MONTRÉAL CONCERT
POSTER ARCHIVE
Founded in 2021, the Montréal Concert Poster Archive is an independent, educational and non-profit digital archive dedicated to preserving, documenting and contextualizing the history of Montréal concerts and music scenes. Posters, tickets, flyers, programs, passes, photographs and other traces of the past are digitized, documented and placed in their historical context in order to preserve our collective memory and pass it on to future generations.
1. Overview
The MCPA is an independent digital archive dedicated to preserving and documenting the history of concerts and music scenes in Montréal. It collects, digitizes, organizes and contextualizes tens of thousands of visual artifacts — posters, tickets, flyers, programs, passes and advertisements — originating from private collections, artists, promoters, venues and music enthusiasts.
Unlike a traditional physical archive, the MCPA does not seek to build a material collection: original documents generally remain in the hands of their owners, while digitization makes it possible to preserve and share their historical record. Each document can therefore become a source for tracing artists, dates, venues, promoters and the various communities that have shaped Montréal’s musical life.
The archive pays particular attention to both landmark venues and smaller clubs, bars, cafés, alternative spaces and venues that have since disappeared. Through its archives and historical MCPA-Wiki entries, the project seeks to tell the story of Montréal’s musical history through the traces left behind by those who experienced it.
A History to Discover
A Memory to Pass On
A large part of the community following MCPA comes from the alternative, punk and metal scenes — communities where a passion for music often goes hand in hand with a genuine fascination for its history: the bands, vanished venues, old flyers, legendary shows, small anecdotes and the traces left behind by those who were there.
MCPA hopes to use that passion as a starting point for exploring much further. Someone who arrives here looking for the history of an old punk or metal club may then discover a 1940s jazz cabaret, a 1960s boîte à chansons, a forgotten discotheque, an artists' café, or a performance venue they had never heard of before.
This, too, is the purpose of the archive: to build bridges between generations, eras and musical scenes.
Preserving a poster or telling the story of a venue is not simply about conserving the past. It is about preventing part of our cultural memory from disappearing with the people who lived it. It means passing that memory on to those who are here today, and then to those who will come after us.
An archive therefore exists not only to remember what we already know. It also exists to help us discover what we might otherwise have forgotten.
2. History & Development
Created in 2021 by Jean-François Hayeur, the Montréal Concert Poster Archive began as a project to preserve and highlight the visual traces left by concerts presented in Montréal. Drawing on posters, tickets, flyers and other materials from private collections, the archive gradually developed through an ongoing process of digitization, identification and online publication.
As contributions and discoveries accumulated, the archive expanded considerably. Research into venues, clubs, bars, cafés and other spaces that hosted live performances grew alongside the collection of materials documenting artists and concerts. This evolution gradually gave the project a broader historical dimension, connecting graphic artifacts with venues, eras and Montréal’s many music scenes.
The MCPA-Wiki entries grew out of this desire to take historical contextualization further. They make it possible to reconstruct the history of venues, including many that have disappeared, as well as their name and address changes, periods of activity, programming and significant episodes in their history. Posters and other materials preserved in the archive thus become starting points for a broader exploration of Montréal’s musical and cultural memory.
The project remains independent and is built around a collaborative approach. Its continued development is supported by collections and information shared by collectors, artists, photographers, promoters, venue owners, employees, regular patrons and other witnesses to Montréal’s musical life.
An Endless Archive
“Documenting the history of concerts in Montréal is a little like documenting infinity: there is no end.”
Every rediscovered poster, every documented venue and every newly added date opens new avenues of research. The MCPA is therefore not intended to become a “finished” archive, but rather a living archive, continually enriched by new discoveries, contributions and the history that continues to unfold.
3. Methodology & Content
The MCPA collects and digitizes materials originating primarily from private collections and public contributions: posters, tickets, flyers, programs, photographs and other records of Montréal’s concert history. These materials are progressively identified, dated and indexed by artist, venue, date and source in order to facilitate consultation, research and historical contextualization.
A Fully Digital Archive
The Montréal Concert Poster Archive is a fully digital, independent DIY project. Posters, tickets, flyers, and other materials entrusted to the MCPA are digitized and documented, after which the originals are returned to their owners. The MCPA therefore does not maintain a permanent physical collection.
This approach allows us to work with collectors who wish to contribute to the preservation and documentation of their collections without having to part with them. Many of the collectors we meet have spent years, and sometimes decades, building their collections and are understandably not ready to donate them to an archive. They can temporarily entrust their materials to the MCPA so that they can be digitized, documented, and made accessible as part of Montréal’s musical history, while retaining ownership and possession of the originals.
It is also important to distinguish the MCPA from an established archival organization such as ARCMTL. ARCMTL is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation, documentation, digitization, and promotion of Montréal’s independent cultural heritage. Its work includes the preservation of physical collections and original documents, as well as digitization, research, public programming, exhibitions, and initiatives that help make Montréal’s cultural history accessible to the public.
