Just for Laughs cancels this year's Montreal event amid restructuring effort

The company that operates the Just for Laughs Montreal comedy festival has cancelled this year's edition as it seeks to avoid bankruptcy.

Groupe Juste pour rire Inc. said in a news release Tuesday that it was seeking protection from its creditors as it began formal restructuring under Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The company said it planned to continue operations “in a scaleddown format” as it restructured and that it hopes the festival would return in 2025.

“The decision to initiate restructuring proceedings was reached after thorough consideration of all options available to the company, taking into account its very difficult financial situation given the significant changes in our business landscape in recent years,” the company said.

Julien Provencher-proulx, a spokesman for Groupe Juste pour rire, confirmed that 75 employees, around 70 per cent of its workers, were laid off Tuesday.

Tickets for the French and English comedy festivals in Montreal this summer remained on sale on the company's website Tuesday. In addition to those events, a number of other performances in Quebec have also been cancelled. Provencher-proulx wrote in an email that people who have purchased tickets could return them to the box office where they were purchased or contact their credit-card companies if they purchased tickets directly from the festival.

The Toronto Just for Laughs festival, set to take place in September, is run by a separate organization and has not been cancelled, Provencher-proulx said.

Just pour rire, which held its first festival in Montreal in 1983, blamed its financial woes on a number of factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and the changing entertainment industry. It said COVID-19 forced it “to effectively cease operations for two years.”

The company, whose officials declined interview requests, said it was looking for new investors or buyers for parts of its business and it hoped to preserve operations “as much as possible.”

It had laid off another 21 employees in December, according to a notice filed with Quebec's Labour Department.

The company is 51 per cent owned by Bell and Montreal event

We've been saying for months, even years, that things are not going well in the festival sector.

promoter Evenko, while Los Angeles-based talent agency Creative Artists Agency owns 49 per cent.

In addition to ticketed indoor shows, the French and English festivals featured free outdoor performances.

Martin Roy, chief executive of Quebec festival association Regroupement des événements majeurs internationaux, said he was not surprised by the news.

“We've been saying for months, even years, that things are not going well in the festival sector, in particular for the festivals that are presented free of charge, among others, in downtown Montreal,” he said in an interview.

Inflation has increased the price of hosting a festival by up to 40 per cent since 2019, Roy said.