Surrey’s Khalsa Day Vaisakhi Parade is slated to return Saturday for the first time after a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event is believed to be the largest of its kind outside of India, and has drawn as many as half a million attendees in previous years.
This year, organizers are expecting that number could climb as high as 700,000 if the weather cooperates.
“It’s wonderful,” parade spokesperson Moninder Singh Bual told Global News Morning.
“There’s so many things to this event that are so beneficial to the community in general — the greater community in Surrey, and across B.C., Canada and internationally as well, so its a great feeling to be back in person.”
Vaisakhi marks the Punjabi new year and harvest season, along with the start of the Sikh religion with the founding of Khalsa in 1699.
Bual said the holiday highlights core values of Sikhism, including inclusivity, dignity and respect for all.
“So when you see people from a huge range of walks of life who come there from any kind of sexual orientation, background, race, ethnicity, it’s supposed to be a very inclusive space for all,” he said.
“All of those things are making this into a positive, happy event we’re looking forward to.”
The holiday is also traditionally a time for families to gather, and Bual said people are expected to travel from overseas — many for the first time since the pandemic broke out — to participate and visit with their loved ones.
Saturday’s festivities will include an Indigenous land acknowledgement and drumming event, a parade featuring 20 floats, scores of booths and cultural displays and a virtually endless selection of free food and drink.
The parade itself begins at 9 a.m. at the Gurwara Sahib Dasmesh Darbar, and there are numerous road closures in the area to accommodate the expected crowds.