The MCPA, by comparison, is not an institutional archive or a publicly funded organization. It is an independent, self-funded DIY project created and maintained out of a personal passion for Montréal’s musical history. It does not seek to replace the work of professional archival organizations. Rather, its role is complementary: to locate, digitize, document, and share materials that often remain in private collections and might otherwise never become publicly accessible.
When collectors decide that they are ready to donate or permanently entrust their original materials to an organization capable of ensuring their long-term physical preservation, the MCPA can direct them to ARCMTL. In this way, the two approaches can complement one another: private collections can first be documented digitally without requiring collectors to give up their originals, while those who eventually wish to ensure the long-term physical preservation of their collections have access to an established archival organization.
Whether preserved physically or digitally, these posters, flyers, tickets, and other ephemeral materials are more than simple keepsakes. Together, they form an important record of Montréal’s musical and cultural history and help ensure that this history remains accessible to future generations.
MCPA-Wiki Entries
The MCPA-Wiki entries are developed primarily through extensive research in newspaper archives. Concert listings, advertisements, articles, columns and other contemporary publications make it possible to trace the existence of venues, their name changes, periods of activity, programming and various episodes in their history.
This research is supplemented by posters, photographs, directories, period documents, private collections and, when available, testimony from venue owners, employees, artists, promoters or regular patrons. Cross-referencing these different sources helps refine timelines and, in some cases, correct information that had previously been circulated or published.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is used as an assistive tool in several aspects of the project. For MCPA-Wiki entries, it helps with the analysis, comparison, organization, and structuring of the information collected, as well as with proofreading and text revision.
It is also used as a technical assistance tool for the design and development of the website, particularly for creating, adapting, and troubleshooting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, as well as for certain aspects of content layout and presentation.
Artificial intelligence, however, is not a historical source in itself. The information presented in these entries is the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of archival research, drawing on period documents, newspapers, photographs, posters, programs, historical sources, and firsthand accounts. AI is used primarily as an assistive tool to analyze, organize, structure, and present the information collected. It does not replace either the archival research itself or the historical sources on which the project is based.
Evolving Research Files
MCPA-Wiki entries do not claim to constitute a definitive history of the venues they document. They are conceived as evolving research files that can be corrected, refined and expanded as new archives, information, images or testimony become available.
Contextualization emphasizes verifiability: dated reference points, identification of venues and promoters, and references to articles, advertisements and other contemporary documents whenever they are available.
4. Contributions & Collaboration
The MCPA relies to a significant extent on people who agree to share their collections and memories. Contributions may take the form of scans or photographs of posters, tickets, flyers, programs, passes and other materials related to Montréal concerts, as well as testimony, identifications and corrections.
Contributors are credited when they wish to be, and sources are identified whenever possible. Physical materials temporarily entrusted to the MCPA for digitization are returned to their owners: contributing therefore helps enrich the digital archive without transferring ownership or long-term physical custody of the originals to the MCPA.
This collaborative approach also makes it possible to document events, venues and scenes for which very few traces may survive in institutional archives or in the press.
5. Access & Channels
MCPA content is primarily accessible through its website, where materials are progressively published and organized to encourage exploration of Montréal’s concert history. The archives can be explored through artists, dates, venues and various documentary series.
The MCPA-Wiki entries complement this approach by bringing together historical research on venues, clubs, bars, cafés and other spaces associated with music and the performing arts. They help place visual materials in context and establish connections between different periods of Montréal’s cultural history.
Social media is also used to share discoveries, present newly digitized materials, issue calls for contributions and highlight ongoing research. The website, however, remains the primary point of access to the archive and its documentary content.
6. Brief Timeline
- 2021 — Creation of the MCPA — Launch of the project dedicated to the digital collection, digitization and documentation of posters, tickets and other traces of Montréal concerts. [2]
- Development — Progressive growth of the archive through private collections and public contributions, along with the development of indexing by artist, date and venue. [2]
- Historical Expansion — Development of MCPA-Wiki entries and increasing research into venues, changes of address and name, programming and Montréal’s various music scenes. [2]
- Present — The MCPA is approaching 60,000 digitized documents, with approximately 20,000 currently available on the website. Cataloguing and online publication remain an ongoing process, as new material continues to enter the archive faster than it can be processed and published. [2]
7. Notes & Sources
- Montréal Concert Poster Archive (MCPA) — official website, published archives, project identity, navigation, historical entries and documentary content.
- MCPA archives and documentation — digitized collections, internal project records, calls for contributions, information relating to the development of the archive and documentation accompanying MCPA-Wiki entries.
- Historical sources used for MCPA-Wiki entries — period newspapers and magazines, concert listings, advertisements, articles, columns, directories, posters, tickets, photographs, private documents and testimony collected from people associated with the venues and events documented.
