Intimacy and Access: How P’tit Ours Empowers Local Music
Tucked away on the behemoth of Parc Avenue sits a small, easily-missable venue. I should know – I was almost late for my first show there because I walked right by it…twice. My friend Holly McLachlan was playing on a cold, February night, and she had invited me to play bass for a cover at the end of her set. I, per usual, was running late, and after having frantically passed the venue going both sides of the street, I finally noticed the obscured entrance, marked by a bear holding a balloon.
Walking inside, I felt some sort of nostalgia, like I was walking into a life-sized pillow fort. The low ceilings and dim lights provide an ambiance that beckons creativity. A few of my friends chatted to the bartender in the corner, who I recognized from their work in a heavy metal band. I’d seen the lighting technician, as well, at a few other shows.
When I finally got onto the stage, the two foot gap between the stage and the floor felt like it was gone. As the room gradually filled with people, instrument cases and jackets began to decorate the walls, and soon the transformation was complete. The anxiety I felt had completely vanished; I was no longer in a venue space, but rather in someone’s living room. I could feel the friends and strangers watching the show in front of me, but while that feeling usually brings me nervous energy, it instead brought me closer to everyone in the room.
The magic of P’tit Ours isn’t its decor, or its drinks, but rather its ability to garner intimacy while remaining a versatile space. With a maximum capacity of 70 people, the space quickly fills with the warmth of the audience. On calmer nights, chairs are set across the floor to sit and enjoy the performances. On busier ones, drinks, jackets and bags scatter the sides of the walls while people cram together to dance in the middle.
But the most special thing about P’tit Ours is perhaps its commitment to the grassroots scene and smaller artists. Not only are 10% of bar sales given back to the artists, but owner Mauro Pezzente prefers there be no large promoters or producers who book the venue. “I’ve never been too excited by having Evenko or any large production company come,” he tells me. “It’s just about, you want to play a show? Book it. You know, have fun! If 20 people come, great. If 50 people come, even better. If 100 people come, fantastic! We’re just trying to break even as the days go along.” And while a $50 booking fee was implicated on August 1st, the amount can easily be earned back through bar revenue sales.
Photo by Caroline Desilets
Of the roughly eighty “official” venues in Montreal, Evenko exclusively owns six, including the Bell Centre, Place Bell, MTELUS, Studio TD and Theatre Beanfield. They also have an exclusive partnership with Parc Jean Drapeau, meaning they make a lot of profit with events like Osheaga and IlESONIQ (as well as through any artists that want to play at these venues in the city), along with whatever other venue that will agree to make a deal with them.
A lack of profitability is actually what drove Pezzente into P’tit Ours in the first place. However, it took him a little to get behind a venue so obscure. The first time he visited longtime friend and old owner Martha Wainwright at the establishment, “[he] thought it was kind of ridiculously small to be able to sustain itself.” But in 2024, when Wainwright asked him to take over as she would be leaving Ursa, something inside of Pezzente couldn’t say no.
So Pezzente found a few like-minded partners, including both the booker and the assistant booker at Casa del Popolo, a venue Pezzente co-founded back in 2000. “If [one person] is losing $10,000, it’s kind of hard to [run a venue],” he explains to me, “but if ten people are losing $1,000, then it’s easier.”
To honour Martha, Pezzente and his partners originally wanted to keep the venue’s name as Ursa. However, she expressed interest in starting another company with that name, so Pezzente looked to the world around him to find a new name; his inspiration came from a children’s book at the doctor’s office.
“There was this book about a little bear,” he tells me, “and it was in French, and I liked the drawings in the book… I took a photo of the bear with a balloon, and that’s kind of our logo.” Pezzente sent the name idea as well as the photo to his partners, who all agreed. Soon, Ursa was reborn as a centre for collaboration and celebration of the small venue.
Pezzente sees his work as part of the grassroots community. “It’s interesting because a lot of people who are in the punk, DIY community don’t see it as a DIY place, and I can understand that,” he tells me. “But if you start working at the place, you realize the guy who owns it is literally doing 99% of everything.”
In fact, Casa del Popolo – Pezzente’s best known venue – was never going to be a music venue in the first place, but rather a vegetarian cafe. But since the location was going to be where an illegal, underground venue once was, Pezzente decided to officially dedicate the space to musical performances.
So saving Ursa only seemed like the logical next step for Pezzente. “What I’ve been saying for 25 years is that people just need to open more venues in Montreal,” he says. “There’s still never enough venues. Casa [del Popolo] books 360 days a year. Sala Rossa is 300 days. Y’know, there’s obviously artists in this city who want to perform music or put on events, and there’s never enough small venues.”
“For me, [running P’tit Ours] has more to do with allowing people to do what they like to be able to do, but don’t necessarily have the means to do”, he explains. “It’s absolutely an enormous amount of work,but if you put yourself into it and do it, it’s extremely uplifting and it feels good.”
Pezzente has high hopes for the future of P’tit Ours, including continuing the renovations to make the space more homely; not for a personal profit incentive, but rather to keep the doors open. “The hope is that…bar sales would be able to support a venue in the back,” he says.
While P’tit Ours does not have its eyes set on becoming the next big indie venue in Montreal, it would be foolish to discredit the venue’s impact on small artists in the city. Many rising and established artists throughout the city have played there, including Fraud Perry, Siibii, C-IMPACT, and Anna Justen, among others. And without the accessibility of venues like P’tit Ours, many of these artists would not be where they are today.
As for me, playing at P’tit Ours gave me the confidence to give performing a genuine chance. Without having a gig that felt low-stakes, I would never have had the strength to get up on stage and share the music that I had either written or helped perform, nor the finances to let my dreams be realized.
Any artist who is interested in playing or performing at P’tit Ours can contact booking manager Palden Khe-Changsoo at palden.casadelpopolo@gmail.com.
