Bard Smile with Blue Sky

Vancouver’s best places for entertainment include arts and theatre venues, sports venues for hockey, soccer and football, and places for live performances.

In this article you’ll find information about the following topics:

Best Places for Entertainment

Below you’ll find some of the top entertainment highlights Vancouver has to offer.

Also, click Vancouver’s Events Calendar to find what’s going on each month, or Vancouver’s Top Festivals and Events for the very best in the city’s special seasonal entertainment offerings.

For the current listing of what’s on in Metro Vancouver, check out the Vancouver Shows and Entertainment Listing, including free outdoor concerts and events.

For a list of theatre venues, click out Vancouver Theatre Companies, and for a list of classical musical groups click Vancouver Choirs.

Best Arts & Theatre Entertainment

Metro Vancouver has a number of great performing arts and theatre groups, and some great venues too. Here are some of them to consider:

Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival – Shakespearean theatre at its best in the summer (from-mid June to mid-September).
The Arts Club – this is western Canada’s largest theatre company, with a couple of great little theatres in Vancouver. The Stanley is located at 2750 Granville Street (not to be confused with Granville Island), which is a great part of town with a number of good restaurants not far from Broadway. The other main venue is the Granville Island Stage at 1585 Johnston Street, next to the Public Market (which is on Granville Island).
Vancouver Opera – the company hosts three or so major productions at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre each year.
Pacific Theatre – a nice theatre with shows at 1440 West 12th Avenue.
Another fun theatre is Theatre Under the Stars each summer at Stanley Park.

Granville Island in particular is a great place to find live entertainment. In addition to its many bars and restaurants, and the buskers in the summer, there are a number of theatres on the island.

On Granville Island there’s the Arts Club Theatre’s Granville Island Stage (mentioned above), the Waterfront Theatre, and The Improv Centre (where you can find affordable and reasonably good improv shows). They are all small theatres, so don’t expect it to be Broadway (as in the Broadway in New York), but the shows can be fun.

For a more comprehensive list of performing arts facilities, check out Vancouver Theatre Companies and Venues.

Vancouver Opera at Queen Elizabeth Theatre — Vancouver Opera at Queen E. Theatre

Vancouver Movie Theatres

The Lower Mainland is home to dozens of movie cinemas. There are Cineplex theatres in most major municipalities, as well as smaller chain theatres and independent venues.

Click Vancouver Movies & Theatres for a list of venues, what’s playing presently and current movie deals.

FlyOver Canada is a different kind of movie theatre located at Canada Place. At this attraction audience members get buckled into their seats and fly through the scenes, Films there are multi-dimensional and of a sort of National-Geographic style.

Vancouver Places for Live Comedy

Looking for stand-up comedy or some improv theatre fun? Then check out the following places:

Yuk Yuks – a comedy franchise at Elements Casino at 17755 60 Avenue in Surrey. (Ages 19+).
The Improv Centre – great live improv nightly on Granville Island. It used to be called Vancouver TheatreSports. (Ages 3+, no joke, but primarily for adults).
Rick Bronson’s House of Comedy – a live stand-up comic venue at 530 Columbia Street in New Westminster.
Giggle Dam Dinner Theatre – a live theatre and dinner venue known for its politically-incorrect humour at 2616 Shaughnessy Street in Port Coquitlam.

Top Venues for Entertainment

Chan Centre – the performing arts centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Queen Elizabeth Theatre – one of Vancouver’s main performing arts venues.
The Orpheum – billed as one of the most beautiful concert halls in North America and designated a National Heritage Site.
BC Place Stadium – game location for the Vancouver Whitecaps for soccer and BC Lions for football.
Michael J Fox Theatre – a community theatre venue at 7373 MacPherson Avenue in Burnaby.
Rogers Arena – the place to go for Vancouver Canucks hockey and big name concerts.
The River Rock Casino Resort – where you’ll find all kinds of games of chance, but also nightly live entertainment by visiting artists.

Vancouver Symphony in Burnaby — Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at Deer Lake Park

Top Music Performing Groups

Vancouver has a wide range of professional musical groups that perform throughout the city, including the following:

Chor Leoni Choir
Vancouver Bach Choir
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO)
The Vancouver Chamber Choir
Vancouver Opera
Pacific Baroque Orchestra (with is part of Early Music Vancouver)
Vancouver Music Academy Symphony Orchestra

Vancouver also has a number of exceptional amateur choirs (meaning they are very good, but the singers just aren’t generally paid). The following are highly recommended:

Vancouver Oratorio Choir (a 90 or so member choir of Christian vocalists and musicians).
Vancouver Welsh Men’s Choir (an excellent male voice choir).
VOC Soul Gospel Choir (they do great performances throughout the year, including an especially festive one for Christmas each December).
Good Noise Vancouver Gospel Choir – the choir in residence at Christ Church Cathedral that has performed with such famous artists as Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban and David Foster.

In addition to the above, there are a number of great tribute bands that perform in the Lower Mainland from time to time. For information about some of them, see our article about Vancouver Tribute Band Concerts.

Vancouver’s Best Night Clubs

Vancouver has a variety of great night clubs, with an especially high concentration in the city core and along Granville Street. Click Vancouver’s Top Night Clubs for details.

Rogers Arena

Best Sports Entertainment

Vancouver has a variety of professional sports teams, including in hockey, soccer, Canadian football and baseball. With hockey, there is the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks that play at Rogers Arena, and the Vancouver Giants, in a lower league but still fun to watch, that play at the Langley Events Centre.

The Vancouver Whitecaps are the city’s professional soccer team and they play at BC Place Stadium. The home team for Vancouver in the Canadian Football League (which is similar to American Football, but with slightly different rules) is the BC Lions who also play at BC Place. And for baseball, the Vancouver Canadians are in the Northwest League and play at Nat Bailey Stadium.

For more on Vancouver’s sports entertainment, click Vancouver’s Professional Sports Teams.