A large, outdoor area is utilized for various events at Olympic Park, Montreal.
With a relaunch process that has been rolling out over the last few years, Olympic Stadium, Montreal, is finding success with their 200,000-sq.-ft. outdoor area that allows for festivals and gatherings during the summer months. These range from music and cultural events to sports and festivals.
Their First Friday event started out with 20 food trucks and a small crowd of attendees but has since grown to 45 food trucks, making for a monthly event that attracts around 15,000 people.
“We’re in the eastern part of Montreal, so a lot of the festivals take place downtown, and we wanted to attract attention and get back into the reference of people saying we can have events located in other places than just downtown,” said Kevin Donnelly, events director for the Olympic Park. “It took a while. The large area gives us a lot of flexibility to have different things going on at the same time.”
Donnelly said as a government agency, every year they receive fewer subsidies from the government. The situation has forced them to become more creative with their programming and finding ways to get new revenue.
In the summer, they team up with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra with director Kent Nagano to offer a free concert event. It is the only outdoor event Nagano does in the summertime, and this year it attracted 45,000 people.
Another partnership, this one with Tennis Quebec, added a number of mini tennis courts to one outdoor area, complete with all of the equipment so children can become more familiar with the sport at a young age.
“It attracts a lot of attention from the local market,” said Donnelly. “A lot of people come from different areas of Montreal.”
Sun Life Financial has been the major sponsor of the outdoor calendar every summer for the past three years, and Donnelly said they recently renewed their sponsorship.