Website: futureproof.website

Tickets: luma.com/futureproof-festival

Membership: bc-ai.ca/membership

Internal speaker planner: Local app

2027 tentative planning dates

Kris approved the retreat dates and extended the festival to October 25–29 on September 6, 2026. These are tentative background planning dates. Private, silent holds are on Kris Krüg (BC AI) and BC + AI Ecosystem Events.

• Futureproof Retreat — May 3–6, 2027 (Monday–Thursday), Gulf Islands, BC. Planning assumption: three nights, arriving Monday and departing Thursday. Island, venue, availability, and travel arrangements remain to be determined.
• Futureproof Festival of AI — October 25–29, 2027 (Monday–Friday), Vancouver, BC. Kris selected the full five-day week. Venue availability and the daily program remain to be confirmed. This supersedes the initial October 27–29 recommendation.

These are tentative planning dates for pencil-in conversations, not confirmed venue bookings or speaker commitments.

Why these windows

The BC + AI conference tracker lists Vancouver Startup Week in late April 2027 with exact dates unannounced. Its organizer site still lists the 2026 edition. May 3–6 gives the retreat some separation from that expected window and ends 12 days before Upper Bound, May 18–21, and 19 days before Web Summit Vancouver, May 25–28. Those two May conference dates are organizer-published.

The initial October 27–29 recommendation preserved Futureproof's late-October timing and Wednesday–Friday rhythm, ending before Halloween. Kris subsequently extended the selected window to October 25–29, the full Monday–Friday week. This is a continuity-based recommendation; October 2027 is not yet a fully announced conference calendar. Seattle AI Week currently advertises October 26–30, 2026: a repeat of that late-October window in 2027 would compete directly. Artificiality Summit currently advertises October 22–24, 2026: its next dates also matter for overlapping speakers. Neither page supplied confirmed 2027 dates in this check. World Summit AI's 2027 dates could not be verified.

Alternatives and next checks

The alternatives below preserve the initial research, not active holds. Kris selected May 3–6 and October 25–29; any change would require a new decision.

• Retreat fallback: April 29–May 2 (Thursday–Sunday), if a weekend format is essential; greater potential overlap with Vancouver Startup Week.
• Festival fallback: October 20–22 (Wednesday–Friday), if the preferred venue or priority speakers cannot do October 27–29; this may instead collide with Artificiality if its 2026 timing repeats.
• Check venue availability and priority-speaker calendars against the primary dates before firming them. Recheck Seattle AI Week, Artificiality, World Summit AI, Frontier Summit, Signals/VIFF, MTL connect, and TechCrunch Disrupt as 2027 dates emerge.

Planning library