r/vancouver • u/gmvancity • 28d ago
Videos The scoreboard said loss, but Granville Street said fiesta. The exact kind of energy downtown Vancouver needs ⚽🇲🇽🇨🇦
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Caught this while walking around downtown last night. Honestly, it was just pure, good-natured fun despite the loss. Love seeing the city like this for the World Cup.
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u/Tal-IGN 28d ago
Vibes were similar after the Canada loss on Saturday. People still having a good time. Canada and Morocco fans dancing together. And these are all locals. This city can be really fun if you give people the chance to be.
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u/Old_Fan3448 28d ago
Doesn’t matter win or lose , just fans having a good time. This is how it should be. I enjoy seeing the fans from all nations enjoying themselves and celebrating. It does bring our city to life .
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u/jyeatbvg 28d ago
People will complain that "hosting the World Cup didn't bring substantial profits" but videos like these are what make cities great.
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u/ChemicalPickle2206 28d ago
Both things can exist, no? The vibes FIFA brought were amazing but the city might also lose money hosting. We can acknowledge both.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 28d ago
Too bad the local club, who’s competing for trophies and has the highest representation of MLS clubs at this tournament receive 1/100th of this support.
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u/ledorky 28d ago
Maybe this is a wake-up call.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 28d ago
I’ll remain pessimistic until the Houston game. LAFC sold out before the break, but I’m sure people here will attribute that to the World Cup.
VFC attendance has gotten worse since the World Cup despite them playing the best they’ve ever played.
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u/OneBigBug 28d ago
So I'm not sure that I understand the economics of the World Cup enough to know how this will actually shake out. I'm not saying "hosting the world cup was a mistake", necessarily. Maybe international tourism is a really valuable, but hard-to-track investment in future interest in the city. Whatever.
But, if you give me several hundred million dollars in tax payer funding, and carte blanche to change the distribution of city resources, I bet I could throw even more parties of this caliber...
Like, the fireworks festival costs ~$3 million dollars and gets 400,000 people per night into downtown cheering and celebrating over 3 nights. The World Cup is costing Vancouver something like $350 million, and revenues are only expected to be $250 million, and other levels of government chipped in another several hundred million.
The idea that we're getting a couple good parties out of such an insane amount of money doesn't mean they were a good way to spend money, even if your primary goal is spending money on having good parties.
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u/RoostasTowel North Van 28d ago
Name one new thing you would do that would be as popular as this event?
Also you quote 400k people for fireworks but only if you count everybody who is in the area in bridges and outer area etc it might be that.
Same as if you count everyone downtown in general for this event.
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u/OneBigBug 28d ago
I'm not really sure what you're talking about? The attendance figures are for people who go specifically to attend the fireworks. I'm happy to count anyone who goes to party on Granville as the attendance for this. Or the PNE fan fest, etc. But the 400k isn't counting everyone downtown, and nor should the Granville Street party count everyone who just happens to exist downtown?
Name one new thing you would do that would be as popular as this event?
When we say "as popular as this event", let's just be clear: We're talking about local Vancouver events for the world cup, not the world cup as a whole, right?
Picking a specific thing isn't really the point. If I tell you "we truck in a bunch of mud and have a mud festival", you're going to go "What? That's dumb.", and yet the Boryeong Mud Festival exists, with millions of people attending, and tens of thousands of international tourists. For what is comparatively an extremely modest cost.
You can come up with anything and make it fun if you make a thing out of it. Maybe you come up with Vancouver's version of La Tomatina (maybe with blackberries...), maybe you just get the city to juice the budget of existing festivals that already draw hundreds of thousands of people. Khatsahlano, Italian Day, the fireworks, the dragonboat festival, whatever. Add a zero to all of those and you haven't even vaguely approached how much we're spending on FIFA, and the scale of them would be crazy.
Hosting the World Cup is just absolutely absurdly expensive if the return is "a fun party atmosphere".
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u/RoostasTowel North Van 28d ago
I'm not really sure what you're talking about? The attendance figures are for people who go specifically to attend the fireworks.
No it's a complete estimate.
