Looking for something to do on Friday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 60 events happening in or around Vancouver on Friday, October 25.

CONCERTS

American country-folk duo Shovels and Rope plays the Commodore Ballroom, with guest John Paul White.

Guitarist Peter Bernstein performs with CapU jazz ensembles at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts.

Former frontman of '80s glam-pop band Poison, Bret Michaels, plays the Hard Rock Casino Vancouver.

Brooklyn-based indie-folk/rock band Big Thief plays the Vogue Theatre.

TODDcast Podcast presents performances by local rock bands Dead Quiet, Woodhawk, and No Liars at the Railway Stage and Beer Café.

Three local acts perform Ween's hits, misses, B-sides, and rarities at Pat's Pub and Brewhouse.

British indie-pop band Kero Kero Bonito plays the Rickshaw Theatre.

Instrumental boogie band Zombie Cookout plays the Greedy Pig, with guests Alex Marusyk and Silvacola.

NOLA-based trumpeter Jonathan Bauer leads his jazz quintet at Tyrant Studios.

BENEFITS

Ghostly Gala at Kitsilano Neighbourhood House features dancing, costumes, live and silent auctions, hors d'oevres, and a cash bar, with all proceeds to West Side Family Place.

ETCETERA

The Pumpkin Patch at Richmond Country Farms features pumpkins, a live band, a wagon ride, and an animal farm.

FASHION

Designer Jewellery Trunk Show at the Granville Island Hotel features Anne Carson designs with semi-precious stones and pearls.

FORUMS

Former exotic dancer and Mr. Nude North America Marcus Anthony Ray gives an inspirational talk at New Westminster's Justice Institute of B.C.

The Eastside Culture Crawl Society hosts a two-day forum at Dudoc Vancouver seeking solutions for the crisis facing visual artists displaced from their studios and cooperative spaces.

KIDS' STUFF

The Stanley Park Ghost Train takes kids into the mystical and magical world of Alice in Nightmareland, with tombs, tombstones, crypts, and catacombs.

SPORTS

The Vancouver Canucks take on the Washington Capitols in National Hockey League action at Rogers Arena.

COMEDY

Canadian comedian Eddie Della Siepe performs the first of two nights of standup at Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club.

American comedian and podcaster Scott Aukerman brings his Comedy Bang! Bang! Live! to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Dirty Little Secrets Improv at Lafflines Comedy Club is improv comedy inspired by the audience's secrets.

ARTS ETCETERA

The three-day Burnaby Artists Guild Art Show & Sale at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts features the work of Marjorie Wong.

DANCE

DanceHouse in partnership with Dancers of Damelahamid presents Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Canadian premiere of Spirit at the Vancouver Playhouse.

LITERARY

The Vancouver Writers Fest features local and international writers taking part in literary events and immersive conversations on various stages on and around Granville Island. Events today include The Art of Building Suspense, featuring authors Iona Whishaw, Stephen Chbosky, and Rosetta Allan, with moderator Amber Dawn (above) at the Waterfront Theatre.

MUSIC

Cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière joins pianist Jonas Vitaud in a chamber music performance at West Vancouver United Church.

The Halloween Organ Spooktacular at St. John's Shaughnessy Church features scary music for the organ, with treats for kids after the concert.

THEATRE

Performance at the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre of Cost of Living, a Pulitzer Prize–winning play about relationships and living with physical disabilities.

Suitcase Theatre presents a performance of the Vancouver Fringe Festival fave The Morning After With Pam and Paula at Havana Theatre as part of Replay: A Bunch of Great Plays, Again.

Performance at CBC Studio 700 of Dracula: A Modern Radio Play, Adam Darts' adaptation of the classic horror story by Bram Stoker.

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents a performance at the Granville Island Stage of The Birds & the Bees, a Canadian comedy about love, lust, beekeeping, and the artificial insemination of turkeys.

Vagabond Players present a performance at New Westminster's Bernie Legge Theatre of Terror By Gaslight.

