Members of the comedy world say they’re saddened by the cancellation of this 12 months’s Just for Laughs Montreal comedy competition, whose years of exhibits have highlighted a few of the business’s largest names and launched the careers of many comedians.
Groupe Juste pour rire Inc., the corporate that operates the competition, stated in a information launch Tuesday it’s searching for safety from its collectors because it begins formal restructuring underneath Canada’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
The firm stated its English and French festivals this summer time in Montreal can be cancelled, nevertheless it plans to proceed operations “in a scaled-down format” because it restructures and hopes the competition will return in 2025.
Kelly Taylor, a comic from Prince Albert, Sask., stated performing on the competition was the one alternative he needed to play in entrance of present bookers who wouldn’t have come to see his act at residence.
“It was one of these things where you could get something to happen, over a week, you have all these different people come watch you,” Taylor stated in a cellphone interview from a Winnipeg comedy membership.
Taylor’s first efficiency at Just For Laughs, in 2005, stays his most profitable: he positioned second in a contest for Canadian comics, and his act acquired him booked for extra exhibits on the competition that 12 months — and helped him discover a supervisor.
“A lot of good came out of it, for sure,” he stated. “It’s kind of sad that it’s not happening this year — unless I didn’t get in, then I’m not too worried about it, as long as it comes back again,” he joked.
Matt Labov, a publicist in Los Angeles who has labored with comedians together with Mark Normand, Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen — and represented Dave Chapelle within the early 2000s — stated the cancellation is “a sad day for comedy,”
“This is not like music, where there’s tons of music festivals,” he stated in an interview. Montreal’s competition, Labov added, has been “such an important place, a launching pad and such an important destination for comedy in a world that doesn’t have a lot of destinations, and I can only hope that they get back on their feet.”
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Julien Provencher-Proulx, a spokesman for Groupe Juste pour rire, confirmed that 75 staff, round 70 per cent of the corporate’s workforce, had been laid off Tuesday. He wrote in an electronic mail that individuals who had bought tickets can obtain refunds.
In addition to the competition, quite a lot of different upcoming Groupe Juste pour rire performances in Quebec had been cancelled — although a number of of the artists who had been booked for these dates stated on social media they’d produce the exhibits themselves.
The competition, which started in 1983, has expanded with occasions in different cities and tv applications, together with the Just for Laughs Gags prank present. Over the years, the competition has introduced lots of the largest names in standup comedy, together with Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Amy Schumer and Jerry Seinfeld. In addition to ticketed indoor exhibits, the French and English festivals featured free outside performances.
The Toronto Just for Laughs competition, set to happen in September, has not been cancelled, Provencher-Proulx stated, nor has the competition in Austin, Texas.
Just pour rire blamed its monetary woes on quite a lot of elements, together with the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and the altering leisure business.
The firm, whose officers declined interview requests, stated it’s searching for new buyers, or consumers for components of its enterprise, and that it hopes to protect operations “as much as possible.” It is 51 per cent owned by Bell and Montreal occasion promoter Evenko, whereas Los Angeles-based expertise company Creative Artists Agency owns 49 per cent.
François Brouard, the affiliate director of the Observatoire de l’humour, a company that brings collectively comedians and researchers who examine comedy, stated the competition might have struggled to adapt to altering tendencies in French-language comedy in Quebec.
The competition stated in 2023 that it might now not placed on French-language galas, he stated, including that Quebec’s francophone comedians are more and more reaching audiences on-line and have turn into much less depending on occasions just like the competition to construct a fan base.
“Maybe there’s a lack of renewal,” stated Brouard, who can be a enterprise professor at Carleton University.
Martin Roy, the CEO of Quebec competition affiliation the Regroupement des événements majeurs internationaux, stated that whereas he’s saddened by the information, he’s not stunned.
“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 stated in an interview. Inflation has pushed the value of internet hosting a competition up by 35 to 40 per cent since 2019, he stated.
Reaction to the information began pouring in on X, previously Twitter, with many saddened by the cancellation of the favored competition.
“Unfathomable” and a “big loss” had been some simply a few of the reactions, with one commentator declaring the potential financial fallout for the town from misplaced tourism {dollars}.
— With information from Global News’ Annabelle Olivier, The Canadian Press’ Stéphane Rolland