Expo 86 remembered at scaled-back Vancouver fireworks<\/p>\n
Published 12:30 pm Sunday, August 2, 2026<\/p>\n
As fireworks exploded over Vancouver\u2019s English Bay, a radio station broadcast of the music to go with the display was playing \u201c\u201dSomething\u2019s Happening Here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the official theme song and catchphrase of Expo 86, back when fireworks were happening every night at the 1986 World\u2019s Fair.<\/p>\n
Fireworks continued after Expo as a once-a-year multi-day festival, the Celebration of Light, but that was ended by the Vancouver Fireworks Festival Society due to rising production costs, no federal funding, and reduced provincial and corporate support.<\/p>\n
Vancouver approved a scaled-down single-night fireworks display at English Bay on July 31, Summer Lights in English Bay, which took place on Friday, July 31 at 10 p.m.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Organizers estimated the event drew 230,000 to 250,000 spectators, down from the more than 300,000 people each night of the three-night festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expo 86 remembered at scaled-back Vancouver fireworks Published 12:30 pm Sunday, August 2, 2026 As fireworks exploded over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[903,49,48,55],"class_list":["post-843192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}