News
Heavy Montreal
2017 Hiatus
July 28-29, 2018

We had a great time at Heavy Montreal this past summer and were looking forward to heading back in 2017, but it was announced on Wednesday that the hard-rock festival will go on hiatus next summer. Heavy Montreal will not return until July 28 and 29, 2018 at Parc Jean-Drapeau.

Nick Farkas, vice-president of concerts and events at Evenko, said Heavy Montréal was being cancelled in 2017 due to a number of factors, including the renovations that will be going on at Parc Jean-Drapeau and the fact that the summer of 2017 will have a busy schedule for other hard-rock and metal shows in Montreal.

The announcement came two days after Evenko revealed that hard-rock superstars Guns N’ Roses will perform at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Aug. 19, just a couple of weeks after the time frame when Heavy Montréal has typically taken place. The site for the Guns N’ Roses show has a capacity of 45,000.

“The fact that we’re moving to a temporary site next year for Osheaga and ÎleSoniq (and for Heavy Montréal, if it was to happen), that weighed on us,” Farkas told the Montreal Gazette. “This year, we thought we really hit on a really cool site and we want to be able to make sure that we can replicate something good going into 2018. And there’s a ton of traffic (in the summer of 2017) in terms of metal and hard-rock stuff. We just thought, all signs point to taking a year off.

“We did it before. We took off 2009 when there was a lot of traffic, and came back stronger than ever in 2010. … It’s just a year off. It’s a hiatus. Guns N’ Roses is a huge deal, and there’s other stuff that we’re going to be announcing soon. The Heavy brand isn’t going anywhere. We’ll be doing Heavy-presented events this summer, and last year was a great year. So we’re excited for the future.”

Heavy Montréal was reduced from three to two days this year and was moved to a smaller site on Île Ste-Hélène. Evenko will also be holding Heavy in the City on July 27, 2018, with shows at various venues around town.

Until then, check out our coverage from 2016 HERE!