Looking for something to do on Friday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 56 events happening in or around Vancouver on Friday, December 7.

CONCERTS

American R&B/soul artist Queen Naija plays Fortune Sound Club.

American rapper Childish Gambino (a.k.a. actor Donald Glover) plays Rogers Arena, with guest Rae Sremmurd.

Bill Mays and the Toronto Chamber Jazz Septet give holiday classics a jazzy edge at West Van's Kay Meek Arts Centre.

Swing Night at the Vancouver Alpen Club features performance by the Impressions Big Band and friends.

BENEFITS

The CBC/Radio-Canada Open House & Food Bank Day at CBC Vancouver features appearances by media celebrities and raises funds to fight hunger.

The annual Lights of Hope charity Christmas-lights display on St. Paul's Hospital features more than 100,000 lightbulbs and supports the St. Paul’s Foundation.

CHRISTMAS

The Vancouver Christmas Market at Jack Poole Plaza is a Yuletide celebration featuring over 80 vendor huts.

The annual VanDusen Festival of Lights is a winter wonderland featuring approximately one-million Christmas lights.

KIDS' STUFF

Experience the old-fashioned magic of Christmas at Burnaby Village Museum's Heritage Christmas.

COMEDY

Blind Tiger House Teams hit the stage for a night of comedy at Little Mountain Gallery.

Comedian Ryan Stout performs the second of three nights of standup at the Comedy Mix.

ARTS ETCETERA

Curious Imaginings--an immersive sculpture exhibition featuring the hyper-realist, fantastical creatures of Australian artist Patricia Piccinini--continues at Strathcona’s historic Patricia Hotel.

Douglas Coupland’s radical art installation at the Vancouver Aquarium, Vortex, takes an imaginative journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, immersing viewers in the ocean-plastic pollution crisis.

DANCE

Royal City Youth Ballet presents a performance of The Nutcracker at the Surrey Arts Centre.

MUSIC

Opera Mariposa presents a fresh take on Mozart's romantic comedy, Cosi fan tutte, at Marpole United Church.

THEATRE

Performance at the York Theatre of East Van Panto: Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy and Toto are flung to the magical Land of Oz, aka Nanaimo and Hastings.

Performance at Presentation House Theatre of Tim Webb and Kim Selody's family-oriented play, Holiday Baking Time, in which young audience members are invited to become bakers and join in the sugary joy.

Performance at the Cultch Historic Theatre of Little Dickens, Ronnie Burkett’s raucous, adults-only take on the beloved holiday classic, A Christmas Carol.

Performance at Richmond's Gateway Theatre of a new musical adaptation of the holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life, based on the Frank Capra film.

Performance at Havana Theatre of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, in which "the worst kids in the history of the world" take over an annual Christmas pageant.

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a performance at Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre of Blind Date, Rebecca Northan's fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants fusion of clown, improv, theatre, and social experiment.

Pi Theatre presents a performance at the Orpheum Annex of American playwright Taylor Mac’s work, Hir.

Seven Tyrants Theatre presents John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Doubt: A Parable, at Tyrant Studios.

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon's holiday confection filled with classic Jane Austen charm, at the Granville Island Stage.

Carousel Theatre for Young People presents A Charlie Brown Christmas and You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown at the Waterfront Theatre.

Performance at North Vancouver's Theatre at Hendry Hall of the seasonal pantomime Treasure Island.

Re-imagining of C.S. Lewis’s classic tale of hope, change, and sacrifice, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, at Pacific Theatre.

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents the fairy-tale musical, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage.

GALLERIES

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents the Canadian premiere of Guo Pei: Couture Beyond, the first-ever fashion exhibition in the Gallery’s history, which traces the evolution of China’s foremost couturière over 10 years.

Hunkpapa Lakota (Sioux) artist Dana Claxton addresses the oppressive legacies of colonialism through photography, film, video and performance in Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Batia Suter: Parallel Encyclopedia Extended at Polygon Gallery is an installation of photographic reproductions that highlight the proliferation of digital images.

