Go Figure: Diljit Dosanjh paints a picture of Punjabi prominence in B.C.

Diljit Dosanjh’s concert at BC Place on April 27, part of his Dil-luminati Tour, is expected to rank as the biggest Punjabi concert ever held outside of India. Dosanjh already set records when he sold out Rogers Arena in 2022 and became the first Indian artist to play the Coachella music festival in California in 2023. We look at how Punjabi and South Asian culture is growing on this side of the globe.

• 54,500 seats available for the Diljit Dosanjh concert
  
• $178.50 lowest price for a seat as of press time
• The South Asian population in B.C. hit 473,970 as of the 2021 census, a 29.6% increase over 2016.  It represents 9.6% of B.C.’s total population
• At the end of 2022, almost 40% of the 800,000 or so foreign students in Canada hailed from India
• Punjabis were the first South Asians to settle in B.C. and still represent 66.4% of the South Asian population. 315,000 British Columbians speak Punjabi and 287,940 practice Sikhism, a religion originating in the Punjab
• A Punjabi-language broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada has been running in some form for 15 years. It has been broadcast out of Vancouver for the last 11 of those years and airs on Omni TV
• Diwali is a festival observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains. Known as the festival of light, it is often accompanied by festive gatherings, feasts, fireworks and prayer. More than 1,000 people took part in celebrations at Surrey City Hall on November 5, 2023, marking the local event’s 20th anniversary
• Despite the diplomatic spat over the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023, trade between Canada and India is soaring. It jumped 57% to almost $12 billion in 2022

Sources: Billboard, Ticketmaster, Statistics Canada, CTV News, ICEF