The mission of Quartier des Spectacles (QDS) is to animate and promote all activities and public spaces within the district.

Quartier des Spectacles is located in downtown Montreal. It is the cultural heart of the city. It is the place in North America with the highest concentration and diversity of cultural venues.

QDS has been working in close collaboration with Espace M for the past 10 years.

The challenge and mandate

The Challenge

The challenge for QDS is to promote the Quartier as a cultural destination of choice for international tourists, local residents, and students. The QDS Partnership must also increase attendance and ticket purchases at venues given the diversity of the target audience and the increasingly competitive cultural offerings. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected attendance in the Quarter since 2020.

Espace M Mandate

Each year, Espace M, in collaboration with Tourisme Montréal, deploys campaigns to communicate the unique offer (an unparalleled number of outing and show options) and the programming of the public spaces (Jardins Gamelin, Luminothérapie, etc.) of the QDS.

Espace M must therefore promote the offer and build awareness of QDS as a cultural destination.

The most important mandate of the last few years was to bring people back to the Quartier since the end of the sanitary measures.

Our strategy

The chosen approach emphasizes digital media to facilitate creative shifts and demonstrate the variety of the QDS offering. By effectively demonstrating the variety and quality of the offer, we promote the overall perception of QDS as a cultural destination of choice.

High-impact media such as proximity out-of-home, video, and programmatic banners are used to broadcast the QDS offer with a large reach to the Montreal public. Social networks and search engine optimization (paid and organic) are at the heart of QDS’ media activities.

In addition to an annual presence on specific media, media placements are concentrated during the two key periods of QDS: summer and the cultural season.

The results

According to the latest annual report from Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, the number of visitors going to QDS has returned to pre-pandemic levels, at approximately 1.9 million people, annually.

In addition, according to the most recent Google Analytics data, the QDS website generated over 47,000 clicks to partner venue box offices, a 90% increase over the previous year.