Polit-Sheer-Form Office at Vancouver Art Gallery's Offsite is the first Canadian exhibition by the Chinese contemporary art collective.

Body Language: Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest at the Bill Reid Gallery sees guest curator Dion Kaszas of the Nlaka’pamux First Nation trace the deep-rooted traditions of Indigenous tattooing, piercing and personal adornment.

Discover the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection through an exhibition of nearly 90 paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures in A Curator’s View: Ian Thom Selects.

Looking at Persepolis: The Camera in Iran 1850-1930 at Polygon Gallery features contemporary video and photographic works by Hannah Rickards and Batia Suter.

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents The Metamorphosis, an exhibition drawn from its collection that examines transformation and change.

Interface: The Woven Artwork of Jaad Kuujus at Bill Reid Gallery explores the intricate textile works and cedar weavings of the Kakwaka’wakw and Haida artist.

MUSEUMS

Haida Now: A Visual Feast of Innovation and Tradition at the Museum of Vancouver is guest-curated by Kwiaahwah Jones and features more than 450 works by carvers, weavers, photographers and print makers, collected as early as the 1890s.

Shakeup: Preserving What We Value at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC explores the convergence of earthquake science and technology with Indigenous knowledge and oral history.

Marking the Infinite at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features nine leading Aboriginal women who are revered matriarchs and celebrated artists from remote regions of Australia.

Richmond's Lipont Place hosts Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, which focuses on the legendary RMS Titanic's compelling human stories through more than 120 authentic artifacts and extensive room re-creations.

Wild Things: The Power of Nature in Our Lives at the Museum of Vancouver delves into the life stories of local animals and plants—how they relate to each other and how they connect people to nature in the city.

In a Different Light: Reflecting on Northwest Coast Art at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features more than 110 historical indigenous artworks and explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.

In/Flux: Art of Korean Diaspora at the Museum of Vancouver features selected works of Jin-me Yoon, Junghong Kim, and Jin Hwa Kim, artists originally from the Republic of Korea now based in the Vancouver area.

ATTRACTIONS

The Vancouver Aquarium features almost 800 animal species in galleries ranging from Canada's Arctic to the Amazon rainforest.

West Vancouver's Cypress Mountain features skiing and snowboarding lessons, snowtubing park, cross-country ski trails, downhill skiing and snowboarding trails, and snowshoeing tours.

Parq Vancouver is a 24-hour casino with 600 slot machines and 75 table games, eight restaurants and lounges, and the sixth-floor outdoor Parq.

Science World features hundreds of interactive exhibits in five permanent galleries, live science demonstrations and workshops, and giant movies in the Omnimax Theatre.

At the Bloedel Conservatory you can take in more than 200 free-flying exotic birds and 500 exotic plants and flowers.

North Vancouver's Mount Seymour features skiing and snowboarding, lessons, chairlifts, terrain parks, tubing and tobogganing, and snowshoe trails.

The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is an authentic representation of an age-old garden tradition that reached its peak in the Ming Dynasty.

North Vancouver's Grouse Mountain features a Skyride to the peak with views of the city and the Pacific Ocean, plus ziplines, skiing and snowboarding, a sliding zone, snowshoeing, and a skating pond.

MOVIES

Late-night screening at the Rio Theatre of the 1991 Hong Kong martial arts action-splatter flick Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.

Screening at Vancity Theatre of Finding Big Country, Kathleen S. Jayme's documentary about former Vancouver Grizzlies basketball player Bryant “Big Country” Reeves.

Screening at the Cinematheque of Gray House, Austin Lynch and Matthew Booth's meditation on solitude and the American psyche, with filmmakers in attendance.

Screenings at Vancity Theatre of Float Like a Butterfly and Good Vibrations as part of the Vancouver Irish Film Festival. 

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