She’s the powerhouse behind some of Montreal’s biggest events — Osheaga, Just For Laughs, Disney On Ice and more — working tirelessly behind the scenes to give everyone who attends an unforgettable experience.
Her name is Leisa Lee.
“Every time there’s a concert or an event, a festival, even a press conference, and you’ve spent time planning it, and then you see it happen, I can’t describe that feeling,” she said. “It’s like, wow, OK, now there’s magic that’s going to happen, and we’re going to be a part of this, and that’s amazing.”
The Concordia University graduate got her start right out of school in 1987 with late record producer and promoter Donald K. Donald.
“All of a sudden, she (the vice-president of Donald K. Donald) needed somebody to come and do a very short couple of weeks because the Moscow circus was going on tour,” she said.
That “Big Top” three-week stint led to a decade-long career with the promotion company.
Eventually, she left to work with Just For Laughs before opening her own firm, The Leisa Lee Group, in 2010.
Now, she does marketing and promotions for some of the city’s biggest events, as well as PR for shows and concerts coming into town: Elton John, Iron Maiden and Green Day, to name a few.
“They (Green Day) were troublemakers,” she laughed. “They would run around backstage on, I think, scooters, and they would just annoy our production manager.”
As she rattles off the names of all the famous people she’s met over the years, Lee seems unruffled by the superstardom she’s so often been so close to.
“Céline [Dion] was amazing because we worked a lot with her,” she recalled. “Elton John came often.”
It’s not all fun and games, though; Lee points out that she starts planning for summer’s Osheaga Music and Arts Festival in the fall prior.
Plus, when she is on-site, she does occasionally have to keep a famous person in check.
“We did interviews with (heavy metal band) Pantera, and it was you have seven minutes for these five interviews,” she said. “I would sit there, and I would time it, and after seven minutes, I would just tap them lightly on the back and get them to move to the next one.”
Despite her successes, The Leisa Lee Group isn’t just about flashy events and big names.
It also works hard to give back to local charities, including the Welcome Hall Mission and the Montreal Community Cares Foundation.
“That’s one thing that I have to say that’s been fun, is to get to do all these different things so that every day is not the same as the day before,” she said.
In a way, Lee says she’s always been Montreal’s PR woman.
“What I chose as a career chose me,” she said. “I didn’t realize until I got into it and I started talking to people, and I realized that in high school, I used to do things like the yearbook, the newspaper, the winter carnival.”
It’s a dream career that she says her parents always encouraged — they weren’t the stereotypical Asian parents who wanted her to be a doctor or a lawyer.
“I was lucky because my parents let me do what I wanted to do,” she said. “Fifteen-year-old Leisa would have never believed that I got to meet a lot of people whose music I adore and love, and people I idolize.”
To this day, Lee says her career doesn’t cease to amaze her.
“The people that you’re the least likely to think are going to be professional and nice, sometimes are the ones who surprise you,” she said. “It’s the heavy metal guys. Poison; Rikki Rockett from Poison was one of the nicest people I’ve met over the years.”
She muses that some of her favourite memories come from the chaos just before the start of an event.
“You’re literally running, and then someone says, ‘Doors open in an hour!’ So, now it’s like, clear the road, clear everything, get the golf carts out of the way,” she said, waving her arms around.
“You’re running in that last half hour to make everything happen, but then boom, all the trucks disappear, everyone gets off the grounds, and they go, ‘OK, we’re opening doors.’ And then everyone comes in.”
Looking back, Lee says she has just one word to describe her life: lucky.
“We got to see so much. We got to work with so many people behind the scenes and see things being created,” she said.
Lee admits that there are definitely more life-saving careers out there — but insists there’s nothing more life-changing than a transformative experience.
“We’re not saving lives, we’re not brain surgeons, but we are kind of saving souls,” she said. “People — music and comedy mean a lot to them — and you can really make a difference in someone’s life.”
