Our Mission
CONNECTING MUSIC & PEOPLE IN PUBLIC SPACE
Public Disco is a Vancouver non-profit dedicated to transforming unconventional urban spaces into dance-floors, connecting communities through shared musical experiences. We produce block parties, Pride celebrations, and free and ticketed dance music events that reimagine how public space can be used. By making music culture more visible and accessible in a city often labeled as no-fun zone, we create opportunities for people to gather, move, and connect, whether they’re immersed in Vancouver’s underground music scene or stepping onto the dance-floor for the first time.
Our VALUES.
Honour the Roots of UNDERGROUND DANCE MUSIC.
We honour the Black, Latinx, and queer movements that created underground dance music, from early discotheques to house, techno, and contemporary club culture, by carrying forward the DJ-led dance floor as a space for rhythm, connection, and collective release, grounded in safety, freedom, expression, and community.
Promote Social Connection.
Our events bring people together across backgrounds, creating shared experiences that foster belonging, openness, and connection through music.
Enhance Access to Culture.
By presenting free and ticketed events in public spaces we expand access to dance music culture and create platforms for local DJs and performers to reach broader audiences.
Reflect Diversity.
Our programming reflects the cultural breadth of Vancouver’s underground dance music ecosystem, celebrating diverse sounds, perspectives, and communities through inclusive and intentional curation.
Exemplify Urban Innovation.
We reimagine plazas, laneways, and streets as cultural venues, demonstrating how public space can support inclusive music events and contribute to a more vibrant, connected city.
ORIGINS
Public Disco is inspired by the underground movements where modern dance culture was shaped — queer communities, Black communities, and others who created spaces for freedom, expression, and joy when the city did not offer them elsewhere. The discotheque was more than nightlife; it was a site of connection, resistance, safety, and imagination.
We carry that lineage forward by creating contemporary discotheques in public — open, accessible environments for shared movement, community, and celebration. Inclusive programming is central to our work, ensuring space for people who have long been excluded from mainstream nightlife, and bringing these values into the everyday life of the city.
Community, Collaboration, and Public Space
Public Disco brings dance music into public life through collaboration. Our events are co-created with community curators, artists, neighbourhoods and partners, reflecting the diversity of Vancouver’s underground music ecosystem while creating space for different scenes to intersect naturally.
Through partnerships with event workers, property owners, and civic agencies, we reimagine plazas, laneways, and cultural landmarks as dance floors. These collaborations make free and low-barrier programming possible, expanding access to music, public space, and shared cultural experiences.
Vancouver has a long history of underground music spaces, from queer bars and DIY venues to clubs that carried disco and house through the 1980s and ’90s. The majority of these spaces have disappeared due to redevelopment, shifting city dynamics, and limited cultural infrastructure. Today, dance music continues to move between temporary venues, warehouses, and pre-development sites — active, but often out of public view.
Public Disco responds by creating visible gateways into this culture. By hosting block parties in high-traffic locations like Granville Island, Downtown, and Mount Pleasant, we bring dance music into the public realm, activate shared space, and invite new audiences to connect with the scenes already shaping the city.
Our History in Vancouver’s Music Scene
Since 2017, we have produced block parties in neighbourhoods across Vancouver, and collaborated with partners including Vancouver Pride and Vancouver Mural Festival. Built by a team with over a decade of experience in Vancouver’s music scene, our work keeps dance music visible in public space, supports local artists and industry workers, and creates accessible cultural moments for the city.
Before launching Public Disco, our team created projects like Groundwerk, a listening party for local producers, and Some Kind of Music Blog, which highlighted emerging electronic artists and threw underground pop-ups across the city.
Blanketing The City: Lighting The Way by Debra Sparrow for VMF Winter Arts Festival
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
At Public Disco Society, we recognize that our events and gatherings primarily take place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Additionally, we acknowledge that we are sometimes contracted to host events on Indigenous lands outside of these territories. We honor and respect the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded these lands for generations and continue to do so today.
We acknowledge that the land on which we operate, celebrate, and build community is stolen land. Our events and parties are held in public spaces that have been home to Indigenous Nations long before the arrival of settlers. As team members, it is our responsibility to tread softly on the land and respect it, always leaving the spaces we occupy better than how we found them. We encourage all members of our community to take this acknowledgment to heart, reflect on its significance, and actively engage in respectful and meaningful actions that support Indigenous sovereignty and rights.
Public Disco Society is dedicated to making this acknowledgment a living practice, ensuring that it informs and enriches all our activities and interactions.