No joke: Quebec City to get English ‘Just for Laughs’ show

No joke: Quebec City to get English ‘Just for Laughs’ show

Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Quebec City-based entertainment company ComediHa! is becoming Just for Laughs (Juste Pour Rire) under a rebranding plan announced Oct. 17. ComediHa! bought the financially troubled Montreal company in June.

Company founder and CEO Sylvain Parent-Bédard said in a statement, “After careful thought and analysis, I decided that the Quebec City festival should bear the name of Quebec’s favourite comedy brand, Just For Laughs – the province’s favourite entertainment brand along with Cirque du Soleil.”

As of next August, the popular ComediHa! festival in Quebec City will be called Festival Juste Pour Rire – Québec. Parent-Bedard said, “The festival will also feature an impressive English-language lineup to welcome an increasingly diverse audience from around the world.”

The various ventures of former ComediHa! and Just for Laughs will be consolidated under a new umbrella company called Just for Entertainment Group/Groupe Juste pour divertir.

Among the assets of the company are Just for Laughs branded festivals in Bermuda, Toronto, Vancouver and Sydney, Australia. The company said, “Other major international cities will soon be announced as part of the brand’s new strategic plan.”

The statement says, “This new chapter for the festival is testament to Parent-Bédard’s strong commitment to the Quebec City community and underscores the city’s potential as a dynamic cultural hub ready to shine on the international stage.”

Parent-Bédard previously told the QCT he takes some personal satisfaction in taking over Just for Laughs because he started his company after the Montreal comedy outfit rejected his idea of mounting a festival in the Quebec capital.

The company says with the newly created Just For Entertainment company, which employs 200 permanent and 6,000 temporary workers, “our brands and products now captivate hundreds of millions of viewers around the world via our broadcast partners, festivals, social media and digital platforms, which are followed by over 70 million engaged fans and have accumulated over 100 billion views so far.”

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