Every year, Vancouver’s annual BC Spot Prawn Festival kicks off the BC Spot prawn season with a free festival at Fisherman’s Wharf on Granville Island. Festival highlights include shrimp boiling, cooking demonstrations with Vancouver celebrity chefs, free entertainment and activities for children, and the opportunity to purchase your own fresh-off-ship prawns.
This year, the BC Spot Prawn Festival is held on Sunday, May 15, 2016, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Events at the BC Spot Prawn Festival 2016
Spot Prawn Boil: The main event of the Vancouver Spot Prawn Festival is Canada’s largest Spot Prawn Boil, an opportunity to enjoy boiled prawns fresh off the ship, plus sides, dips and bread from Terra Breads, and a tasting sample of BC wine or beer, for $ 17.50 per person. Buy Spot Prawn Boil Tickets Ahead Before They Sell Out – 2016 Spot Prawn Boil Tickets.
Vancouver Celebrity Chef Cooking Demos – To inspire their own prawn recipes, Vancouver’s top chefs will hold live cooking demonstrations (and offer tastings).
Buy Your Own Spot Prawns from BC: Get your own spot prawns direct from the fishermen. (Shrimp will continue to be sold for 6 to 8 weeks after the festival at the False Creek Fisherman’s Wharf itself; boats of shrimp arrive daily around 1 p.m.)
2016 festival special events
This year is the 10th anniversary of the BC Spot Prawn Festival, so there are additional events!
Spot Prawn Gala on Friday, May 13 : To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Festival kicks off this year with a special gala event at the Vancouver Club, featuring celebrity chefs and a six-course BC Spot Prawn dinner. Proceeds benefit from Oceanwise. More information here .
Prawn Cooking Classes, Saturday May 14 – Another special 10th anniversary event, these hour-long cooking classes will teach you how to use BC Prawns in your own kitchen. More information here .
History of the Vancouver Spot Prawn Festival
Sweet and succulent, British Columbia prawns are sustainable seafood (they have earned the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise seal of approval) and a great way to ‘eat local’. However, until 2005, spot prawns from British Columbia were almost exclusively exported to Japan. That changed when Organic Ocean’s Steve Johansen partnered with C Restaurant’s chef Robert Clark to create the first BC Spot Prawn Festival in 2006 as a way to keep BC prawns local. Shrimp have since become a seasonal local food in Vancouver, and the annual Vancouver Shrimp Festival, organized by the Chefs’ Table Society, has become a must-see event.
BC Spot Prawns in Vancouver Restaurants
If you love BC shrimp, keep an eye on your favorite Vancouver restaurants after the festival – many Vancouver restaurants will be adding BC shrimp to their menus through May / early June. Tojo’s, one of the top 5 sushi restaurants in Vancouver, makes a famous shrimp sashimi spot. The New Oxford and The Blackbird Public House will each house Southern-style seafood boil, serving BC Spot Prawns and vegetables on tables covered in newspapers.
