Qc City Summer Festival
The Festival d'été de Québec
For the past 42 years, the Festival d'été de Québec, the first of its kind in North America, has put on hundreds of exciting and varied shows and concerts for the entire 11 days of the festival, making it Canada’s biggest outdoor artistic event. With more than 300 shows in 11 days, the excitement that builds in the heart of Québec City is contagious. It’s a must!
With its unique formula, Canada’s biggest outdoor artistic event gives festivalgoers admission to all the outdoor shows and concerts for a single price. Out on the street and on the indoor and outdoor stages, performers get the crowds of 1.7 million ecstatic fans up in a veritable celebration of music. Rock, song, pop, electro, jazz, reggae, folk, hip-hop, funk, blues, classical music ? The Festival d'été de Québec is all this and more!
Background Notes on the Festival d'été de Québec
How It Began
The Festival d'été de Québec was created in 1968 when seven young artists (Diane Lavoie, Constance Paré, Bernard Pelchat, Louis Ricard, Hélène Savoie, Hélène Trépanier et Michel Viel) and a group of businessmen came up with a plan to promote popular music by holding concerts in the city’s public spaces. In just four months and with a $17,000 budget, they managed to put together fifty shows ? and the public loved it!
The very next year, 1969, the festival presented top Québec stars and tripled its budget. In 1971, the festival was recognized for the first time by the local press as a major event in Québec.
Bring on the World!
By 1980, the festival was inviting performers from Africa, Europe and the US. A new vision emerged: to introduce artists who are famous in their own country but unknown here and to invite the greatest, the most avant-garde and the most critically acclaimed performers.
A 25th Summer Festival to Remember
In 1982, to mark this major milestone, the festival produced a giant poster, four times bigger than usual, that won a number of international and national awards. For this edition, the festival presented a slate of international performers in 414 shows from 22 countries and with a budget of $32 million.
2000 – A Banner Year
This was a banner year as the Festival d'été de Québec racked up award after award: a Félix for the Event of the Year in Québec (ADISQ); Cultural Event of the Year, Attractions Canada Award; Tourist Event of the Year, Budget of $1 M or More, Grand prix du Tourisme Québécois.
2002 – The 35th Anniversary
In 2002, the Festival d'été de Québec celebrated its 35th anniversary in a very big way. This special edition was a time to look back over its history, its triumphs and its guest performers from around the world. And to celebrate this anniversary with panache, the festival had the privilege of making its mark on history thanks to an exhibition put on by the Musée de la civilisation– one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Québec City area – where 350,000 visitors had the opportunity to discover or rediscover, in an eclectic and colourful presentation, the highlights of the summer festival over the years. July 13 was a day to remember as thousands of festivalgoers swarmed the Plains of Abraham for a happening that drew one of the biggest crowds the festival had ever seen. Broadcast live on TV5, the voices and music of Robert Charlebois, Diane Dufresne, Claude Dubois, Pierre Flynn and Daniel Boucher resonated across all five continents.
This 35th anniversary celebration consecrated the Festival d'été de Québec as one of Québec’s truly major events and a driving economic force in the region, with spinoffs to the tune of $42 M. Close to 900,000 festivalgoers from the world over– a 37.5% increase over 2001 – came to salute the Québec’s oldest and certainly most diversified cultural event.
2004 – Time to Innovate
This year, programming and marketing were aimed at promoting the exclusivity and originality of the Festival d'été de Québec in response to the many competing summer events that had sprung up over the years. Place Métro was moved to Place D’Youville and the Street Arts took over Rue Saint-Jean all the way to Côte du Palais. Additional innovations included giant screens on Grande Allée, near the Molson Dry stage in the Parc de la Francophonie and at Place d’Youville.
2005 – Huge Crowds for the 38th Edition
This year the festival topped 900,000 festivalgoers, thanks to the huge crowds that turned out for shows by ZZ Top (a record 65,000), Simple Plan, Billy Talent, Richard Desjardins, Bénabar and Xarxa Teatre. A survey conducted by SOM Recherche et Sondage gave the festival an unprecedented 99% satisfaction rate!
2006 – The 39th Edition: Exclusive Major Productions
Always focused on giving festivalgoers’ everything they expect and then some, the festival presented exclusive major productions such as La Reine et la Perle and Return to the Centre of the Earth that pushed artistic limits to new heights!
2007 – A Wild and Wonderful 40th Anniversary
Music greats such as Renaud, Manu Chao, Kanye West, Patrick Watson and Rachid Taha were among the big name stars that drew crowds and brought more than one million visitors to the festival. Place de la Famille le Lait moved to Parc de l’Université du Québec with its wacky popular programming and folkloric dances from the four corners of the earth.
2008 – Québec City Celebrates
In 2008, the Festival d'été de Québec caught the wave of celebrations for Québec City ‘s 400th anniversary. With visitors converging from the world over, the city put on its most dazzling displays and the Summer Festival it’s most spectacular shows? including Charles Aznavour, Van Halen, Stone Temple Pilot, Linkin Park, Shibusa Shirazu Orchestra, Wyclef Jean and the Pascale Picard Band. A record 1.7 million festivalgoers made this an anniversary to go down in history!
Have a Great Festival!
