Western Canada’s biggest design fair is back, and for Victoria homeowners, designers, and builders, it’s close enough to make a genuinely easy trip out of it. The Interior Design Show (IDS) Vancouver returns to the Vancouver Convention Centre West from September 24 to 27, 2026, bringing together Canadian and international design talent for four days of exhibits, talks, and a party that’s become something of an industry institution.
Here’s what’s on the program this year, and why it’s worth planning a Vancouver day trip (or weekend) around.
The Main Stage: Conversations Worth Building a Schedule Around
IDS Vancouver’s main stage lineup this year leans heavily into the bigger questions facing design right now — housing, hospitality, and how interiors shape the way people actually live. A few sessions stand out:
- Nancy Bendtsen of Inform Interiors sits down Friday, September 25, for a conversation about building a career through community, creative risk-taking, and the overlap between art, design, and everyday life.
- Vancouver Housing Now, also on Friday, brings together architects from MOTIV Architects, Revery Architecture, and Leckie Studio for a discussion on affordability, density, and where the city’s housing conversation goes from here — a topic that echoes plenty of the same pressures Victoria and the broader Island are navigating.
- Falken Reynolds, the duo behind one of Vancouver’s best-known interior design studios, closes out the weekend on Sunday with a conversation about creative partnership and what it means to design collaboratively.
- Food-focused and interiors-focused crowds also get a session on how restaurant design shapes the dining experience, plus a broader talk on how thoughtful interiors influence how people feel, connect, and live day to day.
ILLUMINATE Returns for Lighting-Obsessed Visitors
The show’s lighting showcase, ILLUMINATE, is back, built around an industrial scaffold installation and featuring contemporary lighting brands such as Axolight, Lambert & Fils, Flexa Lighting, and Symmetry Lighting. It’s curated this year by Sebastien Panouille, a certified lighting designer with a background that spans Paris’s Musée du Louvre to Vancouver’s own ThinkL Studio — worth a look for anyone currently deep in a lighting plan for a renovation or new build.
Studio North and Prototype: Where to Find What’s Next
For anyone tracking emerging Canadian design talent, Studio North is the section of the show to prioritize. Presented in a gallery-style format, it showcases one-of-a-kind furniture, lighting, glass, ceramics, and textile work from Canadian and international designers. Nested inside it, Prototype pushes further into concept territory — products not yet in production, giving designers room to experiment with new materials and ideas before they reach the market.
Two Days of Accredited Design Education
For design and architecture professionals, IDS Vancouver’s Accredited Seminar Program returns with sessions covering some of the most pressing conversations in the field right now, including restoration versus rebuild strategies to reduce environmental impact on the West Coast, integrating passive house standards into contemporary residential work, and designing for neurodivergence. It’s a relevant program for Victoria-based builders and designers who work with heritage and character homes, given how often preservation-versus-rebuild questions come up locally.
The IDS Party: Vancouver’s Biggest Design Night Out
The show kicks off Thursday, September 24, with the return of the IDS Party — a design-community fixture that takes over the show floor with music, installations, and an evening built as much for networking as for socializing. It’s open to trade and consumers alike, making it one of the more accessible ways to experience the show if you’re not attending specifically for professional development.
Planning Your Trip From Victoria
If you’re coming from the Island, treat this as a genuinely doable day trip or overnight: the ferry or a quick flight gets you into Vancouver in time for a full day on the show floor, and the Friday and Saturday trade/public days give both industry professionals and design-curious homeowners a reason to attend.
IDS Vancouver 2026 Show Schedule:
- Thursday, September 24: IDS Party (trade and consumers), 7–10 PM
- Friday, September 25: Trade Day, 9 AM–6 PM
- Saturday, September 26: Trade and Public Day, 10 AM–5 PM
- Sunday, September 27: Public Day, 10 AM–5 PM
Tickets and media accreditation details are available at idsvancouver.com.
