Montreal is non-stop fun thanks to all the parties, festivals and happenings that come back to the city year after year
Photograph: Eva Blue | Piknic Électronik
Sun or snow, Montreal is always on fire with tons of things to do. In addition to its reputation as being a party town with lively nightlife, the city is insanely busy with festivals and events no matter the time of year. Thanks in part to Expo 67, the International and Universal Exposition, in the swinging sixties, sites like Quartier des Spectacles and Parc Jean-Drapeau were designed to receive a heavy rotation of world-class festivals.
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Complete guide to the best things to do in Montreal right now
Playing to a crowd of more than two million visitors, the world’s largest celebration of jazz takes over Quartier des Spectacles every June and July. Nab tickets for gigs in iconic downtown venues or grab a beer and chill in Place des Festivals where a heavy rotation of crooners and bands play free open-air shows. No worries if jazz isn’t your thing, as organizers always include a mix of mainstream headliners alongside the hottest names in the genre.
This outdoor music festival is Montreal’s answer to Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury wrapped into one three-day August weekend. Thanks to a perennially stacked lineup of chart-topping indie and hip-hop acts, weekend passes sell out quick. Splurging on the Gold Pass puts you closer to the main stage, but its real selling point is access to shorter bathroom and food queues. Word to the wise: Use the metro to get in and out.
This collection of festivities celebrating Montreal’s LGBTQ communities has become one of the city’s grandest celebrations. More than 2 million people converge in and around the Gay Village for a full two weeks of cultural activities festooned with rainbows and crowned by the intensely festive Pride Parade
With more than 800 performances crammed into 20 days in early June, get your vaudeville, stand-up and theatre kicks at this late-spring Plateau drama fest. Start by heading to Fringe Park (Parc Des Ameriques in costume) and nab a three-show pass; pick your shows (bonus points if they’re at the legendary Café Cleopatra, MainLine or Wiggle Room); seek out #FringeMenu restos along Saint-Laurent; scope out a Fringe-After-Dark all-night party. Repeat.
This international urban art block party transforms The Main into an open-air museum for eleven days every summer. Street art enthusiasts can track the progress of three- to nine-story murals painted live by world-class artists, while aficionados can take advantage of two-hour guided tours that explore the fest’s new and past works. Come for the live art and stay for the after parties
Between July and August, countries from around the world compete to be crowned champions of the International Fireworks Competition. On the Wednesday and Saturday evenings the fireworks are held, the Jacques Cartier Bridge turns pedestrian, making it a great spot for a landmark view of the pyrotechnics. To hear the explosions timed to musical crescendos, the grandstands at La Ronde amusement park are the best bet. You’ll need tickets, but they’ll get you admission to the rest of the park, too.
Canadians are known for their love of beer, but that love’s felt no more strongly than at this international beer festival which has spurred similar festivals in Europe and South America. Lasting four days in May, this event’s both a gathering of sudsy greats and a gateway to discovering new brews from around the world. It only grows with every annual edition, so there’s more than enough food, fun and foam to go around.
For three decades and counting, the Quartier des Spectacles’ summer-long festivities are kicked off by the Francos, the world’s focal point for francophone musicians and performers both local and international. Attended by more than a million spectators, the scope of this celebration includes every style of music being observed at both its large open-air concerts and in venues across the city. Any act here is a solid bet.
What better place to geek out, laugh your head off or be terrified by unsettling horror than this genre film festival? Founded in 1996, this summer event—the largest of its kind in North America—now sees hundreds of screenings of feature-length and short films, boasting as many A-list titles as it does obscure and cult varieties, plus a program of special guests that’s included Mark Hamill, Guillermo del Toro, John Carpenter and a hundred more.
This July music festival founded in 1987 is two weeks jam-packed with concerts, venue performances, workshops and activities spread out across the city, and is so popular that its organization hosts many more shows throughout the year. By far one of the best events to both dance away the night and chill out to.
Any hardcore fan of digital music and audio-visual art would easily find a home at this Montreal-based meeting ground for an international jet set of artists. While its notoriety has spread beyond the city to South America, Asia and Europe and created a music label, Montreal still sees an annual celebration in August that presents some of the most thought-provoking, trippy and visionary work you’ll find all year.
To some, EDM is an acquired taste. To fans, it’s a religion, and this festival is its church. Once the stages get going here, they simply don’t stop until the last note of the last song is played. It’s a weekend-long rave with top-of-the-line performers that only gains more and more weight with each passing year. Sweat out the last prime month of summer in Montreal with this one.
Following a mandate of promoting artists who aren’t normally found in Montreal’s performance venues, this three-week June festival focuses on disseminating what’s avant-garde and experimental in music today. In its rich tapestry of a program that blends folk, jazz, noise and sound art together, high-profile acts are constantly rubbing shoulders with the up-and-coming to create a fantastic—and at times educational—experience.
