The first Talking Art panel starts at 7 p.m. this Thursday, November 12, at 716 East Hastings Street. This year that address belongs to the people who run the Crawl. The Eastside Arts Society bought the 5,980-square-foot building with help from a Making Space for Arts and Culture grant approved by Vancouver city council. For 30 years the festival has borrowed other people's doorways: studios, garages, warehouses and workrooms between Columbia Street, First Avenue, Victoria Drive and the waterfront. Now it has a front door of its own, and that door opened two weeks before the studios do.
For anyone who lives in East Vancouver, this changes the calendar. Up to 40,000 visitors are expected over the official four days, November 19 to 22. Locals can see the same work across most of November, at quieter hours, from a building on Hastings.
A Hastings Street address for a festival that started in garages
The Crawl began in 1996, when 45 East Side artists opened their studios to the public. This year more than 525 artists are taking part. Stir's anniversary feature counts more than 85 new artists and 12 new buildings in the 2026 lineup.
According to Stir, the society sees the building as a permanent base for exhibitions, events, classes and workshops, and as a way to protect and grow the area's arts community. In a festival announcement published by The Tyee, Alannah Clamp, the society's new artistic and executive director, called the anniversary "a chance to reflect on the resilience, strength and generosity of Vancouver's artist communities."
The building matters because of what it lets the Crawl do before the Crawl itself.
What's at 716 East Hastings before the studios open
The preview exhibition, P.A.R.T.Y.: Pushing Art diRectly To You, opened November 5 and runs to November 28. It brings 75 juried artists together, and this is the first time the preview has hung under the society's own roof. Crawl artists Eri Ishii, Hugh Kearney and Paul de Guzman came up with the concept and the title. The title refers to both the anniversary party and the Crawl's original idea of artists opening their own doors.
Here's what's on there from this week through the end of the month:
- Talking Art panels: Thursday, November 12, to Saturday, November 14, 7 to 9 p.m.
- Moving Art screening: Saturday, November 14, at 9 p.m., right after that night's panel. It's the Crawl's annual film and video exhibition.
- Preview exhibition: open through November 28, which is six days after the studios close.
Stir calls the preview a "sneak peek" at the range of work on show during the Crawl. If you see it this week, you can go into the studios already knowing whose doors you want to find. If you miss a studio, you can still catch that artist's work on Hastings the following week.
Two evenings and two afternoons across the studio buildings
The official hours split the festival into two different kinds of visit. Thursday and Friday run from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The weeknight sessions start after work and run late. The weekend sessions end early enough for dinner.
The buildings below are listed in the official 2026 directory. The artist counts come from each building's page on culturecrawl.ca.
| Building | Address | Artists listed for 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Parker Street Studios | 1000 Parker Street | 141 |
| 1101 William St | 1101 William Street, part of the 1000 Parker complex | Listed as a Crawl stop |
| Mergatroid Building | 975 Vernon Drive | 47 |
| Arts Factory | 281 Industrial Avenue | 20 |
| ARC | 1701 Powell Street | 13 |
| Crawl Pop-up Studio | Sunfire Studios Atrium, 1275 Venables Street | Home-based artists |
Parker Street on its own holds more artists than the Mergatroid, Arts Factory and ARC combined, so it rewards its own block of time rather than a quick pass on the way somewhere else. Weeknight evenings suit it well: five hours, one complex, and two Clark Drive breweries nearby when you're done.
The Pop-up Studio is in its third year. It gives artists who work from home, and can't open their own spaces to the public, a place to show during the Crawl. This year it moves to the Sunfire Studios Atrium. The Buildings page on culturecrawl.ca has the Crawl Map and a searchable directory if you want to plan a route building by building.
Matching the Crawl clock to the kitchens nearby
Several of the best stops near the studios keep daytime hours, and several of the best dinners don't start until the weekday studios are already open. The hours below are the ones each business posts on its own site or reservation page as of early November. Check before you go.
Weekend afternoons, Saturday especially
- Rumor Café, 957 East Hastings Street. Coffee, daytime food, beer and wine, with posted hours of Monday to Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday morning there leaves you about four hours of overlap with the Crawl's 11 a.m. start.
- BETA5 Chocolates, now at 413 Industrial Avenue. BETA5 moved two doors down from its former café. In-person shopping is Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those hours close at 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, just as the Crawl opens, so Saturday is the one festival day when you can visit both. It's also a short walk along Industrial Avenue from the Arts Factory.
- The Garden Strathcona, 868 East Hastings Street. Its site currently shows a Fall 2026 dinner-and-drinks menu and a 2026 wine list.
- Strathcona Beer Company, 895 East Hastings Street. The Hastings taproom serves food and drink menus.
Rumor Café, The Garden Strathcona and Strathcona Beer Company all sit on the same stretch of East Hastings as the society's new building at 716. That makes this block a natural place to start or end a Crawl day, with a stop at the preview exhibition.
Thursday and Friday evenings
- Strange Fellows Brewing, 1345 Clark Drive. Posted hours are noon to 10 p.m. on Thursday and noon to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. That's an easy close-out after Parker Street on a weeknight.
- Superflux Beer Company, 505 Clark Drive. It's open seven days a week, with the same Thursday, Friday and Saturday closing times, and noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Superflux serves food and has seating on site.
- Nero Tondo, 1879 Powell Street. This 18-seat restaurant is on the same street as ARC and serves local beer, cocktails, cider and wine. Posted hours are Tuesday to Friday, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m., and Saturday, 5:30 p.m. to midnight. Saturday's opening comes half an hour before the studios close. If you want an early table, book it and finish your last building close by.
- Dachi, 2297 East Hastings Street. Reservations are listed Tuesday to Sunday, 4 to 10 p.m. That's a full hour before the weeknight Crawl starts, so it works as dinner first.
- Folietta, 1480 Nanaimo Street. Scout Magazine reported that it served its first guests in May 2025. Its site now takes reservations seven days a week and offers weekend brunch, so it fits either side of the schedule.
On Thursday or Friday, have dinner before or after a long evening at Parker Street. On Saturday, start with coffee on East Hastings, then do the Arts Factory and the Mergatroid by daylight, with BETA5 in between. Save Sunday for the buildings you flagged at the preview.
Keeping it free for the next 30
Admission stays free because of fundraising. The 30th Anniversary Silent Auction ran in late October. The 30 for 30 campaign runs from November 2 to December 31 and aims to raise $30,000 to support 30 more years of accessible, low-cost arts programming. Donations go through the Eastside Arts Society's donation page. The preview and the panels now have a permanent home at 716 East Hastings. The studios themselves still depend on the buildings and the artists who open their doors every November.
If the Crawl has you thinking about how a creative workspace, a home studio or a garage workroom fits into your next move in East Vancouver, Patricia can walk you through what to look for and what to ask before you write an offer. Houlihan Homes Group is happy to talk it through over coffee. Talk to Patricia.
