Dane Cook and Bassem Youssef to perform at ‘relaunched’ Just for Laughs festival
President of Quebec entertainment group says he is ‘reviving’ Montreal Just for Laughs festival with a reduced event in 2024 that includes performances by Dane Cook, Bassem Youssef and Bobby Slayton.
ComediHa! CEO Sylvain Parent-Bédard calls it “a bit of a miracle” that the company is able to announce its July lineup just a few weeks after acquiring a number of assets from financially troubled comedy company Juste pour rire.
Even though this year’s festival will be smaller on the English side, with around 15 shows and 20 to 30 comedians, he said it sends a powerful signal.
“It was important for us to send a message to the fans, to the various partners and to the comedy industry: we are here, we are still here and we will be there,” he declared during a telephone interview.
Just for Laughs cancelled its Montreal and Toronto festivals earlier this year and filed for protection from its creditors, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and changes in the entertainment industry for its financial woes.
ComediHa! of Parent-Bédard announced earlier this month that a judge had approved its attempt to acquire the Just For Laughs, Just For Laughs, Zoofest, ComedyPro, Gags, and audiovisual catalog brands.
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The 2024 edition of the festival will run from July 18 to 28 and will feature a free outdoor performance by Cook, about 15 shows in different venues and a yet-to-be-announced closing show. The festival will run in parallel with the company’s French-language festival, called “ComediHa! salue Montréal.”
While the company had been planning the event in French Montreal under its own banner since March, Parent-Bédard said it only confirmed on June 7 that it would be able to offer shows under the Just for Laughs name.
He said this year’s edition would not feature a major English-language gala and the company would not produce television shows this summer.
However, he promised that spectators would not be disappointed by the quality of the programming. He expects Cook’s outdoor performance at Place des Festivals to attract thousands of fans and said it was the first time that Youssef – described in the press release as “the heart surgeon of Egyptian origin who became host of the biggest political satire show in the Arab world” – was coming to the city.
Parent-Bédard said he hopes that by next year, the Montreal festival will be back to its pre-pandemic glory. In the short term, he also wants to restart tours across Canada with the Just for Laughs brand.
He said the company still hasn’t made a decision on the future of Toronto’s Just For Laughs festival, but said the company will return to the city in some form later this year and anticipates a more complete event for fall 2025.
A court filing from insolvency trustee PwC said Just for Laughs Group had 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 creditors nearly $22.5 million, while other documents released later showed the festival and other affiliated businesses owed another $5 million.
Parent-Bédard said he has only been able to rehire about 10 of the 130 or so employees laid off by the company Juste pour rire. He added that ComediHa! is still sifting through some 6,000 documents related to the assets it acquired, but he said he is confident the company will be able to avoid the financial mistakes of its predecessor.
He said his company is under his control, making it more “nimble” in decision-making. He also said he’s not going to focus too much on profit, at least for now.
“It’s strange to hear, but I mean it,” he said. Initially, we don’t do it for profit and money. We do it because we love humor, we love festivals, we love Montreal and Quebec and we want to be proud to be the standard bearer of humor all over the world. »
© 2024 The Canadian Press
