We are thrilled to announce the 22nd Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival

The 2025 Festival features over 100 events across 40+ local venues, including music, stories, poetry, theatre, ceremony, film, dance, readings, workshops, discussions, art talks, history walks, and more!

We continue to be excited about the incredible artists, neighbours, and audiences who join us each year. This Festival season, we reflect on what it means to live with dignity — on unceded land and with each other. Dignity in Community honours the everyday and extraordinary ways people in the DTES community care for each other, resist displacement, and make space to belong. We celebrate the strength and creativity found in these connections and ask: What is possible when dignity is a shared foundation for us all?

For twenty-two years, the Heart of the City Festival has been rooted in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and continues to evolve — shaped and led by the voices of the neighbourhood. The Festival works with and for the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward stories, lived experiences, artistic practices, ancestral knowledge, and cultural traditions.

Join the Heart of the City Festival in celebrating the wealth of art, culture, and community in the Downtown Eastside!