60th Montreux Jazz Festival marks four decades with Meyer Sound

There are your bog-standard anniversaries, and then there are those anniversaries that offer an opportunity to look at an entire industry through the lens of a single relationship. In 2026, the Montreux Jazz Festival celebrated one such occasion, for its 60th edition – while simultaneously Meyer Sound also marked 40 years as its Global Official Sound Partner.

The Montreux of 2026 is worlds apart from its original 1967 set-up of an intimate jazz gathering. Though its history is inseparable from its setting on the idyllic shores of Lake Geneva, its reputation has shifted from one genre to a mosaic of music styles and artistry.

Under founder Claude Nobs, across its 40 year tenure, the festival developed drastically into said mosaic. Jazz remains central to its heritage, but the programme now encompasses an expansive spectrum of styles – from rock and soul to electronic music and contemporary pop. From the likes of ‘it girl’ of 2026 Zara Larsson to iconic hip-hop band The Roots, its stages have hosted established icons and emerging artists alike.

“Our relationship with montreux goes back 40 editions now, and we’ve always used it as a springboard for bringing the latest and greatest,” introduces Andy Davies, senior director of product management at Meyer Sound. “A key part of the original relationship with John and Helen Meyer and Claude Nobs back in the day was not just elevating the festival but also elevating what was possible in the whole industry.”

To begin with, the festival was a single-venue event held in a casino. Now it encompasses a sprawling lakeside programme, with numerous official stages, clubs, bars, hospitality spaces and activations. This year’s festival welcomed more than 250,000 concertgoers between 3 and 18 July, with more than 700 performances and events spanning the turquoise waterfront.

The newly refurbished Montreux Music & Convention Centre provided the setting for the festival’s flagship venues: the 4000-capacity Auditorium Stravinski and the 2000-capacity Montreux Jazz Lab. Across the site, more than 700 Meyer Sound loudspeakers served 12 official stages and additional spaces, with Swiss rental company Skynight supplying and integrating the systems.

“It’s always been a case of bringing the greatest that we could to make the festival as good as it could possibly be,” Davies explains. “For us, that’s always new systems, new software, new ways of doing things.”

Different shapes and sizes

This year’s most significant technological introduction was TIGRA, Meyer Sound’s new line array, making its Montreux debut following its global festival premiere at Roskilde earlier in the summer.

At the Jazz Lab, TIGRA represented a particularly meaningful step forward.

“The Jazz Lab is quite a low room for its capacity, and so it’s always been very restricted on whether you can fly subs in there. You simply can’t; there isn’t the weight capacity,” Davies says. “Having something like TIGRA as a step up from the older PA that was in there really added more low end to the array, added more control to the room, and you could really hear the difference with the latest generation of product, particularly at the back of the room. It added more weight.”

Crucially, the improvement helped bring the Lab closer to the sonic experience of the much larger Auditorium Stravinski, where Meyer Sound’s PANTHER line arrays provided the main system. “It really did close the gap sonically between that venue and how the larger Stravinski sounds, which is on PANTHER,” Davies emphasises.

The deployment also demonstrated the importance of ensuring different products work together as a coherent system. Montreux’s variety of performance spaces means that no single loudspeaker can serve every application. Instead, the festival draws on a broad cross-section of Meyer Sound’s portfolio, from large format line arrays to compact systems and point- source loudspeakers.

“One of the fun things about Montreux is the sheer variety of stages. The smallest Meyer Sound systems that are deployed there are our smallest loudspeakers, and the biggest systems are our biggest loudspeakers. It’s a little bit of everything from almost the entire product range because there are so many different sizes.”

Meyer Sound pays close attention to the relationship between products. The result, Davies describes, is a family of systems designed to work together without requiring extensive corrective tuning.

“We’re not trying to give each of these distinct products their own sonic signature,” he explains. “We pay a lot of attention. It’s not just about frequency response; it’s about phase response and about the dynamic response of different systems.”

At Montreux, TIGRA could be used alongside PANTHER and other loudspeakers, allowing engineers to move between different coverage zones without encountering an obvious change in character.

“Because all of those are of a newer generation, we didn’t need to use those integration tools for this event. They already work together incredibly well straight out of the box and that gives people tuning it a much easier time. It makes calibration a lot faster and a lot simpler.”

Alongside the new loudspeakers, the festival saw a wider deployment of Milan network technology and expanded use of Nebra, Meyer Sound’s control, monitoring and connectivity software. Multiple venues could be monitored from a central location, bringing greater oversight to a complex site operating across a variety of spaces.

Systems in sync

If TIGRA represented the festival’s most significant new loudspeaker deployment, the opening-night performance by British singer Raye demonstrated what happens when the demands of a major production push system design beyond conventional boundaries.