Performance at Bobby's Apartment of Company, an immersive production about Bobby’s life as a bachelor, told in the context of his 35th birthday.

Performance at Richmond's Gateway Theatre of China Doll, a coming-of-age story about a young girl’s path to freedom through books and reading.

North Vancouver Community Players present a performance at the Theatre at Hendry Hall of the psychological thriller The Business of Murder.

Performance at the Historic Theatre of Hold These Truths, starring Joel de la Fuente as Gordon Hirabayashi, a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient who fought against the mass incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during WWII.

Performance at Pacific Theatre of Frankenstein: Lost in Darkness, Mary Shelley’s haunting fable of hubris and loss re-interpreted as an immersive audio drama.

Performance at North Van's Deep Cove Shaw Theatre of the suspense drama Bear Witness, about a young woman who takes her baby out for a stroll and witnesses a murder.

Stage 43 Theatrical Society presents a performance at Coquitlam's Evergreen Cultural Centre of The Creature Creeps, a throwback to classic (and campy) Hollywood horror.

Theatre West Van presents a performance of Patrick Hamilton's Victorian thriller Gaslight at Kay Meek Studio Theatre.

GALLERIES

Without a Word at the Polygon presents a selection of portrait photographs from the private collection of Bill Wu, including works by Berenice Abbott, Robert Doisneau, Walker Evans, Graciela Iturbide, and Mary Ellen Mark.

Transits and Returns at the Vancouver Art Gallery explores the dynamic between place and movement in the work of twenty-one Indigenous artists from around the Pacific.

Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty at the Vancouver Art Gallery features photography, sculpture, collage, and installation, including new massive murals created in 2019.

Robert Rauschenberg 1965-1980 at the Vancouver Art Gallery features rarely seen prints, drawings, collages, sculptural works, and large-scale works from one of the most experimental periods in the artist's career.

Views of the Collection: The Street at the Vancouver Art Gallery focuses on the street as a source of inspiration and site for the production and enactment of culture, with works by Roy Arden, Kati Campbell, Robert Capa, Robert Frank, Fred Herzog, Hong Chan Park, Judy Radul, Jack Shadbolt, Danny Singer, and Ian Wallace.

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 printmakers, collected as early as the 1890s.

There is Truth Here at the Museum of Vancouver focuses on rare surviving artworks created by children who attended the Inkameep Day School (Okanagan), St. Michael’s Indian Residential School (Alert Bay); the Alberni Indian Residential School (Vancouver Island); and Mackay Indian Residential School (Manitoba).

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.

ATTRACTIONS

Potter’s House of Horrors, one of the Lower Mainland’s largest Halloween attractions, features two ultra-scary haunted houses and one geared for kids 12 and under.

North Vancouver's Grouse Mountain features a Skyride to the peak with views of the city and the Pacific Ocean.

The 22-hectare VanDusen Botanical Garden features over 255,000 plants from around the world and almost two dozen sculptures.

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.

The B.C. Sports Hall of Fame and Museum features permanent galleries devoted to Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, a rock-climbing wall, a virtual sports simulator, and history galleries.

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.

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

The Deeley Motorcycle Exhibition features more than 250 privately-owned bikes from around the world.

Stanley Park features 400 hectares of trails, with scenic walking and biking along the 8.8-kilometre seawall and totem park featuring eight poles by First Nations artists.

Nitobe Memorial Garden is a traditional Japanese garden located at the University of British Columbia with waterfalls, stone lanterns, audio guides and tours, and a ceremonial teahouse.

MOVIES

Screening at the Cinematheque of director Robin Hardy's 1973 folk-horror classic The Wicker Man, starring Christopher Lee.

The two-day Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival at the York Theatre features 32 short horror films from 9 different countries, and the Canadian premiere of the B.C.-shot horror-comedy Puppet Killer.

Screening at the Rio Theatre of Jim Sharman's 1975 cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show, featuring the Geekenders Shadowcast.

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