Established in 1967 by Claude Nobs, Géo Voumard and René Langel, the Montreux Jazz Festival is one of the better known music festivals in the world. It is held annually in early July in Montreux, Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva. It is the second largest annual music festival in the world after Canada's Montreal International Jazz Festival.

Originally a pure jazz festival, it opened up in the 1970's and today presents artists of nearly every music style. However, jazz remains an important part of the festival. Today's festival lasts about two weeks and attracts an audience of more than 200,000 people.