Osheaga has packed up and Fantasia’s final credits have rolled, which in most cities would mean the summer is winding down. Okay, well maybe it is, but Montreal has three more weeks of country music, puppets, Indigenous cinema, a tattoo convention on the waterfront and an eighteenth-century market where people in period costume will show you how to forge iron.
Six of the thirteen below cost nothing. One of them is a full symphony orchestra playing under fireworks, which is a better Wednesday night than most people manage all year.
Here’s what’s left of August, in the order it happens.
The Parade That Closes Out Pride’s 20th Year
Fierté Montréal has been running since July 31, and it finishes with the parade on Sunday. Community Days fill the Village on Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m., with Rita Baga, Pangina Heals, Lady Bunny and Barbada across the weekend programme.
Go for the parade if you go for one thing. It’s the twentieth anniversary edition, it’s free, and it’s the single biggest street gathering left on the calendar this month.
Aug 7–9 · Parade Sunday Aug 9 at 1 p.m. · The Village and citywide · Free · Details
Deadmau5 and Rezz on the Island, Two Nights Only
ÎleSoniq turns eleven this weekend, and the lineup is the strongest argument for it: deadmau5, Rezz, Dom Dolla, Chris Lake, Above & Beyond, Boris Brejcha, Sub Focus and Seven Lions across two days at Parc Jean-Drapeau.
If you’ve never done a Parc Jean-Drapeau festival, the metro is the only sane way in. Driving to Île Sainte-Hélène on a festival weekend is a decision you make once.
Aug 8–9 · Parc Jean-Drapeau · Get tickets
Hot Air Balloons and The Offspring, 45 Minutes Out
The International de montgolfières at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is the biggest balloon gathering in the country, bolted to a full music festival. The Offspring play the Friday, with Sean Paul, Half Moon Run, Matt Lang and Kaïn across the run.
One thing to get right: it does not run straight through. The site is open August 7–9, then closes, then reopens August 13–16. Turning up on the 11th gets you a locked gate and a long drive home.
You don’t need a car. Bus 96 goes from the downtown terminus or Brossard’s Panama terminus straight to the site.
Aug 7–9 and Aug 13–16 · Aéroport de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 5 ch. de l’Aéroport · Get tickets
Ten Days of Indigenous Film, Music and Art Downtown
Présence autochtone has been going since the 4th and runs to the 13th, taking over Place des Festivals with Indigenous cinema, live music, art and food. It’s free and it’s in the middle of downtown, and it gets a fraction of the attention that the big-ticket festivals on the island pull in.
Aug 4–13 · Place des Festivals, Quartier des spectacles · Free · Details
The Tennis Is Nearly Over and You Have Days, Not Weeks
The National Bank Open has been at IGA Stadium in Parc Jarry since the start of the month. This is the men’s ATP Masters 1000 draw, with the women’s event in Toronto this year.
The catch is timing. It finishes on the 13th, and the deeper a tournament gets the more a seat costs, so the bargain sessions were the early rounds. Check what’s left before you commit to an evening.
Through Aug 13 · IGA Stadium, Parc Jarry · Get tickets
A Free Symphony Concert That Ends in Fireworks
This is the pick of the month and it costs nothing.
The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal plays the Esplanade of the Olympic Park on Wednesday the 12th, conducted by Rafael Payare, marking fifty years since the Park opened. The programme runs from Victor Vogel’s Marche des athlètes, written for the 1976 Games, through Beethoven’s Ode to Joy to a medley that takes in Pink Floyd and Madonna. Diane Dufresne appears, along with the OSM Chorus and actress Sophie Cadieux. It finishes with fireworks.
Take the green line to Pie-IX, which connects to the esplanade through an interior hallway. Go early and bring something to sit on.
Wed Aug 12, 7:30 p.m. · Esplanade du Parc olympique · Metro Pie-IX · Free · Details
Four Days of the Arab World on the Old Port Waterfront
Orientalys sets up on the Quai de l’Horloge for four days of music, dance, crafts and food from across the Arab world. It’s free, it’s on the water, and the food is the reason to go rather than the programming.
Aug 13–16 · Quai de l’Horloge, Vieux-Port · Free · Details
Competitive Barbecue in a West Island Parking Lot
RibFest brings professional ribbers from across the country to the Pierrefonds Community High School lot for three days of ribs, pulled pork and brisket, with headline acts on the Friday and Saturday nights.
It is exactly what it sounds like and it makes no attempt to be anything else, which is a point in its favour. Worth the trip if you’re already west of downtown, harder to justify from the Plateau.
Aug 14–16 · Pierrefonds Community High School, Pierrefonds-Roxboro · Get tickets
Mumford & Sons and Thomas Rhett Bring Country Back to the Island
LASSO hits its fifth year with more than thirty artists across three stages, headlined by Thomas Rhett and Mumford & Sons, with Old Dominion, Jon Pardi and Koe Wetzel behind them. There’s also a LASSO in the city event on the Friday before the festival proper.
Same island as ÎleSoniq a week earlier, same advice about the metro.
Aug 15–16 · Parc Jean-Drapeau · Get tickets
Puppet Companies Take Over a Verdun Street
Marionnettes Plein la rue closes Promenade Wellington to traffic and fills it with puppet companies from Quebec and further afield. Free, outdoors, genuinely aimed at children without being unbearable for the adults with them.
It’s the best argument on this list for getting out of the Plateau and the Old Port for an afternoon.
Aug 21–23 · Promenade Wellington, Verdun · Free · Details
Six Days of Electronic Music and Digital Art
MUTEK is in its late twenties now and remains the most serious thing on this list, in the sense that people fly in for it. Jeff Mills, Ben UFO, Rival Consoles, Matthew Herbert and JakoJako are among the names across six days in the Quartier des spectacles.
The festival passport is the way in if you’re doing more than a night, and groups of four or more get fifteen percent off.
Aug 25–30 · Quartier des spectacles · Get tickets
A Tattoo Convention With a St. Lawrence View
Art Tattoo Montréal turns twenty-two this year, running out of the Grand Quay on the Old Port waterfront. Artists work across American traditional, Japanese, dotwork, realism and neo-traditional, and you can watch the whole thing happen whether or not you’re getting anything done.
Aug 28–30 · Grand Quay, 200 rue de la Commune O · Get tickets
Blacksmiths and Weavers Take Over Place Royale
Pointe-à-Callière turns its plaza into an eighteenth-century market for one weekend, now in its thirty-third year. Costumed artisans demonstrate blacksmithing, weaving and stone carving, and the programming includes Indigenous demonstrations, storytelling and workshops.
Free, outdoors and unusually good with children. It lands on the final weekend, which makes it a tidy way to close the month out.
Aug 29–30 · Sat 10 a.m.–7 p.m., Sun 10 a.m.–6 p.m. · Pointe-à-Callière, 350 Place Royale · Free · Details
If You Only Do One
Take the green line to Pie-IX on the 12th. A full symphony orchestra, Diane Dufresne, fifty years of the Olympic Park and fireworks over the esplanade, for nothing, on a Wednesday. Nothing else in the back half of this month is that good a deal.
If none of the thirteen lands for you, Montreal’s Harry Potter experience isn’t leaving town yet, and we keep a running list of things to do in Montreal that outlasts any one month.
