Looking for something to do on Friday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 47 events happening in or around Vancouver on Friday, December 28.

CONCERTS

American guitar-rockers Cheap Trick play Coquitlam's Hard Rock Casino Vancouver.

Day one of the CONTACT Winter Music Festival at BC Place Stadium features performances by Skrillex, Galantis, Troyboi, BTSM, Valentino Khan, Crankdat, Elephante, Svdden Death, We Are Fury, and Juelz.

BENEFITS

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

Hear stories by the fire, taste a chestnut roasted over the fire, and take a guided tour at A Fort Langley Christmas at Fort Langley National Historic Site of Canada.

KIDS' STUFF

Glow Christmas at Langley's Milner Village Garden Centre is the largest indoor Christmas festival in Greater Vancouver.

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

SPORTS

The Czech Republic takes on Russia in the World Juniors 2019 hockey tournament at Rogers Arena.

COMEDY

Victoria comedian James Ball performs the first of two nights at Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club.

Canadian comedian Simon King performs the second of three nights of standup at the Comedy Mix.

ARTS ETCETERA

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.

THEATRE

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.

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

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.

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.

Performance at North Van's Deep Cove Shaw Theatre of the seasonal pantomime Santa in Space.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/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

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.

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

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

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

Screening at Vancity Theatre of director Alfonso Cuaron's adaptation of PD James's dystopian novel, Children of Men.

Screening at the Cinematheque of Peter Weir's 1975 breakout work of the Australian New Wave, Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Screenings at Vancity Theatre of Roma, director Alfonso Cuaron's drama about the goings-on in a middle-class household in Mexico City in 1970.

Fortieth anniversary screening at the Rio Theatre of Ralph Bakshi‘s animated adventure-fantasy, The Lord of the Rings.

For all the latest Metro Vancouver event announcements and updates follow @VanHappenings.