Volunteers made trips to
Hong Kong in 1984 to investigate how to import
teak dragon boats. The City of Vancouver Centennial Commission endorsed the plan for an inaugural festival as part of the official civic anniversary festivities. The local committee contacted the
Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), and with the financial assistance of businesses connected to Hong Kong (
Cathay Pacific Airways,
Sing Tao and
Empire Stevedoring), brought six teak wooden dragon boats built in Hong Kong to Vancouver for Expo 86. These boats were on display at the Marine Plaza Zone when they were not being used for practices, competitions or ceremonial purposes in support of the Hong Kong Pavilion. In 1986, the Chinese Cultural Centre of Vancouver organized and hosted the first authentic dragon boat festival in North America, and invited prominent community leaders to be patrons. This committee maintained the fleet of 9 teak dragon boats after 3 more were purchased, under the leadership of Dr. Wallace Chung and Dr. S. Wah Leung. Part of this group of founding volunteers includes
David See-Chai Lam and
Milton K. Wong, who would later reorganize the Vancouver Festival as the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival in 1988. Mason Hung, senior IDBF vice-president and Product Development Manager with the HKTB, came to Vancouver as a consultant. The first races adapted the Hong Kong festival's racing rules for use on False Creek, which, like Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour course, is subject to
tidal currents. These volunteers organized instruction and training for novices who had never paddled before out of the False Creek Community Centre, home of the recently started False Creek Racing Canoe Club. The popularity of dragon boat racing began to grow quickly- initially there were around 30 teams competing, but this number continued to grow each year to over 100 by the early 1990s. In 1998, an Asia-Pacific food fair along with performances and entertainment at the
Plaza of Nations inspired organizers to expand the dragon boat festival to include a cultural component like in Hong Kong. In 1989, the festival invited and hosted international dragon boat teams to compete, starting with a women's team from Australia and a men's team from Great Britain. Over the next few years, teams flew over from Indonesia, Japan, England, Germany and Australia to compete against teams from Canada and the USA. In recent years, international teams have returned to Vancouver as the festival has grown, with teams participating from around the world, including from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Great Britain, Australia, Singapore, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and many other countries from around the world. In 1996, 10 years after Vancouver's first race, the 1st IDBF Club Crew World Championships was convened on False Creek during the festival. The 1996 Club Crew World Championships marked the first time that a state-sponsored dragon boat team from
China competed outside Asia. Crews competing also flew in from Australia, New Zealand, Germany and England. In 2008, the festival was rebranded from the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival to the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival. In 2012, the Society received 8 BuK dragon boats as a donation from Concord Pacific's Terry Hui in honour of Milton Wong, expanding the fleet to 18 BuK dragon boats, and allowing the festival to be raced entirely in BuK boats. In 2016, after many years of support from Rio Tinto Alcan, founding sponsor Concord Pacific became the new title partner of the Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival. Concord Pacific also donated $1 million to build a new community boathouse for community paddling operations to support the dragon boat festival and its year round paddling club. The Creekside Paddling Centre houses the festival's equipment and boats year round for use. The festival also expanded back to Concord Pacific Place and Creekside Park in 2016 after being run in the Olympic Village Plaza and Creekside Community Centre. ==Race Course and Festival Site==