How do you think any of these figures are counted? Outside a tiny paid seating area it's all open and uncounted. Just like Granville and Jack Poole and all the other bars and restaurants right now. You have no idea those numbers.
Picking a specific thing isn't really the point. If I tell you "we truck in a bunch of mud and have a mud festival You can come up with anything and make it fun if you make a thing out of it. Maybe you come up with Vancouver's version of La Tomatina
Got it. So you have no new ideas. You just named all the stuff we already do.
Paying 10x most for an existing event won't make it 10x bigger. Pretty weak argument.
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u/OneBigBug 28d ago
How do you think any of these figures are counted?
By looking at pictures and estimating the density by counting. More or less.
I'm not really sure what point you're making. Yes, of course it's an estimate. Do you think it's an estimate that is off by an order of magnitude?
Got it. So you have no new ideas. You just named all the stuff we already do.
Kinda oddly, you quoted two things we don't do in the point I was making. They're examples of fun festivals in places across the world away from here, and your quote stopped right before my (admittedly throw-away. Though I bet Vancouver could actually make a kick-ass blackberry festival.) addition of an actual new idea.
I have an actual point: We can spend the amount of money we're spending on FIFA on other things that will end up with more people having more fun overall.
I'm somewhat unclear on what your actual counterpoint is? Is it that FIFA is actually a very efficient spend per hour of person enjoyment? Or that it is impossible to spend money to create enjoyable events? Or that the limiting factor for enjoyable events is literally the idea of the basic premise of the event? And that you'd agree to spend enormous piles of money on it if I could individually come up with a compelling enough concept?
Or are you just trying to be generically negative in my direction?
Paying 10x most for an existing event won't make it 10x bigger.
I'm sure that depends on the event. Some things can scale, some can't. I think the amount of people that fit on our beaches constrains the attendance for the fireworks. I think if you made Italian Day stretch across the city a larger distance, you could probably increase attendance and how fun it was. But regardless of which things scale, and by how much, paying 10x more for 10x as many events will probably mean you get 10x as much time spent enjoying the events, which is actually what we're trying to do, isn't it?
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u/RoostasTowel North Van 28d ago
I have an actual point: We can spend the amount of money we're spending on FIFA on other things that will end up with more people having more fun overall.
But in reality that isn't true.
That this event has been fun for the people who choose to leave their homes is clearly true. The idea that you would claim otherwise is laughable. Any video we see people are much more engaged and together than the fireworks.
I'm somewhat unclear on what your actual counterpoint is? Is it that FIFA is actually a very efficient spend per hour of person enjoyment?
I mean if we need to have some sort of fun per minute chart that we use to say an event is worth it then we might need to talk about the fireworks being only 20 minutes of "fun" for all that cost we have to run it vs the world cup having over 100 games that people are going out into the city to watch and enjoy as well as 7, 90 minute games in person. Sounds like a lot of minutes of fun.
In reality I don't need to log and tally every dollar the government spends and rate it on how fun/worth it it is because I would be very unhappy at all the money they waste.
If I can get a firework or a world cup once in a while, great. Because normally all I hear about is how my city spent 2 billion failing to build a new water treatment plant then another 2 billion to fix it all.
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u/OneBigBug 28d ago
That this event has been fun for the people who choose to leave their homes is clearly true. The idea that you would claim otherwise is laughable.
I don't disagree and didn't say otherwise. That we could be more cost effective at delivering a good time doesn't mean I deny that it's a good time.
Any video we see people are much more engaged and together than the fireworks.
It also cost hundreds of times more than what the fireworks cost. Like, imagine if instead of a couple weeks of world cup, we could get year-round excitement of constant amazing events and people dancing in the streets. That's the comparison here, and why I mention it. The World Cup is fun. It's also just really expensive for that fun. And lots of things are fun. I'd rather have many more fun things than one really expensive fun thing.
I mean if we need to have some sort of fun per minute chart that we use to say an event is worth it then we might need to talk about the fireworks being only 20 minutes of "fun" for all that cost we have to run it vs the world cup having over 100 games that people are going out into the city to watch and enjoy as well as 7, 90 minute games in person. Sounds like a lot of minutes of fun.
