Vancouver is set to soon host two major international conferences that are significant for different reasons.
Web Summit, May 27 through 30, will help bolster Vancouver’s reputation for hosting influential technology-related events, and it could stimulate business and connections for local technology companies.
The Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) global convention, July 3 through 6, in contrast, is notable because of its sheer size: It is expected to be the largest convention Vancouver has ever hosted.
The horizon also looks good for the Vancouver convention sector given that the city last week won the bid to host the 76th FIFA Congress ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup next summer, where Vancouver is set to host seven games.
That congress is expected to bring representatives from 211 member delegations. It is world soccer's supreme legislative body and business gets done, with members deciding on things such as future hosts for tournaments and on who is in executive roles.
Organizers estimate up to 60,000 people will visit Vancouver for the AA conference, including friends, family and those involved with the support groups Alateen and Al-Anon.
Web Summit is expected to attract more than 15,000 people to Vancouver, including international entrepreneurs, investors, media, academics and executives. Greater Vancouver Board of Trade CEO Bridgitte Anderson told BIV on Wednesday that the spectacle is like the "Olympics for the tech sector."
Days are set to be packed with panels and sessions featuring luminaries such as Microsoft Corp. president Brad Smith, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber and Cloudflare Inc. president Michelle Zitlyn.
They will speak alongside CEOs from local technology ventures, such as Clio’s Jack Newton and Hootsuite’s Irina Novoselsky.
Getting the conventions was no easy task
Governments and tourism organizations worked hard to win the bid to host Web Summit in Vancouver this year, next year and in 2027.
The organization behind Web Summit is based in Portugal, and it hosts events around the world. Previously, North American events, branded Collision Conference, were in Toronto and the contract to be in that city expired after last year’s event, Destination Vancouver CEO Royce Chwin told BIV.
He said his organization joined forces with the City of Vancouver, Invest Vancouver, Innovate BC, the B.C. government and the federal government’s Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan) to generate $20 million over three years to bring the conference to the city.
Chwin said Vancouver tourism representatives worked for about two years to convince Web Summit to shift its Canadian events to Vancouver.
“It was a matter of getting on the radar of the Web Summit people and going to Lisbon, to the mothership conference, and seeing the size and scale of it,” he said.
Then came lobbying to see if Web Summit operatives would consider moving the conference out of Toronto.
It was arguably more difficult for Vancouver to land the AA convention, which is planned far in advance and happens once every five years.
Vancouver launched failed bids in 2003 to host the 2015 convention, and in 2008 to host the 2020 convention.
The second failed bid turned out to be lucky in hindsight, given that the COVID-19 pandemic forced AA to cancel its 2020 convention.
Al-Anon, which is a support group for friends and families of alcoholics, held its 2013 convention in Vancouver, though the event was much smaller, with about 4,000 attendees.
There is more excitement than usual surrounding the main 2025 global convention because AA members have not had a convention since their 2015 event in Atlanta.
Chwin was not in Vancouver to help bid for the 2025 AA convention, but he said attracting large conventions often involves partnerships with hotels to provide blocks of rooms at discounted rates, and desirable rates for space at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
TransLink is offering AA conference registrants the ability to buy $22.35 passes that last for 72 hours, or three days, from the first use. That is a 35.2-per-cent discount on what would otherwise be the cost for three one-day passes, spokesperson Dan Mountain told BIV. TransLink sells those passes to other groups if they buy at least 500 at a time, he added.
How the conventions will impact Vancouver
Both the Web Summit and the AA conference will generate substantial revenue for meeting venues, hotels, transportation businesses and restaurants.
Claire Smith, vice-president of sales and marketing at the Vancouver Convention Centre, said both gatherings have booked all 466,500 square feet of meeting space in the east and the west convention centres combined.
Those bookings are negotiated with each group but usually cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, she said.
The AA Conference has also booked BC Place for three days.
Completely booking all meeting space in both convention centres happens “fairly regularly,” Smith said, adding that the annual Pacific Dental Conference — the largest dental conference in Canada — also completely books both convention centres.
She equated the AA conference to the 1996 World AIDS Conference in that it is large enough to push the boundaries of the city’s ability to host the event.
Back in 1996 Vancouver had only one convention centre, at Canada Place.
Web Summit, meanwhile, is also generating business for other meeting venues.
Frontier Collective CEO Dan Burgar told BIV that his organization has rented former retail space at 1 Water Street, where it plans to host what it is calling Vancity Innovation House on May 28.
“We’ll turn that building into a hub for innovation,” he said. “There will be talks, activations and local stakeholders involved with building startups who can showcase their companies. We’re going to be doing a pitch competition, as well as some networking sessions and an evening event.”
Frontier Collective is not charging admission for the event but attendees must register, Burgar added.
“The Web Summit creates an opportunity for people in the tech ecosystem here to build global networks, and to connect with people on a massive scale without having to a take a flight anywhere,” said Rob Goehring, director of the AI Network of BC.
Hosting the conference helps Vancouver build on its reputation for being a host for global technology-related events.
Vancouver has hosted TED Talks events regularly since 2014, although that organization plans to hold its last annual conference in Vancouver next year.
Vancouver has also hosted events for the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) since 2011 and is planning to host about 8,000 people at SIGGRAPH’s 2025 conference August 10 to 14.
The AA conference, in contrast, has the potential to impact Vancouver residents’ lives on a more personal level.
To some extent, it might be equated with the city hosting Gay Games III in 1990 because the AA conference is expected to bring so many people from around the world who will provide emotional support and confidence-building strength to individuals in Vancouver who may be struggling with their identity and how they are living.
BIV spoke with AA’s Greater Vancouver Intergroup office manager, who abided by her company’s media policy of staying anonymous and not providing her name.
“There’s a heavy stigma with AA,” she said. “When you see that alcoholism is in people from all over the world, it kind of breaks down that stigma that you can’t stop drinking because you’re weak or you’re useless.”
AA has negotiated package deals with what the AA manager said were almost all major downtown hotels.
“There are people staying out as far as Abbotsford,” she said. “Dormitories are booked at the University of British Columbia and at Simon Fraser University.”
Restaurants are expected to be busy. While the vast majority of the attendees will not be visiting pubs or bars, some friends and family of attendees will be.
“We drink a lot of coffee,” the manager said. “At every international convention we have a tendency to wipe out Starbucks and Tim Hortons of all of their coffee.”
Coffee shop owners are taking notice.
Honolulu Coffee master franchisor for B.C. Ming Yang told BIV that she is stocking up on coffee at her three locations in downtown Vancouver, Kerrisdale and near False Creek.
“If there is demand, we will definitely look at extending business hours,” she said.