The F1 Canadian Grand Prix is the only Grand Prix north of the border, and one of only two in North America. Racers burn rubber every June on Parc Jean-Drapeau’ Gilles Villeneuve circuit. After watching laps trackside, spectators can unload cash either at the Montreal Casino, the downtown party on Crescent Stree
A fixture on Montreal’s lit scene since 1999, Blue Met is also one of North America’s biggest lit festivals and a meeting place for bookworms annually every April. There’s more activities than just book launches and readings, to be sure, many of which are presented and a dozen languages including English and French.
Piknic Électronik lights up the weekends throughout the warm season, from May to October every year at Parc Jean-Drapeau. Picture a daytime party featuring some of the best EDM artists in the world and the hardcore dancing that inspires, plus food truck snacks galore to refuel. It’s a wonderful family friendly opportunity to shamelessly boogie like no one’s watching, except everybody is, and they’re cheering you on.
Since it was founded in 1985, the FTA has taken on different forms, but always been led by a desire to push the cultural envelope. This festival is a harbinger of Montreal's hyperactive springtime arts scene, and brings together the best of contemporary dance and theatre in spaces throughout the downtown core. From groundbreaking local troupes to international big players, you can see it all, much of it for free.
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This fest is a really unique opportunity to expose your kids to a different kind of science. It’s three days of scientific discovery featuring 100-plus outdoor activities, all free, every May. From lectures to hands-on workshops and experiments, it’s a way to see science really come alive through outlandish performances, exciting happenings and demonstrations designed to blow kids’ minds. It’s not only for the small ones, though—the fun is all-ages.
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Late June and early July is a time when the whole city becomes an outdoor art gallery. Mtl en Arts was created as a community event to promote the visual arts in a way that is all inclusive, not fame-based, and very public—as in you can view painters do their thing live and creatives of all types produce performances and installations before your eyes. It includes an open-air exhibition along Sainte-Catherine Street, interactive activities, a space designed for kids, and basically turns the Village into even more of an outdoor celebration.
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When local music promoters Evenko launched LASSO, it was to a very welcoming audience that no one really knew was there. Turns out Montreal has a happening country music fandom, all of whom gather and revel at Parc Jean-Drapeau’s outdoor Espace 67 every August. Get your cowboy boots out and come out to hear some of the biggest country headliners the world has to offer, including the likes of Sam Hunt, Eric Church, Megan Moroney and more.
This is a small springtime festival but one that really gives a sense of Montreal’s unique flavour. In the neighbourhood of NDG, this fest features local talents to reveal themselves by playing music from, you guessed it, their porch. Crowds of fans wander from one street to the other, catching half a gig here, another half there. It’s a beautiful ambulating experience that’s really well organized for a neighbourhood project.
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This city is basically a global circus epicentre, thanks in large part to Cirque du Soleil which was founded here, but this July festival is an opportunity to see exactly how creative the circuit arts can be. Produced by the TOHU, it involves myriad Montreal circus troupes and extends throughout the city, including free performances like the Géant, an outsized outdoor metal “stage” shaped like a giant, at the Place Ville Marie Esplanade.
Wondering why the Main is closed to traffic again this August? Here’s your answer. It’s worth it, though: the stretch of Saint-Laurent Boulevard between Mozart and Jean-Talon in Little Italy closes off to let thousands of pedestrians take over and see cool Italian-designed cars, eat delightful street food, shop cheap wares, and generally get a good dose of cultura Italiana.
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Scottish traditions live strong in Verdun at this annual sporting event that will impress everyone with a beating heart. Feats of strength—including the hammer toss, the weight toss, the caber toss and other tosses!—are followed by pipe bands, Highland dancing, Celtic music… even mediaeval combat. The Highlands are a highlight of August every year.
This August event put on by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal is a great, free way to see all of Montreal’s classical prowess. There over 20 paying concerts in halls but also over 100 free activities for all ages spanning the breadth of the classical music universe, including world music and jazz, plus film screenings on the topic. The events in the past have included humongous free outdoor concerts on the Olympic Plaza.
This reinvented format of the annual August fashion and design festival downtown is fab for the spotlight that it shines on Montreal fashion designers, with outdoor runway shows and all sorts of showcases, but it’s also a great shopping opportunity. The pop-up shops they set up in containers throughout Place des Festivals are a really great place to kick-start your fall wardrobe.
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Climbing? Over water? Yes, at this high octane, annual sporting event that, every August, sees some of the world’s top free climbers take over the Parc Jean-Drapeau Aquatic Complex. Prepare for your breath to be taken away as competitors dangle hundreds of feet above your head, sans ropes or nets, from the highest diving blocks. It’s a crazy only-in-Montreal type of event you won’t want to miss.
Happening in the last week of August at Place des Arts, this is a street dance festival that also has a spin-off tour that in the past has travelled around the province. The street dance in Montreal is amazing to watch and here it extends outside performance hall walls, right into the urban fabric, to become a true spectator sport. The music alone will light you up.
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This is a true foodie gathering. Picture the Olympic Plaza buzzing with thousands of people milling around picnic tables, sitting on concrete blocks, laughing and rejoicing as they choose what they’ll eat next from the dozens and dozens of food trucks onsite. It happens every first Friday of the month during the warm months of the year, from May to October.