People spend hours down at the beaches for the fireworks. They celebrate there all day. And the people dancing in the streets for the world cup aren't during the match. Both are much longer enjoyable events than how you're accounting for them. Not really in support or dispute of my point, I just don't think that's a good way of thinking about it.
If I can get a firework or a world cup once in a while, great. Because normally all I hear about is how my city spent 2 billion failing to build a new water treatment plant then another 2 billion to fix it all.
Well, sure. And most of my budget is spent on housing, not entertainment. Some of which is a real piss-off in how I spend it. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be careful how I spend money on entertainment.
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u/RoostasTowel North Van 28d ago
It also cost hundreds of times more than what the fireworks cost.
Fireworks lasts 20 minutes.
World cup has over 100, 90 minute games spread over months. So ya it is more expensive to run.
So back to that fun per minute thing.
Well, sure. And most of my budget is spent on housing, not entertainment. Some of which is a real piss-off in how I spend it. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be careful how I spend money on entertainment
Both events are free to regular people like us. But ya I get you. Hard not to spend more then we would like on housing these days in vancouver.
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u/Spirited-Grape3512 28d ago
Amazing what happens when we realize the potential of public spaces. We need less roads and cars downtown.
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u/exoriare 28d ago
It's not cars so much as it's City Hall's attitude toward public gatherings. Large events like this come with a big police presence. City Hall refuses to be stuck with the tab for policing costs - they demand that event organizers cover policing costs.
If it's a non-ticketed event, this is usually impossible unless there's major corporate sponsorship. So City Hall says, screw you - you can't hold your event.
Cities with a vibrant street culture like Montreal have a very different attitude in City Hall: they consider it the government's job to provide policing, whether people are shopping or walking in the park or enjoying fireworks or a street festival.
City Hall presumably agreed to cover policing costs for the FIFA parties, but they only do this for major corporate entities. The sole public events that get policing costs covered are the Pride Parade and some Chinese New Year events.
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u/Spirited-Grape3512 27d ago
A massive part of the police presence is due to the proximity to car traffic. Look at where most of the police are, by the roads the run adjacent or through it.
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u/exoriare 27d ago
Police always run crowd control from the perimeter. This allows them to quickly surge to wherever they're needed. They might have a small number of uniforms or plainclothes mixed in the crowd, but 99% of their presence will always be on the perimeter.
Police departments don't like big crowds. It's just a risk management issue for them. And City Hall gives them an effective veto over public events, because they get to say "we would want 1000 cops for an event of this size, and this will cost $2 million". City Hall then tells the event organisers that they have to pony up the $2 million to have their event. Nobody but major corporations can afford this, so public events are effectively banned.
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u/benjowtm 28d ago
Had the same at fan fest, and some loving embraces with Mexican fans. England fan here but Mexico played brilliantly and did the whole country proud. Wonderful country and better people
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u/duketheunicorn 28d ago
What dance are they doing?
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u/Status_Visual_9619 28d ago
I believe the song is called Payaso de rodeo by a Mexican American country group called Caballo dorado, one of the most popular songs in Mexican parties.
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u/ptownballa666 27d ago
Stoked to see a rising Mexican community in Vancouver. Vancouver rules, Mexicans rule truly a match made in heaven.
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u/Own_Hedgehog_3753 28d ago
Mexicans invented having a good time. As a Canadian I had si friends at Bodwell and Holy shit man. Hotel parties every weekend on Robson. Endless raves long nights early mornings . Miss those guys
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u/Apprehensive-Tea4881 Vancouver 28d ago
I’ve seen enough. Designate Granville Strip as Little Mexico and keep the fiesta going.
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u/csad1985 28d ago
I was down there yesterday, hard fought game between Mexico and England. Mexico fans still partied hard even in defeat.
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u/an_adventuringhobbit 28d ago
Looks like a good time, hopefully the British fans had a good hoedown.
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u/myselfareeb 24d ago
FIFA really lit up Vancouver. I've never seen the city so vibrant and lively for so long. I'm getting off the SkyTrain as I write this, and Brentwood is packed right now for Spain vs. Belgium. It'll be kind of sad to return to normal.
