Community proof
A real Space Centre gathering, already full of people paying attention. Rare and useful.
Photo: Michelle Diamond - Vancouver AI Meetup - 2026
Sponsors & Partners
Back the room people will travel for.
Futureproof Festival is a focused AI festival for people who need more than another expo floor: builders, researchers, educators, policymakers, artists, founders, students, and civic leaders in the same room. Sponsors help make that trusted room possible without buying the editorial line. Sponsor commitments publish when they are confirmed.
Year-round
meetups, film nights, and builder gatherings
Focused
three connected days, not a wandering badge cloud
Oct 28–30
2026. Three days, serious signal.
Sponsor proof
This is not a logo wall. It is a room with pulse.
Sponsors are backing a living community: packed Space Centre meetups, film culture, builder energy, and a coherent festival where your support can still be felt by actual humans.
Community proof
Film, performance, and AI culture are already in the mix, causing the good kind of trouble.
Photo: Michelle Diamond - BC + AI Film Club - 2026
Art layer
The festival as a civic object: culture, ethics, builders, and public imagination refusing to stay in separate tabs.
Futureproof Festival art layer
Community proof
Stage energy from the community that becomes Futureproof Festival. Not rented attention.
Photo: Michelle Diamond - Vancouver AI Meetup - 2026
Venue proof
The venue has a body: planetarium dome, civic weirdness, water nearby, and enough sky to make the conversation behave differently.
Photo: Socratic, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
2026 FestivalFlagship
Three simple sponsor lanes
The cold-start menu is intentionally simple: Presenting Partner, Founding Partner, or Supporting Partner. Start with a 20-minute fit call, then scope one useful partner lane around the actual job. Day, evening, access, demo, and hospitality ideas are custom only after the main fit is clear.
Presenting Partner
$25,000
1 available
- "Futureproof Festival 2026 presented by [X]"
- Opening keynote slot: your story opens the festival
- Top logo placement across all materials, signage, and site
- Press release co-announcement
- 2 VIP Passes + 4 Festival Passes
- Anchors the festival and the non-profit behind it
Founding Partner
$10,000
3 available
- Official Festival Partner: prominent logo across all materials
- A stage moment or short speaking slot
- On-site presence across all three days
- 1 VIP Pass + 3 Festival Passes
- Your support backs the non-profit behind the festival
Supporting Partner
$5,000
5 available
- Supporting Partner recognition across the festival
- Logo on the site and on-site signage
- 2 Festival Passes
- Your support backs the non-profit behind the festival
All packages can be shaped after a fit call. Email kk@bc-ai.ca or use the form below.
Why Futureproof Festival
Not more AI noise. A room sponsors can be proud to support.
Big AI conferences prove the category is real. The festival is the differentiated layer: a Vancouver-based, culturally legible, public-interest room where sponsors can be close to the conversation without turning it into a sales floor.
Trusted proximity
Be visibly useful in the room where AI builders, artists, educators, civic leaders, and operators are making sense of what comes next.
Clear package menu
Start with Presenting, Founding, or Supporting Partner. Custom activations only get scoped after the fit is real.
Support without control
Sponsors help make the room possible. The festival keeps editorial independence, which protects the audience and the sponsor.
Why the timing matters
2026 partner packages are open.
No 2026 festival sponsors have been publicly announced yet. That is the opportunity: the venue is locked, the room is focused, and the strongest packages are still ownable without elbowing anyone out of the story.
Venue home locked
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
A known community room in Vanier Park. Cosmic, but still practical.
BC + AI network
Community reach
Years of meetups and year-round audiences across film, education, builders, and public-interest AI work. Not rented attention.
High-signal room
Deliberately small
A deliberately focused festival. The people in the seats chose to be there, can handle a real conversation, and remember who backed it.
Open sponsor lanes
Partner packages
Presenting, Founding, and Supporting Partner packages are open. Custom activations can be scoped after the main package fit is clear.
Registration open
Early Bird until August 15
The public Luma page is live, with BC + AI member discounts built into the ticket model.
Networks of networks
www.dataforgood.ca →dama-vancouver.org →metacreation.net →www.themml.ca →creativemornings.com/cities/van →www.spacecentre.ca →
Community partners
Partners don't pay us. They trade value. They bring their networks; we give their communities access, visibility, and a seat in the conversation. Together, the reach compounds without pretending every relationship is a sales funnel.
Presented by
community
1,600+ member volunteer network
DAMA-Vancouver
community
200+ data governance professionals
SFU Metacreation Lab
academic
SFU research community + AI arts practitioners
community
Film + AI crossover community
Multimodal Media Lab
community
AI filmmaking + creative-tech community
community
Vancouver creative and professional community
venue
250+ regular meetup attendees
Ethos Lab
community
Youth, educators, and BC + AI education collaborators
Data for Good Vancouver
CommunityVancouver's volunteer data science community. Co-curators of Data Nerds Day programming at Futureproof Festival.
1,600+ member volunteer network
DATAFORGOOD · 15% off Festival Pass
DAMA-Vancouver
CommunityData management and governance professionals. Brings the data stewardship lens to AI conversations.
200+ data governance professionals
DATAFORGOOD · 15% off Festival Pass
SFU Metacreation Lab
AcademicSimon Fraser University's research group on machine creativity and generative AI in art. Contributes to the festival's creative AI performance programming.
SFU research community + AI arts practitioners
BC + AI Film Club
CommunityScreens and discusses AI-themed films year-round. Curates the festival's film programming arc.
Film + AI crossover community
Multimodal Media Lab
CommunityVancouver AI-and-cinema media lab building multimodal storytelling tools. Hosts the BC + AI Film Club meetups and collaborates on the festival's film programming.
AI filmmaking + creative-tech community
CreativeMornings Vancouver
CommunityMonthly breakfast talks bringing ideas and creative community together across Vancouver.
Vancouver creative and professional community
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
VenueHome base for monthly Vancouver AI Meetups and the locked venue home for Futureproof Festival 2026.
250+ regular meetup attendees
Ethos Lab
CommunityVancouver youth STEAM + AI lab led by Anthonia Ogundele. Education and youth program collaborators for Futureproof Festival.
Youth, educators, and BC + AI education collaborators
Start the conversation
Become a community partner
If your organization represents a community that cares about AI, from any angle, we want to talk. Bring your people, your weird corner of the map, and the value you can actually move.
Media & Journalism
Science journalists, tech media outlets, journalism schools. Helps the conversation reach people who are asking the right questions from outside the industry.
e.g. Journalism schools, Science communicators, Tech media
Labour & Workers
Unions, professional associations, worker organizations whose members are navigating AI's impact on their jobs and industries.
e.g. Trade unions, Professional associations, Worker co-ops
University & Research
University AI clubs, graduate student groups, interdisciplinary research labs that want a real-world stage for their work.
e.g. University AI clubs, Research labs, Grad student orgs
Creator Communities
Music, visual art, film, and maker communities building with or being affected by generative AI tools.
e.g. Music communities, Maker spaces, Film collectives
Ready to back the festival?
Kris leads partnerships directly. The first step is a 20-minute fit call: what your organization needs, which partner lane is real, and whether a simple proposal should follow. No deck theatre, no fake urgency, no public sponsor language until the agreement is real.