At Home in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles Festival Neighborhood

Edda Bild, Daniel Steele, and Catherine Guastavino

Urban festivals have traditionally been considered incompatible with residential areas because of their contrasting sonic characters, where the sounds of festivals are treated as a nuisance for residents. However, the neighborhood dedicated to housing festivals in downtown Montreal is also the home of diverse groups of residents and workers. Based on a diary and interview study with residents of the Quartier des spectacles festival neighborhood, and building upon research on touristification, festivals as third places, and soundscape, we explored what it meant to be at home in a festival neighborhood, focusing on the sonic experiences of locals. Findings provided a more nuanced portrayal of everyday life in a dense, lively urban environment transformed through touristification. Residents do not consider the sounds of festivals as a primary source of annoyance; on the contrary, these sounds inspire them to engage with their neighborhood, suggesting a more porous living experience between indoor and outdoor spaces. Drawing on the characterization of other imagined residents by our participants, we conclude by introducing the idea of soundscape personas as a practical method in participatory decision-making for the future of the neighborhood.

1. Introduction

2. Context – Quartier des Spectacles

3. Literature Review

4. Methods

5. Results

8. Future Research

The insights collected from these interviews and diaries set the stage for a larger, multi-year research project and supported the development of a series of surveys to validate the findings with a larger sample of residents in addition to the collection of sound measurements to characterize the sonic environments of the QDS. Additionally, the findings raised interesting questions on ideas of retirement, challenging notions on tranquility and age that could be addressed in a more in-depth qualitative study addressing the elderly in the neighborhood. We aim to explore the idea of soundscape personas to encompass more neighborhood user groups, extending the investigation to other groups of residents in close collaborations with the social housing complex as well as with other underserved, minoritized communities (for example, those experiencing homelessness). In this sense, we intend to put the soundscape persona concept to the test in an actual community-decision making process, to further develop and refine our typologies. Finally, our findings cover the experiences of 2019 and the years before; the COVID-19 pandemic has irrevocably changed the look (and sound) of QDS, with a return to the busy festival season impossible for the foreseeable future. In this context, we suggest exploring the conversations on new forms of touristification and the creative city, which will be particularly relevant due to the absence of large-scale outdoor festivals as a constant sound source and a shift towards different forms of COVID-19-safe forms of outdoor entertainment.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank PQDS (specifically Melina Manolias, Thomas Peltier & Pierre Lapointe) and Christopher Trudeau (McGill University). This research was supported by grants to Prof. Catherine Guastavino from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Partnership Development Grant #890-2017-0065) and MITACS Accelerate (IT17223).

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