FIFA one month out: Details on transit, policing, fan festival and more

With just over a month before the FIFA World Cup kicks off in Vancouver on June 11, host committee officials are now providing important logistical details, including for the PNE fan fest, road closures, expanded transit services, and policing and surveillance. Meanwhile, the city has yet to release its final human rights plan, which is expected later this month.

The FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE is the city’s marquee World Cup event for people who can’t attend pricey matches in person. 

The Fan Festival will be free to enter, with a capacity for 25,000 people, and will be open for 28 days, including all game days. The festival won’t be open most Mondays and Tuesdays. You can find the full schedule here.

Attractions will include live match screenings, concerts, bars, food trucks, games and activities, and a FIFA store. 

The big venue at the Fan Festival is the soon-to-be-completed PNE Ampitheatre, which will host live match screenings and concerts. The new 10,000-person partially covered venue ended up costing the city $183.7 million, nearly three times the original 2021 budget, according to BIV. 

“Market-driven cost escalation for materials and labour, challenging ground and soil conditions, [and] global cost pressures,” were among the reasons cited by the city late last year for the significant budget increase.

To recoup some of those costs, 75 per cent of the amphitheatre’s capacity will be set aside for paid ticket holders, with tickets going for $45 and up. Tickets include guaranteed access and fast-track entry to the festival site, as well as in-and-out privileges between the amphitheatre and the rest of the festival. 

The amphitheatre will have 2,600 general admission spots available for free on a first-come, first-serve basis. Anyone accessing the amphitheatre for free will need to line up again to re-enter the other festival areas.

There are some significant road closures to be aware of for people driving downtown and in East False Creek this summer.

Beginning May 23rd, Pacific Boulevard will be closed between the Cambie Street Bridge, including the bridge off-ramp, and Carrall Street. That closure will be in effect for about two months, until late July. Granville Street, between Georgia and Davie, will also be closed to vehicles from June 11 to July 20. 

The seven match days are when the more extensive road closures and locals-only access will be in place, including along Quebec Street, around Andy Livingstone Park and International Village, and all around BC Place.

“Residents and businesses impacted by event-related road closures in this area will be able to maintain most access with some limitations, using our local traffic access passes, which are being enabled now and being presented to the community next week,” according to the host committee’s chief operations officer Taunya Geelhoed. 

Residents in the restricted areas will be mailed one access pass and can request up to two additional passes online, according to the host committee. Businesses in that area will need to request any required passes. An online information session for local residents about road closures is being held on May 11 at 6:30pm, which you can register for here.

“We've been working very closely with all of those buildings and businesses in that area for quite some time … what you're seeing is the final version of those decisions,” host committee lead Jessie Adcock said. 

Standing outside 29th Avenue Station in Renfrew-Collingwood, local officials unveiled a Fan Festival express bus that will run between that station, nearby Renfrew Station, and the PNE’s Pacific Coliseum. TransLink won’t be releasing details on how frequently that shuttle service will run until the last week of May.

TransLink was able to provide details on expanded service for existing transit. They’ll be adding around 600 extra bus trips per day during the World Cup, including increased service on routes serving downtown and the PNE. Those include the R5, 14, 19, 23, 28, 130, and 222 buses, as well as extra buses and staff ready to respond to overcrowding.

SkyTrain service, including the Canada Line, will be extended by one hour on the nights of June 13, 16 and July 2. For folks coming to and from North Van, Seabus frequency will be set to peak weekday service levels (every 10-15 minutes) for the entire tournament, and will also be extended by an hour on the same dates as the SkyTrain.

Stadium-Chinatown Station will remain open throughout the tournament, TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn said, but there won’t be access to BC Place or the surrounding area from that station on match days. Main Street-Science World is the primary transit access point for anyone going to a match or the gameday pedestrian fan zone.   

TransLink will also be running special weekend West Coast Express trips on June 13 and 21.  

During the tournament, residents will notice additional police officers “all over the city,” and at specific FIFA venues, according to Vancouver Police Department (VPD) deputy chief Don Chapman. 

In addition to VPD, law enforcement operating in Vancouver will include the RCMP, Metro Vancouver Transit Police, Delta Police, and officers from the Calgary and Edmonton police services, Chapman said. 

Chapman was unable to provide any hard numbers for how many officers would be operating in Vancouver during the tournament, saying there would be peaks and valleys in staffing depending on a variety of factors. 

“I do anticipate July 2 and July 7, when we get into the round of 32 and the round of 16, to really see a peak level of people in the city with real passionate interest,” Chapman said, meaning an associated influx of police presence. 

The city is also installing around 200 new CCTV cameras in seven areas around the city, including downtown, the PNE, Commercial Drive, BC Place, Killarney, and in UBC. The temporary surveillance system will be active from June 7 to July 19.

Camera use is governed by the VPD and the city. It will include safeguards for access and storage of footage, and will not be used with any facial recognition technology, according to the city.

“We've been working with the privacy commissioner, hand-in-hand with the city, for a number of months now to ensure a privacy impact assessment has been conducted, it's thorough, and it's appropriate for the circumstances … We're in a very good place with that,” Chapman told Vancity Lookout. 

The city has said cameras will be turned off immediately after the tournament and will be removed and decommissioned.

In addition, transit police will be using drones to monitor crowds, according to BIV.

For the first time in FIFA’s history, 2026 host cities are required to create a Human Rights Action Plan to confront the risks posed by the tournament for local, vulnerable populations. The city released a draft version of its plan in February, with a final version expected later this month. The plan has two primary focuses: inclusion and safeguards for marginalized groups, and upholding workers’ rights. 

The plan is particularly relevant to the Downtown Eastside. “We recognize that there is significant concern across the neighbourhood about the impacts of [World Cup] activations on people in these neighbourhoods without housing or who are precariously housed,” the document reads. It also notes that “the City's daily public realm management and by-law compliance work will continue.” In other words, maintaining the status quo of street sweeps in the neighbourhood, according to Play the Game.

Vancouver’s host committee did not include any representatives of Downtown Eastside organizations, and only met with groups like Pivot Legal after the draft plan was released. The draft plan was criticized by Pivot Legal, the BC Civil Liberties Association, and the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition for a lack of engagement with impacted groups and organizations and an over-reliance on existing policies and laws. 

“The Action Plan recognizes that FIFA brings an increased risk of harm to Vancouver’s residents, and yet promises nothing to effectively mitigate it,” the groups wrote.

A motion at city council in early April to update the plan with measurable targets and specific protections for unhoused and precariously housed residents was voted down by the ABC Party majority.

Sex worker advocacy organizations are also raising the alarm about the impact of the World Cup on that vulnerable group at a time when the city is cutting programs that contribute to sex workers’ safety, and there’s less funding available for these organizations.

The city said it’s funding “temporary service enhancements to support gender and sex worker safety during the seven match days,” according to the Vancouver Sun, but those have yet to be announced.

Tournament dates: June 11-July 19

Match days in Vancouver: June 13, June 18, June 21, June 24, June 26, July 2, July 7

Fan Festival schedule: June 11-July 19, with some early week closures 

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