Car Free Day on Main Street

Car Free Day on Main Street is a Vancouver street party-style festival with live music, market vendors, family-friendly entertainment and thousands of people.

Car Free Day on Main Street is sponsored by the Greater Vancouver Food Truck Festival, so you know it’ll be an awesome event. There are lots of awesome food trucks at the street party, so don’t forget to take an appetite!

See our September Calendar of Events to learn about what else is happening this time of year. Continue reading for information about Vancouver’s Car Free Day event on Main Street in September.

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About Main Street Car Free Day | Entertainment Lineup | Event Video | Other Car Free Day Events | Other Information

Car Free Day on Main Street in 2025

Car Free Day on Main Street is just one of several Car Free Day events in the Lower Mainland. Other Vancouver Car Free Day events typically take place on different days in the summer or early fall on Commercial Drive and Denman Street (although not at the latter in 2025). The Greater Vancouver Food Truck Festival is a sponsor of both the Main Street and Commercial Drive events this year.

The above three events are all put on by the same Car Free Day organization. Elsewhere in the Lower Mainland there are other car free day events including ones in Surrey, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam.

Crowds at Car Free Day on Commercial

About Main Street Car Free Day

Main Street Car Free Day used to happen on the afternoon of the Father’s Day Sunday in June. The last few years, however, the event has shifted to September.

In 2025 the street party takes place on Sunday, September 14th. It runs from 12:00 pm to 7:00 pm and covers around twenty blocks, from 10th Avenue to 30th Avenue. It’s a big event!

At Main Street Car Free Day there are live bands, street performers and market vendors. Mini beer gardens, food trucks, and extended restaurant patios are there too.

Of all of Vancouver’s various Car Free Day Festivals, the Main Street event is normally the largest.

2025 Main Street Car Free Day Entertainment Schedule

This year’s live entertainment takes place on eight stages. The full performance lineup is below. Note though that exact times, stage locations and performer details are subject to change.

14th Avenue Stage

12:15 pm – Lenny Pallerstein
1:00 pm – Terminal Station
2:00 pm – Randy Swallow Trio
3:00 pm – Weak Knees
4:00 pm – Blake Harvard Band
5:00 pm – Sarah McLauchlan School of Music
6:00 pm – George Leach

20th Avenue Stage

1:00 pm – Kenton Loewen & JP Carter
2:00 pm – Jody Glenham
3:00 pm – Bloom Effect
4:00 pm – A Tribute to Black Sabbath
5:00 pm – Elliot C Way & the Band of Beauties

21st Avenue Stage (on East Main Street)

12:00 pm – Tasavoor
1:00 pm – Ginjat
2:00 pm – The Potentials
3:00 pm – Devil Monkeys
4:00 pm – Five on a String
5:00 pm – Headlong Hearts
6:00 pm – The Inbetweens

21st Avenue Stage (on West Main Street)

12:00 pm – Rae Roots
1:00 pm – YUYA61
2:00 pm – Drag Show
3:00 pm – Lazy J
4:00 pm – DJ Funk & the Professa
5:00 pm – Mamalia
6:00 pm – Costabesta

23rd Avenue Stage

1:30 pm – DM Electric Ko
2:30 pm – Live Dancing Lessons
3:15 pm – Ian Badger
4:00 pm – Deaf Dogs
6:00 pm – Wait/Less

24th Avenue Stage

12:30 pm – Almost Famous
1:30 pm – Blackthorn Blossoms
2:30 pm – West Coast Fiddleheads
3:30 pm – Atlin Morgan & Elliot Paul
4:30 pm – Danny Echo
5:30 pm – The Quixotic Neurotics

26th Avenue Stage

11:50 pm – Indigenous Welcome
1:10 pm – Jordana Delgado & Joseph Baker
1:30 pm – Thistle Heart & Shane Terry
1:50 pm – Mina McKenzie & D’Arcy Blunston
2:30 pm – Meredith Louise & Bryna Maeve
3:10 pm – Jadhé & Jon Muller
4:00 pm – The Project Vancity Ban

28th Avenue Stage

1:00 pm – Beau Wheeler
2:00 pm – Kitty & the Rooster
3:00 pm – Muncho
4:00 pm – Big Rig
5:00 pm – Devours

Main Street Car Free Day Video

Check out the video below for an idea of what to expect at Main Street Car Free Day. The video was filmed at the 2022 event. As you can see, there are lots of market vendors, food trucks and live performances to enjoy.

Other Car Free Day Events

Elsewhere in Vancouver, Commercial Drive Car Free Day happens in early September, so a week or two before the Main Street event. West End Car Free Day usually takes place on Denman Street, from around English Bay to Robson Street. In 2023 that event happened on September 24th, so a week after Main Street Car Free Day. Sadly, the Denman Street event was cancelled last year and it didn’t happen in 2025 either. Whether it does or not in 2026 is to be determined.

Other Car Free Day events elsewhere in the Lower Mainland include Car Free Day Port Coquitlam in early September, and events in Surrey, Port Moody, New Westminster and North Vancouver (the last of which is part of that city’s Shipyards Festival).

It’s not an official Car Free Day event, but a similar street festival happening on Main Street in the summer is the Pleasant Day Festival. The inaugural day for this new event was on August 9th in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.

FOOD TRUCKS IN METRO VANCOUVER

If you like food truck food, then you’ll definitely want to attend events hosted by the Greater Vancouver Food Truck Festival (GVFTF). Some of its own events include Food Truck Fest at UBC, Cloverdale Food Truck Wars and Chilliwack Party in the Park in the spring. In the summer there are the White Rock Night Markets and Chilliwack Ribfest.

If you are an event organizer, and your event needs food trucks and you don’t want the hassle of organizing them, then the people to call for help are the Greater Vancouver Food Truck Festival folk. In addition to Car Free Day street parties, events that the Greater Vancouver Food Truck Festival has helped run include Langley Community Day, the Vancouver Dragon Boat Festival, FVDED in the Park, Abbotsford Berry Fest, Salmon Summer Music Festival, and Canada Day events in municipalities like Abbotsford, Langley and Maple Ridge. The GVFTF team can work with and manage artisan vendors at events too, so not just the food vendors.

The Greater Vancouver Food Truck Festival is a terrific organization, and one that goes out of its way to support small, local businesses (which in this day and age is so important).

Non-Car Free Day Street Parties

The Main Street, Commercial Drive and Denman Street Car Free Day events are all “official” Car Free Day events. There are a number of other major events in Metro Vancouver that are similar. They aren’t, however, a part of the official “Car Free Day” family.

Instead of purposefully celebrating the pedestrian way of life and having a slightly anti-car and pro-environmental theme, the following other street parties look pretty similar. They have more of a cultural, music and/or ethnic focus, though.

Vancouver Vaisakhi Parade and Surrey Vaisakhi Parade – East Indian cultural events that draw hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets in both South Vancouver and Surrey. They happen on subsequent Saturdays around the second and third weekends in April.
Italian Day on the Drive – an Italian-themed street party with extended restaurant patios, live music, vendor stalls, food trucks and crowds of people on the street on Commercial Drive. It happens on a Sunday in early to mid-June.
Greek Day on Broadway – a major street festival with a Greek theme that takes place in Kitsilano along Broadway Avenue in late June.
Khatsahlano Street Party – another massive street party in Kitsilano. It takes place along West 4th Avenue in early July. Instead of having an ethnic cultural theme, the Khatsahlano Street Party is a music and arts festival that just happens to take place along the middle of a major road.
TAIWANFest – an Asian-themed cultural festival that takes place along Granville Street in downtown Vancouver on the long weekend in September.