Vancouver sports and arts organizations competing for consumers’ entertainment dollars are seeing varying degrees of success.
Geopolitical headwinds are fuelling uncertainty in the economy, prompting some consumers to pull back on spending, crimping some events’ success, according to ticket brokers.
The Abbotsford Canucks enjoyed huge demand for playoff tickets with some scalpers netting substantial sums for games in the lead-up to the team winning its first Calder Cup on June 23.
Nonetheless, this year has yet to see anything like the ticket frenzy unleashed by Taylor Swift’s three Eras Tour concerts in December.
What is increasingly common is for concert attendees to wait to buy tickets until just before events start with the hope that promoters will release reasonably priced last-minute tickets, Vancouver Ticket and Tour principal Kingsley Bailey told BIV.
Some performers are being a bit too ambitious when selecting their venues, he said.
“We’re seeing acts that would have played the Orpheum and all of a sudden, they’re playing at Rogers Arena, and it’s a big jump,” said Bailey, referring to bands such as Volbeat.
“They may get about 5,000 fans but that is all.”
Jazz events can be popular, he said, pointing to the upcoming Vancouver International Jazz Festival having many acts in appropriately sized small venues.
Shows have already sold out for acts such as the Bill Frisell Trio.
BC Lions adept at attracting more fans
When it comes to sports, the BC Lions are smartly pulling out all the stops to get fans in the building, Bailey said.
The Lions announced 52,837 fans had bought tickets for the team’s season opener against the Edmonton Elks June 7. That event included a pre-game concert with rapper Snoop Dogg.
The Lions have enjoyed steady attendance growth since Vancouver businessman Amar Doman bought the team from the estate of former owner David Braley in mid-2021.
The team last year played one sold-out regular-season game in a small stadium in Victoria. Its other eight regular season games at BC Place attracted an average 28,718 fans, up 23.3 per cent from an average 23,292 fans per game at BC Place in 2023, BC Lions president Duane Vienneau told BIV.
This year the team plans to play all nine regular-season games at BC Place.
To get fans in seats, the Lions are:
- Starting games at 4 p.m. so families that live in the Fraser Valley can get home earlier, and fans on Vancouver Island have time to catch post-game ferries;
- Providing reduced-price tickets for those younger than 18 years old;
- Hosting pre-game “tailgate” parties at Terry Fox Plaza, where an area is fenced off and licensed for alcohol and food sales while bands play to entertain fans;
- Having a pre-game concert at the first home game of the season;
- Offering packaged transportation-and-ticket offers to fans on Vancouver Island; and
- Sometimes having merchandise giveaways for a set number of the first fans to enter BC Place.
“We try to theme every game to make them a little bit different, and to appeal to different genres of people,” Vienneau said.
“Once we get those new fans to the game, we try to entertain the heck out of them to give them the best experience possible.”
Vancouver Whitecaps see attendance drop
The Vancouver Whitecaps FC last year saw average attendance soar 56 per cent, to 26,121, from 16,745 in 2023. Despite being the best team in the league for much of this season, attendance has lagged.
Nine home games into this season, the team notched its highest attendance of the year, against rival Seattle Sounders: 24,276.
The team’s average attendance in those games was only 19,865, or down 18.2 per cent from last year’s full-season average.
Those statistics do not include the team notching its own Major League Soccer-era single-match attendance record: 53,837 fans for a non-league game in April, when the Whitecaps played Miami FC and superstar Lionel Messi in the CONCACAF Champions Cup semi-final.
Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster told BIV that he is pleased with this year’s attendance, as it is higher than the team achieved two or three years ago.
“If you compare 2023 to 2025, we have a 19-per-cent increase in attendance,” Schuster said. “That’s what we look at because last year was obviously an outstanding year, and we had more than 50,000 people at one game.”
Last season’s attendance figures were skewed upward by a regular season game against Miami, when 51,035 fans filled BC Place in hopes of seeing Messi play, he explained.
Many fans bought season tickets or multi-game ticket packages to ensure that they would get tickets to that game, which turned out to be a massive disappointment for many as Messi stayed home in Florida instead of joining his team in Vancouver.
Bailey said he believes Messi’s decision to skip the game against the Whitecaps last year left a sour taste in many fans’ mouths and that may be contributing to the team drawing fewer fans this year. One fan even launched a lawsuit against the Whitecaps for what he called "bait and switch" tactics.
The team provided discounted concession food during the game to try to compensate for Messi’s absence, but few food stands were open, Bailey said.
The team also offered all attendees a free ticket for one of the team’s final four games of the 2024 season.
The problem, Bailey said, is that many fans travelled to Vancouver to see the Miami game and were not in the city for those final four games of the year.
The team also, Bailey said, refused to allow fans to transfer those free tickets to others.
Schuster told BIV he was unaware of these concerns and said his team did more than other MLS clubs that similarly saw Messi skip planned games.
The Whitecaps also were not the ones charging exorbitant prices or trying to profit hugely from hosting the Miami game last year, Schuster said.
Huge mark-ups in price for tickets for that game were done by resellers and ticket brokers, he said.
One thing to watch is what kind of lease agreement the team signs to use BC Place.
Schuster said his team’s lease agreement at BC Place expires at the end of 2025 and that it may achieve preferable terms in a lease renewal.
The current agreement has “handcuffed” the team in certain ways, Schuster said.
“We are very optimistic that with the new contract, we are also able to implement a few new things,” he said.
He mentioned wanting a “better fee structure” in a future lease agreement so the team could provide fans with ticket packages that come bundled so families can get meals at discounted prices, making the experience more affordable.
Much talk has centred around the team building its own stadium, likely on the Pacific National Exhibition grounds in East Vancouver.
Nothing has been finalized but Schuster said a new stadium could increase attendance.
“In all the markets where you have seen a new stadium, the new stadium is definitely a go-to point,” he said.
“People want to see a new stadium.”
