Les Francos de Montréal is a large annual music and performance festival held in
Downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, featuring French-language performers from all over the world.
Many of the performances are free to the public and are held on various stages in and around the
Place des Arts
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Often ...
section of Montreal's "Centre-ville." Other performances are held at nearby theaters and require that tickets to be purchased to attend.
In contrast to the
Festival International de Jazz de Montréal
The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal ( en, Montreal International Jazz Festival) is an annual jazz festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montreal Jazz Fest holds the 2004 Guinness World Record as the world's largest jazz fest ...
, also held during the summer months, the Francos focuses on popular music performed chiefly in the French language or by performers from Francophone countries. Musical styles such as rock, pop, chanson, hip-hop, rai, folk, punk, and many others are featured during the festival's run.
The festival was established in 1989 by:
*
Jean-Louis Foulquier the founder of Francofolies de La Rochelle
*
Alain Simard, founder of
Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (FIJM)
*
Guy Latraverse.
Having run for more than 20 years, the FrancoFolies festival is considered to be the largest musical extravaganza in the French-speaking world.
In 1989-1993 the festival ran in September and November, in 1994-2009 from late July to early August,
and beginning from the 22nd edition of the festival in 2010 it was moved to June.
[Rodriguez, Juan]
FrancoFolies bigger, better, earlier.
''The Montreal Gazette,'' April 7, 2010. Accessed May 4, 2010. This change of date was initiated to allow more performers from France to attend the festival and allow the FrancoFolies to "get a jump start" on Montreal's busy summer festival season.
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See also
*Les Francofolies de La Rochelle
Les Francofolies () are an annual music festival founded in 1985 in La Rochelle, Poitou-Charentes, France as an initiative of Jean-Louis Foulquier. It is usually held annually in July and aims at promoting French-language music.
Number of thos ...
*Les Francofolies de Spa
''Les Francofolies de Spa'' is an annual music festival in Spa, Belgium.
It is usually held in the month of July of every year and aims at promoting francophone music. Those attending the festival in 2008 exceeded 200,000.
Best young artists
* ...
Reference list
External links
Official Website
Music festivals in Montreal
Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
Summer festivals
Music festivals established in 1989
Quartier des spectacles
Rock festivals in Canada
Pop music festivals in Canada
{{Montreal-stub