The company that runs the Just for Laughs comedy festival says the Toronto event will not go ahead as planned this year. A news crew shoots a report in front of the Just for Laughs theatre in Montreal on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
TORONTO – The company that runs the Just for Laughs comedy festival says the Toronto event will not go ahead as planned this year.
It’s a reversal of course for Groupe Juste pour rire Inc., which announced Tuesday that the Montreal festival was cancelled for 2024 but the one in Toronto would continue as scheduled.
The company filed for creditor protection this week and laid off 75 employees – roughly 70 per cent of its workforce.
The company says it hopes the festivals will resume in 2025 once it has finished restructuring the business.
The event in Montreal typically happens in July, and the Toronto festival had been scheduled for September.
Juste pour rire blamed its financial woes on a number of factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and the changing entertainment industry, though court records show a bailiff seized more than $800,000 in assets from the company last week after it failed to make a court-ordered payment to a former employee.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2024.
