I chatted with co-founder Nicolas Cournoyer about its origins and how it’s still going strong today.
It is rare for a festival to encourage attendees to bring their own food. But that is what Piknic Électronik has done for the past two decades — turn an electronic music festival into a giant communal park hang. It takes place over 20 Sundays between spring and fall and features a mix of local and international DJs in a laid-back outdoor setting.
Piknic Électronik started in 2003 as a move to democratize rave culture, founded by a group of music-loving friends from Montreal — Nicolas Cournoyer, Pascal Lefebvre, Michel Quintal, and Louis-David Loyer — who felt that Montreal needed a more accessible way to enjoy electronic music.
Cournoyer greets me over a video call ahead of the festival’s 23rd run. He is warm and unpretentious, excited to share why he loves what he does. At times I have to interject with my own questions before our time runs out.
“The idea behind Piknic was to take electronic music out of its natural environment,” Cournoyer begins. As the electronic scene grew in the late 90s and early 2000s, he noticed that it was often limited to nighttime events. “There were a lot of after hours and raves. [It was] very late to see the DJs.”
“More and more events were getting commercial, and we kind of lost the spirit of the electronic music scene as it got more popular.”
That changed when the co-founders attended Arrival, an outdoor music festival held in the Montreal suburb of Mirabel. “There was of course electronic music during the night, but during the day as well. That was the flash we had. Why can’t people enjoy music in a different ambiance?”
So the quartet of music-enthusiasts contacted Parc Jean-Drapeau, a popular outdoor event site located on Montreal’s island of Sainte-Hélène, to organise their first iteration of Piknic Électronik — and admission was free.
“The first year, it was between 200 and 300 people per week. Next, it was 400. There was a tent, a little 10 by 10 feet for the DJ. There were two for the juices and the food and one at the entrance. It was really a small party.”
Cournoyer emphasizes that the small and steady growth has been important to the festival’s identity. Word of mouth spread until their audience base grew into the thousands, with busier periods bringing in an average of 10,000 participants. “We wanted to keep it as a community, as a family. So we have friends that work for us, friends of friends, and we grow all together with the same spirit.”
As the festival expands, the co-founders have dealt with the uncomfortable friction of commercialization, which they balance through their lineup.
“There are always people saying, ‘It was better back then.’ But as we’re offering a lot of events, it allows us to book different types of electronic music. We’re not as underground as we were, but through the bookings you can challenge that.”
The programme evolves with broader shifts in the electronic music scene, from the dubstep boom of the late 2000s to the techno resurgence over the past decade. The lineup also promotes newer artists, some of whom later break into larger scenes.
This year’s roster spans a mix of genres like house, jungle, electro-funk, and techno, with artists like Eris Drew, Nia Archives, Egyptian Lover, and Misstress Barbara, and spotlights local acts like Mandiz, Shadow Wizard Money Gang, and Juno Award winners Gene Tellum. Cournoyer says programming the festival means balancing generational expectations.
“It’s a clash sometimes. You have people saying ‘I don’t know anyone on the roster,’ and I can understand — I’m one of them! There is so much music coming out these days. There are some music currents, and we’re renewing our crowd, so of course we’ll follow those.”
Nowadays general admission is 24 dollars a head, up from 14 dollars in the mid-2010s. Picnik also runs a spin-off series, Off Piknic, with higher, individual pricing, and big-name artists. This year’s programming includes English techno artist Four Tet, American producer Steve Aoki, and South African DJ Black Coffee.
But as Off Piknic expanded, some longtime attendees criticized the split structure as a cash grab. When I mention this criticism, Cournoyer sighs.
“The thing is, artist fees were skyrocketing before the pandemic. And because the competition is global, it’s down to the wire. So if there’s a promoter that wants to have you, they’re ready to pay a bit more. That’s one of the pressures on the price of the ticket — the artist fees. We’re paying the fees and we will price tickets accordingly. So yes, it’s more expensive, but all shows in Montreal are more expensive.”
He explains that inflation travels up the chain. By his estimates, “fees have increased production-wise, between 25% and 40% since the pandemic.”
From the organizers’ perspective, Cournoyer says that Off Piknic was a way to bring in high-demand artists and sell tickets while keeping its mainstay Piknic Électronik affordable.
Throwing an outdoor festival next to the Saint-Lawrence river comes with some further challenges, particularly weather conditions and climate change. A thunderstorm, however, was responsible for what Cournoyer recalls as one of Piknic’s most magical moments.
“It was a beautiful summer day, warm and everything. We knew that towards the evening there would be some rain showers, maybe a thunderstorm. But some point we saw by the river that it was coming – we were getting hit. I remember it was Josh Wink [playing], it was the first time we had to evacuate. We told people to go to the subway, and they ran. It was raining horizontally, it was windy and everything, but it lasted 15 minutes, 20 minutes max. At some point, bang — the sun came back.
There was half an hour remaining so Josh put the music back on. And we saw all the people just coming out of the bushes and running back from the subway. They were all soaked and started to dance. It was electric.”
And Cournoyer’s advice for anyone looking to start a music festival?
“Slowly but surely. It’s important to make it grow, but go with the flow, with the people. Don’t try to push it too hard because there are some lessons along the way, and you need to learn them in order to evolve in the right way.”
Piknic Électronik runs from May 17 to October 18, 2026. Visit the Piknic website for tickets and the full lineup: https://piknicelectronik.com/en
Interview — Irene Wang
Images — Piknic Électronik