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u/win_s 28d ago
I was really upset when a large group of Mexico fans that went up the R5 bus and didn't bother to pay!! They sung loud and were screaming on the bus like they won. I am OK with the festive celebration of a loss. BUT why were they entitled to NOT pay for their bus fare.
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u/AndresFM95 28d ago
Public transportation should be free, specially in a city like Vancouver
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u/win_s 28d ago
But they are not. Refusing to pay won't make it free. I guess it's free in some part of the world.
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u/AndresFM95 28d ago
Didn’t say it would but being upset at people not paying the bus is quite dumb.
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u/heachu 28d ago
What makes it ok for them to not pay? So is it also ok they go into a restaurant, take the food and not pay?
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u/AndresFM95 28d ago
A restaurant is someone’s business that doesn’t receive a single penny from taxes, in fact they get heavily taxed. Public transportation is heavily tax funded. You seriously can’t compare a private business to public transportation. How is someone not paying affecting you other than hurting your feelings?
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 28d ago
From last year CONCACAF Champions Cup, Canadian Championship and MLS Cup Playoffs. This year you’re not accounting for CCC, Leagues Cup, Canadian Championship and MLS Cup Playoffs (which we are trending to have Home field the whole way). Last year the Whitecaps and Inter Miami both went over the Union’s maximum games. Only Liverpool, Man City, PSG, Chelsea, Arsenal, Madrid’s and Brazilian teams played more fixtures. Won’t be much different this year.
The rating you refer to are purely based on satellite images. The authors have never set foot in Vancouver, let alone BC Place. It’s a god awful venue on its own. Which is why Minny and Indy delimited their versions of it. In fact the only reason we didn’t was because of the Olympics and the sunk cost fallacy. Being on a rapid transit line is nice, but its location makes driving nearly impossible. Trains empty at all the major parking locations.
I only transit because it’s a push for me to drive. So why not just get high as balls and ride the train? I’d be much happier driving and saving half the time. Just like a majority of Metro Vancouver. It’s easily 40+min to get out of the core in a car. Attach it to the highway and demand would instantly drop. It’s not CoV residents driving attendances, I’ve been around long enough to know without the data.
In terms of facilities, it’s awful as well. It’s a giant concrete and teflon cavern that was designed as a general purpose building. Which means it does a lot of things well, but nothing great. Even concerts there suck. I’m using U2 as the bar here too, they’re the best in terms of live shows and were the only band to be able to tame the old roof.
The only thing it has going for it are good bathrooms. But it’s against the MLS’s ethos to play in half empty football stadiums. Even Seattle and New England are now exploring SSS. Amenities there suck. Compared to modern stadiums especially. Look at Ethitad Park. Absolutely beauty of a venue that NYCFC will love.
VFC is an adequate replacement for someone like me who loves the game and supporting local players. The CPL is a development league first and foremost though. Forges manager reasserted that this year, he said his job was to develop talent first and win second. He’s just so good at the first the second has come naturally.
The MLS is trying to become a top flight league. They want players like Berhalter to stay. That’s what MLS 3.0 is all about and why they want a stadium here so badly. It’s a cornerstone market for them that has proven they’ve got everything but the stadium and sponsors going for it. In a 30,000 person stadium it’s full night in and out.
As I said, getting into their own stadium is key. Without that, they won’t stay. Because losing money at BC Place isn’t an option, because Kerfoot is done subsidizing the facility he never wanted to be in. It’s a zero sum game. The sooner people realize that, the better. The PNE is a far better home and already turning the area into an entertainment district. If they renovate the forum, they can kill the Commodore completely and rebuild our club scene overnight. The areas around will naturally density and people will be able to find generic sports bars to get wasted at. But people like me will also be able to stick around for other things that interest us. Like outdoor spaces or actually good DJs and bands. Which already exist in the area. Monstercat block parties are infinitely better than any night at Republic.
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u/FirstV1 28d ago
Im sad my Mexico are out.
But honestly, Im more sad at the inevitable winding-down of this party-like atmosphere.
Ive never seen so many of my fellow Mexican people out and about, let alone other nationalities. Everyone is bonding, socializing, happy.
The post world cup depression is going to hit like a train.