In its second year, May 9-12, 2024, Design Victoria established itself as a fixture in the City’s cultural calendar and set the city up as a destination for world-class design.

The second iteration of the festival amplified its efforts from year one, expanding on what worked and adding significant key events. Eighty participating businesses and individual designers came together to offer the public 50 events highlighting the products, designs, skills, people and ideas that are defining the city’s design identity and shaping its future. 

Design Victoria 2024 doubled its size, growing the festival with exciting new additions to the program. A number of ambitious, large events distinguished year two from the launch year.

• The Downtown Design Trail: the curated trail guided visitors around downtown retail locations to discover window exhibitions by independent and emerging designers. 
• Craigdarroch Castle’s exhibition of contemporary furniture by students, faculty and alumni of the Camosun Fine Furniture program is the first-ever exhibition of this kind in the Castle. 
• Cascadia Architects hosted a gallery style reception that included the exhibition “Unbuilt Victoria”, a children’s design workshop, and a panel discussion exploring the power and potential of our city’s unrealized design ideas. 
• DAUSTUDIO hosted a panel discussion with artist Bill Porteus and city builders John Stovel (Reliance Properties) and Robert Jawl (Jawl Properties) about the role of art in our built environment. 
• Introba hosted their annual event powered by Pecha Kucha, opening up the traditionally private event to the Design Victoria audience. 

Visitors were spoilt for choice with a range of events that included workshops, talks, exhibitions, events, open houses and tours. Across the four days of events, Design Victoria averaged a total 4,500 attendees. 

The launch party was “the best party of the year” (you heard it!). Hosted by Thomas & Birch in the historic brick blacksmith building home to their showroom and produced in partnership with Villeneuve Creative, the party drew a crowd of 450 people. Designers collaborated with some of the city’s best mixologists to create bespoke bars serving exclusive drinks designed for the event, with more designers setting the scene with one-off installations. The party was sponsored by Vista Point, a development by Seacliff Properties. 

Design Victoria is a lean team with big ambitions to shape the cultural sector in Greater Victoria and on Vancouver Island. We can’t do this alone: our partners and sponsors are critical to the festival’s success. Sponsors for the 2024 festival included: Gabriel Ross (presenting), Aryze, MGA, HAVN, DAUSTUDIO, the DVBA, the City of Victoria (festival investment grant) and the Province of British Columbia.