Montréal is known worldwide for the quality of its festivals. These have grown in the past two decades at an unprecedented rate. The growing number of these cultural events rests first and foremost on the congeniality of Montrealers, the excellence of the cultural enterprises, and the diversity of the artistic community.

This phenomenon has generated a bevy of cultural, economic and tourist benefits unseen anywhere else in North America, and fostered an extraordinary process of international exchange. Every year, Montréal plays host to about 100-odd festivals and events. Nearly half of them are worldclass affairs. Some popular events can draw up to 200,000 people of all ages and origins, at the same time and in the same space, with no major security problems.

Throughout the year, Montréal also hosts many other highcaliber artistic events as well as emerging events that present the artistic output of local and foreign talent, expanding their public and building Montrealers' appetite for new ideas and contemporary works.

- Excerpt from Montréal, Cultural Metropolis, the city's 2005-2015 cultural development policy, 2005, p. 44.