In the wake of the Just for Laughs festival, Zoofest—which also acted as an off JFL—has become that much more important as an outlet for comedy and general tomfoolery on the Montreal festival scene. Happening in mid-July every year since 2009, this is a short-format show platform for up to 250 up-and-coming and alternative comedians—a self described “playground for new faces”, 60 minutes at a time.
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This celebration of all things eastern ranges from North Africa to China and presents a cornucopia of cultural happenings, from workshops to performances and more. It takes over the area around the Clock Tower in the Old Port of Montreal, bringing a festive energy to the waterfront every August.
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Think pop-rock, not bubblegum pop, for this autumn hipster festival of all things indie, from music and art to fashion and film. Held mainly in Mile End and on its fringes, POP gives concertgoers the rare chance to catch bands like Arcade Fire, Grimes and St. Vincent in more intimate venues. Make sure to set aside some time (and some cash) for Puces Pop, an artisanal craft fair filled with local and visiting artisans of every category.
There are more annual food festivals in this city than you can shake a stick at, but few are as star-studded as this culinary extravaganza. Over ten days every November, locals and tourists are invited to nab tables at some of the city’s best restaurants and enjoy table d’hôtes for a fraction of the price. With dozens of addresses to pick from, it’s one of the best ways to kick off the frigid winter season: with a full stomach.
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One of the annual events that helps to solidify Montreal as an undeniably ’it’ place for independent creators, this prestigious festival for indie cinema is a font of the niche, the strange, the captivating and the inspirational. Covering short and feature films both in fiction and non-fiction, this fall event’s seen names both huge and blossoming and is a great place to discover new avenues of cinematic possibilities.
Piknic Électronik lights up the weekends throughout the warm season, from May to October every year at Parc Jean-Drapeau. Picture a daytime party featuring some of the best EDM artists in the world and the hardcore dancing that inspires, plus food truck snacks galore to refuel. It’s a wonderful family friendly opportunity to shamelessly boogie like no one’s watching, except everybody is, and they’re cheering you on.
Jackalope was created by Tribu Expérientiel in Montreal, and has done so much to brand the city on the global urban sports front that the event is now hosted in various other cities in North America. The Montreal edition still happens every September at the Olympic Plaza and draws thousands with its unique mix of skateboarding, street dancing, BMX competitions, culture and food—a crowd pleaser every time.
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This truly magical event lights up the Montreal Botanical Garden after dark and marks the beginning of fall. Hundreds of Chinese lanterns in the shape of characters, animals, mythical beings and more are strewn throughout the Chinese Garden, with light installations also taking over the Japanese Garden next door. It’s a family tradition to walk through and follow the new narrative every year.
RIDM presents around 100 Canadian and international documentary films every November. It gives a platform to both short and medium length docs that might not otherwise have an outlet, meaning tons of fascinating and important stories are broadcast here that might not otherwise get told. It’s a real source of inspiration and information in both English and French, and it’s been going strong since 1998.
It’s a one-of-a-kind event that shares LGBTQ+ experiences in film form for 10 days every November. I+N goes beyond the usual film festival format with a virtual space that shares new queer storytelling all year round, a creative space that features recorded sessions with artists, and a museum that gathers their archives in a series of captured cultural moments.
This is a true foodie gathering. Picture the Olympic Plaza buzzing with thousands of people milling around picnic tables, sitting on concrete blocks, laughing and rejoicing as they choose what they’ll eat next from the dozens and dozens of food trucks onsite. It happens every first Friday of the month during the warm months of the year, from May to October.
Kick off the new year with the coldest electronic music festival in the world, held every January on back-to-back weekends in Montreal’s Old Port. World renowned DJs heat things up on the dance floor, but it can get frigid waiting in line so buy tickets in advance to spare yourself the frostbite. Have a retro ski getup from the ’80s? Bust it out. There are often prizes given away for the coolest outfits.
Every February and March, this series of events illuminates Places des Festivals with a winter wonderland, complete with Ferris wheel, 600-foot zip line, illuminart, performances and culinary highlights. The highlight of the winter festival is Nuit Blanche, an overnight art crawl of some 200 (mostly free) events across the city.
The largest press fair in Canada, this winter gathering of hundreds of vendors and creators is where you go to get intimate exposure to the coolest small presses, artists, authors and publishers out there today. It’s a veritable art gallery that offers a perpetually unique exposure with every passing kiosk as you move through its crowds. Enter empty-handed and leave with a tote bag brimming with great artistry on the cheap.
Closer to the end of winter when Montrealers are still traversing the Underground City, this art festival in March brings the works found in galleries to them by setting up exhibitions throughout the city’s underbelly. In addition to the installations set up throughout Montreal’s network below street level, there’s a full program of art shows to check out as well. Explore at your leisure, whether it’s in the evenings or during a daily commute.
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Another example of sports integrating the city, APIK is a March-weekend snowboard and ski competition that sets up shop right in the heart of Quartier Latin, around Saint-Denis Street. It’s a relative newcomer on the urban sports scene but has drawn growing numbers from year to year so far.
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