Summer is again coming to a close, although September will try to recreate the balmy days of July and August the telltale breeze is already in the air, the days will shorten, the nights will become a little longer the leaves will turn beautiful colours before they fall to the ground and good TV will be back, you know, good tv like “Dancing with the Stars” “Big, brother, sister, aunt and Uncle” Maybe even a show about crabs.
Our guest profile will change a bit as fewer families come to the city on summer vacation and more travelers come to the city with a different purpose. Maybe they are attending a meeting in the city or have a stay at St. Paul’s – “the hospital next door” I like to call it.
St. Paul’s has a long history of treating all kinds of maladies with a humming Emergency department that can sometime have all 5 ambulance bays full and another 4 or five parked on the street. It’s a busy place. They save lives every day, heroes among us.
Some of the big meetings (City Wide Meetings) coming this year are:
- College Of Family Physicians Of Canada – 2019 Family Medicine Forum October 30th to November 2nd
- American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL) – 2019 Annual Congress November 10th to 12th
- American Anthropological Association – 2019 Annual Meeting November 18th to the 24th
Some of our guests will be coming to stay with us to attend that once in a lifetime concert – Elton John is in Vancouver for three shows in September 3 shows at Rogers Arena, now that is some pent-up demand for a musical icon in our city. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Is this truly the last concert by John?
Some of the other highlighted musical guests coming to Vancouver are as follows.
- Billy Idol – September 1 at the PNE Rogers Amphitheatre
- Iron Maiden – September 3rd – Rogers Arena
- Mark Knopfler– September 16th – Orpheum
- Lana Del Ray September 30 -Rogers Arena
- Jonas Brothers October 11 – Rogers Arena
- John Fogerty – October 13 – Rogers Arena
- The Who – October 21 – Rogers Arena
Lots of our guests come to Vancouver to see our sports teams and this fall the main attraction will be (I’m hoping) the Vancouver Canucks. This team has taken a leap forward in the off season and have added some veterans with a good upside in potential production. We added a player who I disliked seeing the Canucks play against because he made it so difficult for our team. Talking about Michael Ferland. He has some good skill and can score goals, but he will also provide a level of accountability to other teams who might want to take liberties with our young core. Other additions are Jamie Benn – Defensemen a home-town boy who is tough to play against. Tyler Meyers – Defenseman another big body with a long reach, it will be interesting to see what he can do and – RJ Miller who can play on the top two lines and provides a veteran presence and a high skill set. The team also added at the end of last year Quinn Hughes who has incredible vision and gets the puck out of his own end deftly and with precision.
I thought the Canucks really upped their game last year, it was a fast skilled game and was enjoyable to watch each night – with the addition of the players over the summer and our young players having another year of training the hope is for the Vancouver Canucks to make it into the playoffs this year – once in the playoffs it’s another whole season where anything can happen. Will the Canucks win the cup this year, maybe but probably not. Are they on the right path to getting back into the show – I say absolutely? If the team can get through the year with fewer injuries and Petterson/Boeser and Captain Bo Horvat continue their trajectory the next few years are incredibly exciting.
It may seem a little outlandish and although we don’t have these guests attending at this time (they will arrive in December usually) the people responsible for planning company holiday parties start coming by to see the banquet space or C|Prime Restaurant as a venue for their parties. Such a great time over the holidays.
