Just For Laughs festival returns to Montreal: Michelle Buteau, Chris Distefano, Robby Hoffman, Mae Martin and more

Yahoo

16-07-2025

Back in 2024, Canadian comedy fans were left without the Just For Laughs (JFL) festivals in Montreal and Toronto. But after a bankruptcy restructuring, with new owner ComediHa! taking over from the former Quebec parent company, the festival returns to Montreal this week (July 16 to July 27), featuring comedians including Michelle Buteau, Chris Distefano, Fortune Feimster, Rhys Darby, Gianmarco Soresi, Robby Hoffman, Gianmarco Soresi, Wally Baram, Mae Martin, Nish Kumar and more.
Nick Brazao, head of programming, told Yahoo Canada it's "satisfying" to be able to bring this impressive lineup to the Montreal festival. Adding that there's a lot of anticipation to see how fans respond.
"There's a lot of pieces that go into putting it together, and then once you see it all kind of happening and all being talked about, it's a good time of year," Brazao said.
For years, comedy fans haven't just seen their favourite comedians at Canadian JFL festivals, but they're unique opportunities to get exposure to talents you never knew about. Whether it's an opener you had never heard of, or the spontaneous late night stop you make hopping from show to show, it's an incredibly fun time.
"To manufacture as much as you can the discovery and the surprise aspect is, I think, a huge part of what makes festivals special and makes them worth doing," Brazao.
But with so many comedians gaining popularity and a fanbase on social media and other platforms, it all gets considered when it comes to, as Brazao described, the goal of having "something for everyone" at the festival.
"It's fun to see the effect of the internet," Brazao said. "The ability of people to reach specific pockets of audiences through social media, or through targeted platforms, whether it's Dropout improv or things like Smosh Reads Reddit stories, ... podcasting, ... through Instagram, through TikTok, or maybe more traditional comedy fans that are consuming Netflix specials and Amazon specials, ... [it's] trying to have as much of a varied landscape of that."
"People are finding ways to ... find audiences and find a relatability with people. And then now they have this opportunity in a fan base that wants to buy a ticket to see them do something. So now they have to kind of reverse engineer a show versus 15, 30, 42 years ago when the festival started, it was comedians starting with two minutes of material and going to an open mic night and turning that into five minutes of material, and turning that into 10 minutes. And if you're really good and really dedicated and brought yourself to so many audiences, you got seasoned enough to be a headlining act, and then you could hopefully be booked elsewhere."
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Brazao also highlighted that it's significant for a comedy festival of this size to be in Canada.
"If you're in a comedy club anywhere in North America and even across the world, it's referred to as 'Montreal,' but they mean Just For Laughs, which is very cool that it's irreplaceable kind of currency in terms of brand recognition and value," he said. "So it's being able to hone that and respect that, to create something every year."
"I think any good comedy festival and any good event really embodies the DNA of the city. Montreal is a city unlike any other. ... There are a few festivals in the global footprint, like Edinburgh Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, ... but I think Canada being such a comedy home and Montreal being such a renowned stand-up place that comedians want to go to, ... now it's part of the zeitgeist."
While many of the bigger names in the history of JFL have been American, there's also a commitment to including locals, but Brazao highlighted it's about providing a space where comedians from different markets, at different stages in their comedy careers, can come together.
"When you are engaging in an activity with diverse groups of comedians that are at the top of their game, then everybody's talent level rises along with it," he said. "Ultimately, we do a lot of thinking, of trying to set people up for success. ... How do you present them in a way that sets them up for success and can help them elevate to that next level. So I think by blending everybody together, giving them the chance to rub shoulders together and to experience things together, their network is going to be built bigger."
"The best comedians are evergreen in that they could perform in front of any audience with any sort of subjective experience from whatever community they live in, but you found a way to connect with them. ... We have a responsibility to try to bridge some of those gaps, or have them open for maybe more rare or a more currently famous foreign comedian. Maybe that leads to another opportunity of them going on tour or being exposed to their fan base, and now they get more followers from having opened for whatever bigger star could be here. And then those little pieces, I think, along the way, can build up to eventually, they can have their own headlining show on their own, and it can be part of their development."