Montreal's live music venue infrastructure is broken at both ends

When Taylor Swift announced her Eras Tour would hit Toronto for six nights but skip Montreal entirely, the explanation was brutally simple: our Olympic Stadium has 20,000 tears in its roof. Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx estimated we lost $350 million in economic activity from those shows alone. But the Swift snub revealed something bigger than one crumbling venue—Montreal is failing artists at both ends of the infrastructure spectrum.

We can't house superstars because our stadium is literally falling apart, and we're missing the mid-sized venues that most touring acts actually need. This isn't about corporate conspiracies or cultural decline—it's about basic infrastructure that other cities got right while Montreal stood still. Until we fix both problems, we'll keep watching Toronto get the shows we want.