Montreux has a long tradition of setting aside space for exceptional performances: tribute concerts, special guest appearances and evenings built around productions that could not simply be replicated elsewhere. This year, Raye’s performance in the Auditorium Stravinski became one of those defining occasions.

The venue is a conventional theatre, with a stage, balcony and fixed seating, but the production transformed it into a space configured entirely around the audience. A custom rotating stage was positioned centrally, with the performance taking place in the round and spectators surrounding the musicians through 360°.

The production featured a 22-piece ensemble, while surprise appearances from Mark Ronson and Alicia Keys only added to the occasion.

A bespoke design built around PANTHER-M was required, with TIGRA also used as fills alongside LEOPARD, LINA and ULTRA-X80 loudspeakers, as well as 2100-LFC and 900- LFC low-frequency control elements. “Having TIGRA and PANTHER working together was incredibly useful because they’re so similar sonically,” Davies expands.

The front-of-house engineer was primarily mixing on TIGRA, with the system handing over to PANTHER as listeners moved around the room and then to ULTRA-X80 loudspeakers towards the back.

“Just being able to walk around and hear instantly how seamless it is gives you confidence that what the audience are hearing on the floor and what they are hearing up in the balcony is all hanging together sonically.”

The logistical demands were equally intense – involving a 36-hour load-in, with multiple crews working in shifts, which preceded the show. By the following morning, the venue had been completely reconfigured for the festival’s regular programme.

“It was a great night,” Davies enthuses. “Musically, they absolutely pulled it out of the bag. They had some great guests. The tributes that were made to Montreux through the years were really cleverly done – and were incredibly beautiful.”

Built on trust

Montreux carries a particular weight for artists and engineers. Its history, reputation and audience expectations create an atmosphere in which performances can feel especially significant. Meyer Sound’s role is to provide the reliability that allows artists and engineers to concentrate on the music rather than worry about the system.

“The trust that the front-of-house engineers have in us is really important,” Davies adds. “Montreux is legendary and it means a lot to the artists. That translates into more pressure on the engineers because everyone feels the history of Montreux and they want to know that they’re going to have a great night.”

He continues: “When it becomes something that’s special and unusual and different and wacky and imaginative all at the same time, it adds pressure on everyone. Being able to just ease that pressure and say ‘you do your thing, we’ve got this’ is part of our ethos about Montreux and always has been.”

Montreux’s evolution is not limited to its headline stages. Over the past decade, the festival has expanded its club venues and electronic music programming, broadening the range of experiences available to audiences. The return to the indoor convention centre this year also created a new electronic music space, attracting a higher calibre of DJs than the festival had previously hosted.

One of the most revealing examples is La Bibliothèque, a library and vinyl-listening room equipped with Meyer Sound’s Bluehorn high-end monitoring system and a NAGRA hi-fi set-up. The unique area of the festival offers guided listening sessions that place the music itself at the centre of the experience. “Where else has a library at its festival?” Davies laughs.

The programme’s unpredictability is also a massive part of Montreux’s appeal. Davies points to the return of Ezra Collective, who stepped in at extremely short notice to perform in the Stravinski, after not originally being scheduled.

“It was utterly stunning,” he says. “That’s the thing about Montreux. You get really amazing performances where you get a more intimate view of some artists who wouldn’t normally be there, but also other artists who completely surprise you, who you’ve never heard of. You get these one-offs like the Raye special. It’s still the ethos that makes it very special.”

As the festival expands internationally, Meyer Sound’s involvement is extending beyond Switzerland. The partnership has supported editions in Shanghai and Miami, with further expansion planned into markets including South Africa and the Middle East.

Maintaining the sound associated with Montreux across these new locations is an important part of that growth. “It does mean that we help represent the Montreux brand, and it’s exciting to see that expand and reach into other markets.”

Looking to the next 40

Four decades is a remarkable length of time for any technical partnership, particularly in an industry where equipment, production methods and audience expectations continue to change. The introduction of TIGRA, the expanded use of Milan networking and Nebra monitoring and the challenges of the Raye production all demonstrate a partnership that continues to find new opportunities to develop.

The anniversary also reinforces the importance of continuity. Experienced engineers share their knowledge with younger professionals, new products are tested in demanding real-world conditions and the lessons learned on the festival’s stages can inform future developments.

“Ultimately, at its heart, the festival is still passionate about the sound of Montreux,” Davies concludes. “Some people who know the festival well know that Meyer Sound is part of the sound of the festival, and they’re really proud of it. That just speaks to how long we’ve been involved, but also how much there is this shared passion. That’s what makes it work.”

Lead image: © MJF MARC DUCREST