"Black & Blue is the world’s largest event of its kind, a seven-day cultural festival attracting thousands of people from dozens of countries as well as the gargantuan central dance party."

Mark Thompson and Robert Doyle write:

"People in Montreal are very open minded. People love being together - and they love meeting people from around the world." So says Caroline Rousse, spokesperson for the BBCM Foundation.

Certainly Montreal’s benevolent spirit has gone a long way toward the ongoing success of the Black & Blue Festival, now celebrating its 20th year of philanthropic revelry.

The recipient of numerous international awards and prizes for its exemplary production values, technical innovation, and artistic direction, Black & Blue has been the benchmark against which other cultural festivals and dance events around the planet are measured.

Black & Blue began as the brainchild of a group of altruistic and well-connected Québécoises who sought to create an event that would celebrate life even as it addressed the burgeoning global AIDS epidemic.

Twenty years on, Black & Blue is the world’s largest event of its kind, a seven-day cultural festival attracting thousands of people from dozens of countries as well as the gargantuan central dance party.

The first Black & Blue in 1991 was "a private event, by invitation only, in a beautiful former Bank of Montreal building never used for an event before, and the first ever all-night gay dance event approved by the authorities in Montreal," according to Robert J. Vezina, who heads Festival Black & Blue and the parent BBCM Foundation. READ MORE