Futureproof Festival 2026
Latest Luma Details
Event: Futureproof Festival 2026
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Time: 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM PDT
Location: H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Vancouver British Columbia CA Vancouver, British Columbia H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, 1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9, Canada ChIJX-DfNzNyhlQR76LZl5hs5bc IEAD2DC7360C328D1
The most honest AI conversation happening this year.
No hype. No panic. Futureproof brings artists, engineers, researchers, founders, educators, skeptics, and builders into the same festival: opening night, two program days, film, demos, live performance, and the kind of conversation AI deserves.
Most AI events want you to pick a side. We don’t do that here. Bring your doubt alongside your excitement.
Three Days
Wednesday, October 28
Opening Night: where the room becomes a community.
DEFRAG opens the festival with live AI performance, generative visuals, and live-coded sound. Speakers and performers to be announced.
Thursday, October 29
Program Day One: what AI is already doing to people, culture, and attention.
- Opening Keynote + Q&A
- “Ethics in Motion” — 90-minute participatory session; real artifacts come out
- 2nd Annual BC + AI Film Festival
Friday, October 30
Program Day Two: the craft, the practice, and what comes next.
- Hackathon Demo Day — 6 finalists, 5 min each, jury Q&A, live community vote
- Closing Keynote + Q&A
- Futureproof 2027 reveal
- Metacreation DEFRAG wrap party — included with Festival Pass
Across all three days: artists beside engineers, founders beside skeptics. No forced consensus. Critique beside curiosity.
“You do not need to arrive with a polished opinion about AI.”
AI is reshaping culture, work, education, creativity, governance, and everyday life. Futureproof exists to hold a more honest public conversation — one that has room for skepticism, possibility, disagreement, and curiosity. Not performance. Not ideology.
There is a latent need. You need to understand. You need to be part of what’s happening and have a voice in it. This isn’t just for AI professionals. It’s for the teacher who doesn’t normally get into these rooms. For the doctor wondering what AI means for their practice. For the citizen who wants a say in what’s being built. A festival lets people in where a conference might not.
The Venue
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, Vanier Park. Not another convention hall. Skyline views, planetarium energy, and the same home base as the Vancouver AI community. Vanier Park gives the festival something most AI events don’t have: a real edge of the city, a planetarium dome, and a community already used to showing up there.
Built from Community
Futureproof grew out of the rooms already forming around AI in British Columbia. Vancouver AI meetups, film nights, ethics conversations, built by people genuinely trying to figure out what the hell is going on with AI and what role they want to play in it. The room is already real.
Photos: Michelle Diamond / BC + AI community archive.
Presented by
BC + AI is the presenting ecosystem. These confirmed partners bring venue, research, creative community, data practice, and actual humans who have been doing the work before it looked shiny.
- BC + AI Ecosystem Association — presenting organization
- H.R. MacMillan Space Centre — venue
- SFU Metacreation Lab — academic partner
- CreativeMornings Vancouver — community
- Data for Good — community
- Ethos Lab — community
- Rival Technologies — hackathon host
Tickets
- Festival Pass: full three-day access, including the DEFRAG wrap party
- VIP Pass: reserved seating, lounge access, and priority entry
- Student Pass: discounted access for students
BC + AI members get 25% off all passes. Not a member yet? Join here.
About BC + AI
BC + AI is a nonprofit ecosystem association. Not a conference company. Not a VC-backed accelerator. We’re the community that decided to organize itself.
Since 2023: hundreds of meetups across Vancouver, Surrey, Squamish, and the Comox Valley. 300+ members. Special interest groups for film, ethics, education, life sciences, creative AI, and machine consciousness. Futureproof Festival is what all of that was building toward.
Questions
When and where? October 28–30, 2026 at H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, Vanier Park, Vancouver, BC.
Who is this for? Everyone whose life is being changed by AI. Teachers, healthcare workers, artists, engineers, students, citizens who want a say in what’s being built.
How do I register? On Luma. Early bird closes August 15, 2026.
Can I speak or present? Programming is built by our track leads. If you have something to contribute, reach out.
Can my company sponsor? Yes. Contact us. Sponsor lanes are open: visibility, access support, hospitality, or a custom package.
Can I exhibit or demo? Yes. Booth and demo-table inquiries are open. Tell us what you want to show.
About BC + AI Ecosystem Association
BC + AI is the province-wide layer: a community-driven, nonprofit industry association built to create public-interest infrastructure for AI in British Columbia.
Not a corporate lobby. Not a think tank. A commons where meetups turn into working groups, prototypes turn into shared tools, and community values turn into governance.
Join / support: https://bc-ai.ca/membership/
