MONTREAL — The president of a Quebec-based entertainment group says he's "reviving" the Montreal Just For Laughs festival with a scaled-down 2024 event that includes shows by Dane Cook, Bassem Youssef and Bobby Slayton.
ComediHa! CEO Sylvain Parent-Bédard says it's a "bit of a miracle" the company is able to announce a July lineup only weeks after acquiring a number of assets from the financially troubled Just for Laughs comedy company.
While this year's festival will be smaller on the English side, with about 15 shows and 20-30 comedians, he said it sends a powerful signal.
"It was important for us to make a statement to the fans, to the different partners and to the comedy industry that we are there, we are still there, and we’re going to be there," he said in a phone interview.
Just for Laughs cancelled its Montreal and Toronto festivals earlier this year and sought creditor protection, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and the changing entertainment industry for its financial woes.
Parent-Bédard's ComediHa! announced earlier this month that a judge approved its bid to acquire the brands Juste pour rire, Just For Laughs, Zoofest, ComedyPro, the Gags, as well as the audiovisual catalogue.
The 2024 festival runs from July 18 to 28 and will feature a free outdoor performance by Cook, about 15 shows at various venues, and a closing show that has yet to be announced. It will be run alongside the company's French festival, called "ComediHa! salue Montréal."
While the company had been planning the French Montreal event under its own banner since March, Parent-Bédard said it only confirmed on June 7 that it would be able to run shows under the Just For Laughs name.
He said this year's edition won't have a big English-speaking gala, and the company won't produce television this summer.
However, he promised that attendees won't be disappointed by the quality of the lineup. He expects Cook's outdoor performance at Place des Festivals to draw thousands of fans, and said it's the first time Youssef — described in the press release as "the Egyptian-born heart surgeon-turned-host of the Arab world's biggest political satire show" — has come to the city.
Parent-Bédard said that by next year he wants to return the Montreal festival to its pre-pandemic glory days. In the short term, he also wants to bring back touring across Canada with the Just for Laughs brand.
He said the company still hasn't made a decision on the future of the Toronto Just For Laughs festival but said the company will be back in the city in some form later this year and is planning a fuller event for fall 2025.
A court filing from insolvency trustee PwC said Groupe Juste pour rire booked a net loss of more than $7.9 million in the first 10 months of 2023. Court documents released in March showed the company owed nearly $22.5 million to creditors, while more documents released later showed an additional $5 million owed by the festival and other affiliated businesses.
Parent-Bédard said he has only been able to hire back about 10 of the 130 or so employees who were laid off from the Just For Laughs comedy company. He said ComediHa! is still sifting through some 6,000 documents associated with the assets it purchased, but he expressed confidence it can avoid the financial mistakes of its predecessor.
He said his company is under his control, making it more "agile" when it comes to decision-making. He also said he wasn't going to focus too much on profit, at least for now.
"It's strange to hear, but I'm sincere about it," he said. "We don't do it at first for profit and for money. We do it because we like comedy, we like festivals, we like Montreal and Quebec City and we want to be proud to be the flagship of comedy all over the world."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 26, 2024.
Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
