Langley City's arts nights: Village Café, Film Festival and Light Up the City

Langley City is small enough that its culture programming fits on one page. Three of the City’s own programs come up again and again when people ask us what there is to do downtown that does not involve a shopping cart. None of them is a club you join; you just show up, or apply.

Village Café Series

Despite the name, there is no café. The City describes the series as a way to build civic engagement through conversation, cultural celebration and activities: a mix of heritage-month expos for local entrepreneurs, walking tours through Sendall Gardens, awareness days and the Social Streets block-party evenings in the parks. Each one is a few hours long, usually on a weekday between late morning and mid-afternoon, and they move around: City Hall, the Ardron Room at the library, Timms Community Centre, Douglas Park, Linwood Park, Rotary Centennial Park and McBurney Plaza all host at least one.

The 2026 calendar runs from a community food chat in January to a remembrance gathering at McBurney Plaza on December 6. Two are still ahead as we write: the Latin Heritage Month business and entrepreneur expo at City Hall on October 24 (10am to 3pm) and the Indigenous Veterans Day and Indigenous business expo at Timms on November 8 (10am to 3pm). The City’s page does not list a price for any of them, and it names the Strategic Initiatives and Social Planning office as the contact. We put the ones we can verify on our events list.

Langley City Film Festival

This one has grown up quickly. When the Langley Advance Times covered the announcement in December 2022, the plan was a three-night inaugural festival in October 2023 with a theme of “transitions.” By the second edition, on October 18, 2025, it had settled into a single Saturday at Langley Community Music School on 207 Street: doors at 10:30am, films from 11am to 3pm with an intermission, awards and a panel. Tickets that year were $15 for adults and $5 for anyone 18 and under. The hosts were the City’s ARCH Committee, the Langley Arts Council, the Langley Community Music School and the City’s recreation and culture staff.

The City now calls it a biennial festival, and the third edition is set for Saturday, April 3, 2027, at the same auditorium, with the theme “Storytelling in Modern Filmmaking.” If you make films:

• Submissions are open from September 15, 2026 to January 15, 2027, through the Langley Arts Council’s submission page.
• You must live in BC, and the film must have been made in BC between January 1, 2022 and January 14, 2027, and run between 30 seconds and 30 minutes. Any genre.
• The entry fee is $25 for adults; youth 18 and under enter free.
• Prizes are $1,000 for best overall and $800 each for best visual storytelling, best storytelling through sound and best storytelling through character.
• Enter with a YouTube or Vimeo link; selected films are asked for a DCP copy for the screening.

If you just want to watch, ticket details for 2027 were not posted when we checked. The 2025 pattern (cheap, one afternoon, a mix of local shorts in every genre) is a reasonable guide.

Light Up the City

The simplest of the three. The stage at Spirit Square in Douglas Park has coloured lights, and under City policy CO-78 an organisation can ask for them to be set to its colours on a date that matters to it. Recent and upcoming dates on the City’s list include Coldest Night of the Year (blue and yellow, February 28, 2026), Green Shirt Day for organ donation (green, April 7), National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (orange, September 30), World Prematurity Day (purple, November 15) and Vaisakhi and Sikh Heritage Month (blue and orange, April 1, 2027). The full schedule with colours is on the City’s page.

There is nothing to attend as such; walk past Douglas Park after dark and look at the stage. To request a lighting, fill in the online form linked from the City’s page. Staff review it and get back to you with a decision.

Nearby

Douglas Park, City Hall and Timms sit close together in the downtown core; our Langley City guide covers the rest of it. The music school is on 207 Street at 49 Avenue, a short walk south.

Get there

Tap a pin for the address and directions; every lot below has one-tap directions and a copy-address button.

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