Montreal Jazz Festival

The Montreal International Jazz Festival is a jazz festival that takes place every year in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montreal Jazz Fest holds the Guinness World Record for the largest jazz event in the world, set in 2004. It has approximately 2 million visitors (12.5 percent of them are foreigners) and 300 accredited journalists each year, with roughly 3,000 musicians from 30 countries performing over 650 concerts (including 450 free outdoor performances). The festival is held on 20 various stages, including free outdoor venues as well as indoor performance halls.

For 10 days, a large portion of the city's downtown core is blocked to traffic as free outdoor events are conducted on multiple stages at the same time, from midday to midnight. The "festival's Big Event concerts draw between 100,000 and 150,000 people on average," with crowds exceeding 200,000 on rare occasions. Shows take place in a range of settings, ranging from small jazz bars to the huge concert halls of Place des Arts. Some outdoor performances take place on closed streets, while others take place in terraced parks. More than seven to eight hundred concerts are conducted within these ten days, usually in June or July. With its huge appeal, The Montreal International Jazz Festival is undoubtedly one of the most famous festivals in Canada.

Dates: Jun 30 – Jul 9