We are thrilled to announce the upcoming 2024 Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival!

Guided by the theme Threads of Connection, our 21st annual Festival offers a feast of cultural events and artistic activities to attend and participate in. And simply enjoy!

The 2024 Festival features over 100 live and online events over twelve days at over 40 venues, including music, stories, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, art talks, history walks and more.

For twenty-one years, the Heart of the City Festival has been grounded in the Downtown Eastside and focused on listening and learning from the community’s cultural practices. The Festival works with, for and about the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward our community’s stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences, and artistic processes to illuminate pathways of resistance and resilience.

This 2024 Festival is also a special ‘turning of the wheel year’. As fall rolls into winter and winter rolls into spring, Vancouver Moving Theatre / Heart of the City Festival co-founders Terry Hunter, C.M. and Savannah Walling, C.M. are announcing their retirement as of July 2025 following their final 2024-2025 season with Vancouver Moving Theatre.

Terry and Savannah are ending their tenure as festival directors with gratitude to the community of the Downtown Eastside as they pass stewardship of the festival on to new leadership: 21 years of celebrating the community of the Downtown Eastside; 21 years of sharing its cultural wealth; 21 years nourishing connections; and, 21 years amplifying voices and concerns. An extraordinary journey that just keeps on going.