime dwelling of the athlete housing for the 2010 Winter Video games. I scored a sandwich from breakfast meals truck Crack On. Candied jalapeños and tomato relish added pleasure to an egg-and-bacon basic.
I might see the stadiums throughout False Creek, the place small ferry hyperlinks right here to there, although it’s solely about 20 minutes to stroll round. A bunch of Pokemon Go gamers gathered and dispersed, heads deep of their telephones, and locals strolled by with their canine. For a second earlier than starting the journey again towards the nationwide border, I used to be someplace between vacationer and native. As a city-loving Seattleite, it’s good to know we now have Vancouver in our again pocket. It’s a hell of a backup.
