The Agora du Port de Québec has undergone a spectacular renaissance since its relaunch in 2022. During the last summer, 82,000 spectators attended the concerts presented in this open-air venue that musical stars had abandoned for several years. .
Thanks in particular to the very popular concerts of SuperFrancoFête, Talk, Francis Cabrel, Patrick Watson and The Hives, this is the third year in a row that attendance has been on the rise at the Agora.
Lyricist Luc Plamondon attended the show “Starmania: 45 years under the stars” last summer during the SuperFrancoFête.
Photo d’archives Didier Debusschère
In 2022 and 2023, the Agora welcomed 55,000 and 77,000 people.
“Had it not been for the cancellations of Loud, Sum 41 and Bad Religion, we would have reached nearly 100,000,” believes the promoter of most of the musical events presented at the Agora, Karl-Emmanuel Picard.
What's more, the first concert announced for 2025, that of James Blunt, already promises to be a success. The 6,000 tickets available are sold.
This is a complete turnaround compared to the 2010 decade. Deserted by rock artists from 2013 to 2018, the Agora then only hosted free circus shows from Cirque du Soleil (2013) and Flip Fabrique (2014 to 2018).
At the end of summer 2019, an initial attempt to bring back international stars led to the creation of Agora Fest, a festival headlined by Dennis De Young and Limp Bizkit, but the pandemic put a stop to the project.
New business model
It was finally in 2022 that the real relaunch of the Agora was orchestrated, under the leadership of Richard Samson, general director of the Société de développement commercial (SDC) du Vieux-Port, and Marc-Olivier D' Amours and Patrick Turcotte, from the Port of Quebec.
The key? Change the business model, which meant that producing a concert at the Agora constituted too high a financial risk for promoters.
Charlotte Cardin sold out twice, in September 2023, at the Agora.
Archive photo QMI Agency
“I said we gotta hang a kit [son et éclairage] at the beginning of the summer, take it down at the end of the summer and cushion the burden between all the promoters. It took a business model where it doesn't cost $40,000 to set up and take down when you come to do a show at the Agora,” says Richard Samson.
Stretch the season
The sequel proved them right. Thanks to a program that combines rock concerts, family and sporting events, the people of Quebec have found their way to the Agora.
Over the last three years, the Agora has hosted around thirty evenings, with a peak of 33 in 2024, and fills a void in Quebec, where there was no venue for concerts that could attract between 3,000 and 6000 people.
The Agora can accommodate up to 6,500 spectators.
Archive photo René Baillargeon/Agence QMI
“It’s a bit like our Montreal MTelus,” says Karl-Emmanuel Picard.
While maintaining the same annual occupancy objective, the latter wishes to extend the show season from 2025.
“When we did Sean Paul and Dadju, at the beginning and end of September, the days were still super beautiful. The temperature was incredible for Envol and Macadam (September 12 to 14). Next year, we would like to finish at the beginning of October and start in mid-May instead of the last weekend of May.”
Relaunch of the Agora: citizens are satisfied
The story of the successful relaunch of the Agora is also that of a neighborhood where show organizers and citizens decided to work hand in hand to achieve harmonious cohabitation.
The noisy rock shows that end too late, the source of many complaints at the time, are over. The Agora no longer makes the citizens of its neighborhood cringe.
“We did not receive any complaints in 2024. In previous years, it was negligible and these were situations that were quickly corrected,” says the president of the Vieux-Québec-Cap-Blanc-Parliamentary Hill neighborhood council, Jocelyn Gilbert.
Better sound management and a curfew now set at 10:30 p.m. have reassured residents of the area, as has the choice of the architects of the relaunch of the Agora to limit themselves to around thirty shows per summer.
“We don’t want to piss off everyone,” says the director of the SDC of the Old Port, Richard Samson.
The director of the SDC of the Old Port, Richard Samson.
Photo d’archives Stevens LeBlanc
Act quickly
According to Jocelyn Gilbert, constant communication with the Old Port SDC, which he describes as an example to follow among the four SDCs covered by his neighborhood council, makes all the difference.
“During the first SuperFrancoFête show, there was a visual capture. They took the trouble to meet us to tell us that they would not be able to finish at 10:30 p.m. and to tell us the measures they were taking to reduce the sound. They are listening. We have Mr. Samson’s cell numbers and some organizers, which allows us to act quickly.”
Another example: lighting tests were carried out in the middle of the night and disturbed citizens. “The next day, it was corrected,” says Jocelyn Gilbert.
Good for businesses
Ultimately, he says, citizens are winners since they benefit, just a stone's throw from their homes, from a broadcasting venue offering quality programming. “It’s still a privilege,” says Mr. Gilbert.
Local merchants also benefit from the traffic during show evenings.
“One evening, I was eating at Don Vegan and, on the terrace, there were only musicians. The Dadju team rented twenty rooms at Port Royal at the end of September,” says promoter Karl-Emmanuel Picard.
“Every time you have 5,000 people at the Agora, the restaurants are full. For Styx, there were people from Toronto and the American east coast in the hotels,” concludes Richard Samson.
