Exhibitions

What it is

The word comes from the 19th-century habit of exhibiting: new machines, new breeds, new manufactured goods, laid out in halls for the public to inspect. City exhibitions took the agricultural fair, added industry and entertainment, and built permanent grounds to hold it all.

Today an exhibition runs for one to three weeks, with a large midway, a grandstand or stages, livestock and 4-H barns that keep the farm side alive, and commercial halls full of vendors. In BC the census counts nine, from the PNE to the Bulkley Valley.

History, era by era

1840s–1879

Toronto’s exhibition grew out of a provincial fair that moved between towns in the 1840s. The city leased a lakefront fairground in 1878 and held its first exhibition in 1879, which drew 100,000 people.¹

1882–1912

In 1882 the Toronto grounds became the first fairground lit by electricity. The fair took the name Canadian National Exhibition in 1912, by then with an amusement park and permanent halls.¹

1886–1923

Calgary held its first exhibition in 1886. In 1923 the annual exhibition joined with Guy Weadick’s stampede, and the combined event became the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.²

1910

Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier opened Vancouver’s first exhibition, then called the Industrial Exhibition, in 1910. The amusement park beside it opened the same year and later became Playland.³

Today

The PNE Fair runs for 15 days and is the province’s biggest annual ticketed event, by the PNE’s own account.³

The midway connection

Exhibitions are where the full midway lives: dozens of rides, rows of games, food joints and shows. Calgary’s Stampede includes a large midway with rides and sideshows alongside the rodeo and the exhibit halls.²

They are also where commercial booths began. The halls of an exhibition were built for people to walk past displays and stop at the ones that caught them, the same walk that carries a crowd past a booth like ours.

Wherever people walk a row of booths, the midway is there in some form: the full kind, with rides, games of skill and food joints, or the quieter kind, with craft tables, home baking and a booth like ours. That walk, with family and friends and something to look at every few steps, is what this directory is about.

Two facts worth knowing

• The first rotary telephone in the Pacific Northwest was shown at the PNE, along with early aircraft and rocketry displays.³
• Toronto’s first exhibition charged 25 cents admission.¹

Questions people ask

What is the difference between an exhibition and an agricultural fair?

Scale and mix. Exhibitions began as city showcases of industry as well as farming, run longer and draw larger crowds; Toronto’s first drew 100,000 people in 1879.¹

When did the PNE start?

In 1910, when Wilfrid Laurier opened the first Industrial Exhibition at Hastings Park in Vancouver.³

Sources

1. The Canadian Encyclopedia: Canadian National Exhibition. Read on October 14, 2026 · reference
2. The Canadian Encyclopedia: Calgary Stampede. Read on October 14, 2026 · reference
3. PNE: History and legacy. Read on October 14, 2026 · official

Short listings from the census

Checked and sourced, but without a full page yet. Each one links to its row on its province or state page.

• BC Northern ExhibitionPrince George, BC · usually August
• Bulkley Valley ExhibitionSmithers, BC · usually August
• Comox Valley ExhibitionCourtenay, BC · usually August
• Cowichan ExhibitionNorth Cowichan, BC · usually September
• Dawson Creek Exhibition & StampedeDawson Creek, BC · usually August
• Interior Provincial ExhibitionArmstrong, BC · usually September
• Nechako Valley ExhibitionVanderhoof, BC · usually August
• Vancouver Island ExhibitionNanaimo, BC · usually September