International Jazz Festival

What: The world’s biggest Jazz Fes­ti­val, the Mon­tre­al Inter­na­tion­al Jazz Fes­ti­val see’s over 2 mil­lion peo­ple gath­er across down­town Mon­tre­al over the course of 11 days to enjoy over 700 free and paid con­certs from 3000 musi­cians that show­cas­es and cel­e­brates the best of Jazz.

Fea­tur­ing every style of Jazz- from blues and soul to reg­gae and elec­tron­i­ca – the fes­ti­val even sees some inter­na­tion­al­ly famous acts (such as Ste­vie won­der, prince and Aretha Franklin) put on free out­door con­certs across the spe­cial­ly erect­ed stages in the Quarti­er des spec­ta­cles, with traf­fic into the city cen­tre banned through­out the course of the fes­ti­val from noon  to mid­night, as atten­dants kick back, nor­mal­ly with fries and beer and take in the smooth sound of Jazz in the Jazz cap­i­tal of the world. 

When: The fes­ti­val begins in the sum­mer months of Mon­tre­al, and nor­mal­ly begins on the last week­end of June and fin­ish­es 11 days lat­er in ear­ly July.          

Where: The main con­certs are held in the cen­tre of Mon­tre­al in the Quarti­er des spec­ta­cles and the halls of the Place des Arts, – which trans­forms into the largest Jazz are­na through­out the course of the fes­ti­val.

In addi­tion a num­ber of small­er con­certs and per­for­mances are held in a range of small­er and more estab­lished jazz clubs, includ­ing the Cabaret Lion d’Or and club soda, all locat­ed in or around down­town Mon­tre­al.

Dura­tion: The Jazz fes­ti­val lasts for 11 days, with con­certs tak­ing place from noon to mid­night each day and per­for­mances last­ing as lit­tle as 20 min­utes and up to 3 hours – for a full list of tim­ings and con­cert dura­tions see the sched­ule for the upcom­ing Jazz fes­ti­val at: [https://www.montrealjazzfest.com/en-ca/Programmation/Horaire]

Tick­ets: Over two-thirds of the 700 shows at the Inter­na­tion­al Jazz fes­ti­val are com­plete­ly free to attend, includ­ing those in the Quarti­er des spec­ta­cles.

For those that do require tick­ets, prices range from $10 all the way up to the hun­dreds of dol­lars and tick­ets tend to sell out well in advance, the best advice we can give is to check the line-up sched­ule [above] and for those artists that you wish to see check their venue and then head to [https://www.montrealjazzfest.com/en-ca/Programmation/Billetterie] for tick­et pur­chas­ing. 

Need to Know: The whole of down­town Mon­tre­al will be shut down for the Inter­na­tion­al Jazz Fes­ti­val – so don’t count on arriv­ing by Car. It’s also again rec­om­mend­ed to arrive ear­ly to free events for the best spots and to book hotels and tick­ets in advance as some 2 mil­lion peo­ple attend the event and accom­mo­da­tion and access can be in short sup­ply.

More Infor­ma­tion: For more infor­ma­tion on the exact dates of the fes­ti­val, the line-up and to pur­chase tick­ets vis­it the offi­cial web­site of the jazz fes­ti­val at:  https://www.montrealjazzfest.com/