Montreal Entertainment

If you’ve had a quiet, relaxing day or you’re not too tired after a busy one spent sightseeing, then you may want to check out what the city of Montreal has to offer in the way of evening entertainment. Being a large and modern centre, Montreal offers all the usual evening venues, with everything from cultural establishments to those where you can let loose with a drink, do a little dancing or appreciate some live music. 

Nightlife

For visitors who want to kick back with a few beers in an evening, the city has no shortage of good bars, with some specific areas having become established as drinking zones. There is some cultural segregation present, with areas for native French-speakers and others for native English-speakers, which are quite clearly defined and separated.

Crescent Street is known as the English drinking zone and is home to a variety of bars with terraces and outdoor seating, which are popular in the summer season. Rue St Laurent meanwhile is the French zone and is home to slightly more upmarket venues where dancing is encouraged; full-on nightclubs also feature here. There is unspoken rivalry between the two areas, but genuine animosity is rare and visitors can choose to attend venues in either area without any fear of problems.

Theatre and music

Montreal has a number of arenas and traditional theatre venues where it’s possible to catch performances in a variety of styles and genres including classic and contemporary dramas, comedies, musicals and dance. Among the venues worth checking out are the St Denis Theatre, Bell Centre, Salle Wilfrid Pelltier/Place Des Arts, Centaur Theatre and the Percival Molson Stadium.

For live music, check out venues such as the Montreal Jazz Club and the Olympic Stadium, the latter regularly playing host to a variety of internationally famous names.

Festivals

There are a number of annual summer festivals that are unique to the city, with highlights including:

• The Montreal International Jazz Festival, also known as Jazz Fest, is the world’s largest annual jazz spectacle and sees giants from every subgenre of jazz music amass to showcase their talents before huge numbers of enthusiastic spectators (July).
• The Fantasia Festival is a chance for residents and visitors to catch genuine fringe and niche productions that are unavailable for viewing elsewhere. This is North America’s largest and most significant festival of this nature (July).
• Divers/Cité, pronounced ‘diversity’, is Montreal’s premier gay and lesbian event and sees the city’s resident and visiting homosexual community unite for street parades, performances in music and dance, and general celebratory proceedings (July).
• The Montreal Highland Games is an annual spectacle that sees competitors take part in classic events such as hammer throwing and caber tossing. Pipe bands, meanwhile, also compete against one another for an auspicious title (August).
• Just for Laughs is an annual comedy festival featuring some of the world’s best comedians and in the past, it has featured famous names such as Jerry Seinfeld, Russell Peters, Jason Alexander, John Cleese and Bill Cosby (September).