Vancouver · Oct 28-30, 2026

Futureproof Festival of AI, Vancouver, October 28-30

The most honest AI conversation happening this year. Once a year, we make room for three days of candid conversation, creative work, and people comparing what AI is really doing.

First-announced voices

People worth listening to. More on the way.

Festival Pass

CA$950

Three festival days. Registration is open.

Opening night plus two program days at H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, October 28-30, 2026.

Get the Festival Pass
Current pass

One pass opens everything. No tiers, no single-day tickets.

CA$950 Festival Pass

Active BC + AI members receive 25% off at checkout.

  • Opening night at H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
  • Two full program days
  • Closing gathering included with the pass
The festival

A festival, not a pile of sessions.

Opening night and two program days belong to one festival, so ideas, questions, creative work, and the people carrying them can meet in the same place.

Ways in

Listen. Make. Experience.

Futureproof Festival is built for attention, participation, and the kind of discovery that needs other people in the room. Find the path that fits: attend, speak, exhibit, sponsor, or go deeper with the community below.

A performer holding the stage with a microphone while the audience watches in silhouette
Authentic photograph, not AI-generated

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Listen

Hear the room think out loud.

Take in ideas, hard questions, and perspectives that do not arrive pre-agreed.

Data storytelling hackathon stage at Vancouver AI Meetup
Authentic photograph, not AI-generated

Photo: Michelle Diamond - Vancouver AI Meetup

Make

Put ideas to work.

Build, test, compare notes, and learn what changes when people get their hands on the technology.

BC and AI Film Club speaker in front of creative AI visuals
Authentic photograph, not AI-generated

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Experience

Feel what changes in person.

Share creative work, close attention, and the energy that only happens when people gather in a real room.

Find your way in

Four reasons to be in the room.

You do not need the same background, job title, or opinion as everyone else, and you do not need to have made up your mind about AI. Bring the decision that is real for you.

Leadership

For people deciding what their organization adopts.

Founders, executives, board and investment leaders working out what AI changes for their people, their money, and their standards.

Creative

For people making culture in a changing medium.

Studio heads, producers, publishers, artists, and filmmakers deciding what gets commissioned and what stays in human hands.

Technology

For people who decide what gets built.

CTOs, product and research leaders, technical founders, and the builders who learn by making. Bring a working prototype or the question it raised.

Public

For people answerable to a public.

Public servants, educators, Indigenous and community leaders, and the people helping others make sense of change.

Get involved

Help shape the first Futureproof Festival.

Some people want to attend, some want to meet the program or sponsor, and some want to build, volunteer, cover the story, or go deeper with the retreat and matchmaking. Choose the path that fits and connect with us directly.

Tickets

Registration is open.

Choose the pass that fits on the tickets desk, then continue to checkout when you are ready.

Exhibit

Put your work on the table.

The CA$2,000 Startup Exhibitor Package gives your crew two full passes and a working table on Thursday and Friday.

Program

See the program.

Three days of sessions with times and published speakers, in the order they happen.

Sponsors

Partner with the festival.

Talk with us about practical ways your organization can support the festival and the community behind it.

Volunteer

Help build the room.

Bring what you are good at and help make the festival feel human.

Hackathon

Build with data and story.

The Data Storytelling Hackathon returns with BC + AI and Rival Technologies. Join the list for the brief.

Retreat

Go slower, together.

A smaller gathering for people who want real time to think about AI, culture, and ethics.

Matchmaking

Find a co-founder.

A private intake for registered attendees and exhibitors to find a co-founder or collaborator.

Media

Cover it from inside the room.

Reporting, photographing, filming, podcasting, or publishing independently? Apply for a named working-media credential.

Ticket notes

Not ready to register?

Speaker announcements and program drops as they happen. Nothing else.

Built From Community

The community was here first.

Futureproof Festival grew out of a community that was already gathering in public: building, teaching, experimenting, and debating together. The festival is an extension of that foundation.

Auditorium speaker facing a packed room
Packed roomAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

A packed room facing the stage. This is what community proof looks like.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Outdoor Space Centre courtyard crowd at a Vancouver AI gathering
Space Centre courtyardAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

People still talk to each other here. Useful, weirdly radical, deeply Vancouver.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Community announcements group on the Space Centre stage
Community announcementsAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

Community announcements from the Space Centre stage. The program starts in public.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Film Club audience in a moody blue-lit room
BC + AI Film ClubAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

Creative AI culture under blue light. The room already knows how to watch closely.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Auditorium talk with a slide about meaningful human interaction
From the stageAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

The human part stays on screen. That is the work.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

MAC Mind AI and Consciousness group on the Space Centre stage
Mind, AI & ConsciousnessAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

MAC brings the weird questions with enough rigor to hold the room.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Joyful speaker close-up with a microphone
Stage energyAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

Human energy on the mic. The opposite of a keynote mannequin.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Outdoor courtyard mingling at a Vancouver AI Meetup
Courtyard mingling

Courtyard mingling: broad community proof without a stage cue card.

Photo: BC + AI community archive.

Stage group portrait with a Vancouver AI screen
Community on stageAuthentic photograph, not AI-generated

A stage group with the community screen behind them. Public by design.

Photo: Michelle Diamond.

Festival home

We picked a planetarium on purpose.

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre's whole job is putting people in a dark room and getting them to look up until the universe feels a little less abstract. That's not so far from what AI is asking of everyone right now. The building already has a planetarium dome and a Vancouver AI crowd that keeps filling the room before anyone called it a festival. We didn't need a blank ballroom. We needed a room that knows how to hold something enormous.

1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9·Festival home base: opening night + two program days

Some rooms are built to move people through. This one is built to let an idea stay long enough to change.

Presented by BC + AI

Built with people who already show up.

BC + AI is the presenting ecosystem, led by festival founder and director Kris Krüg. These confirmed partners bring venue, research, creative community, data practice, and actual humans who have been doing the work before it looked shiny.

Registration is open

Join us at the Space Centre, October 28-30.

Not the Future Proof you were looking for? There is a U.S. wealth-management conference with a similar name. This one is the Vancouver AI festival. More in the FAQ

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