Events
This week, your social feeds will be mostly green as St Patrick’s Day jumps out of a pot of gold and onto our calendars this Thursday. As you’d expect from one of the biggest drinking days of the year, Manchester’s bars and restaurants have come out in full force with a range of specials, offers and events.
There’s also the Manchester Irish Festival, plus competitions, quizzes, Irish karaoke and loads more. Conveniently we’ve created a list of all the best things to do for St Paddy’s – which you can check out here:
The 10 Best Ways to Celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Manchester this Year
Tuesday (15th) and Wednesday (16th) will see the UK’s hospitality industry descend on Manchester Central for the Northern Restaurant & Bar exhibition. Bringing together over 300 suppliers, operators and staff, promoting ideas and inspiration and representing the sector in the North.
Over the two days there’ll be live food and drink demos with top chefs and bartenders, plus live debates and conversations with the biggest names in the ‘biz. You’ll have to be in hospitality to qualify for a FREE ticket – which can be done here…
If you’re on the lookout for vintage clobber and antiques, there’s a couple of big events this Saturday (19th) for you. First of all, at MMU’s Student Union there’s the return of the Manchester Kilo vintage sale (£20 a kilo), whilst the Cheshire Showground near Knutsford hosts The Antiques and Salvage Market from 8.30am – with over 200 dealers with a wide choice of decorative antiques, industrial lighting, cool art, textiles, tools, retro homeware and more.
Beauty time now, and Harvey Nichols are hosting a Beauty Social on Thursday 17th, with expert talks, masterclasses and makeovers – plus, every guest will receive a goodie bag filled with products, samples and offers. Oh, and there’ll be live DJs and complementary Prosecco.
Food & Drink
With the arrival of St Patrick’s Day, O’Shea’s are re-opening their excellent beer garden down near the Mancunian Way – with a massive two week festival of live music and, of course – pints, pints, pints!
Southeast Asian spirit Tarsier will be heading to Mackie Mayor this Thursday 17th, with a Gin Masterclass with Reserve Wines from 6.30pm. One of the owners will be guiding you through four East & Southeast Asian inspired gins – with perfect serves and garnishes to match. Tickets are £30 and that’ll include four gin and tonics, and an arrival cocktail.
Gin Masterclass at Mackie Mayor
Friday 18th will also see the 9th Birthday or Levenshulme’s infamous Night Market, so they’re having a big bash right there in the train station car park. You should expect the usual impressive selection of food and drink vendors, plus arts and makers, oh and a bit of live music most likely. And maybe some cake. And those party poppers.
Finally, if you’re a fan of Ardwick Caribbean kitchen and community hub, ARMR, then this week saw them launch a Crowdfunder so that they can install a kitchen in there – which you should definitely think of pledging to. It means they’ll be able to cook more dishes, serve people faster and generally just be a million times better than they already are. So head over to their funding page and help ’em out.
Music & Clubs
There’s some pretty decent gigs in the city this week, starting off with Cate Le Bon hitting up the Albert Hall on Wednesday 16th, followed by Stormzy at the AO Arena on Saturday and Bishop Nehru playing in YES’ Pink Room on Sunday 20th.
Oh, and I forgot, there’s a bit of an 80’s extravaganza over at the Bridgewater Hall on Saturday too, with Go West, Nik Kershaw and T’Pau all turning up to sing their biggest hits.
SOUP will be hosting a big party in their basement on Thursday, with a collaboration with Ronnie Zyon to celebrate his new tape – No Good.
Featuring some of the very best hip-hop and trap DJs, with residents Raaandy & Eronmz supported by X_Pert & Chef Dee, playing the coldest hip-hop, trap, afro & RnB tunes from both the overground & underground scene.
N/OM is a community-focused, non-profit organisation that promotes and develops innovative contemporary music and art, and this Wednesday 16th they’ll be having a party at The White Hotel, welcoming Slauson Malone and Alpha Maid, making their Manchester debut. They’ll be performing live alongside Rainy Miller, who will be doing an all unreleased live set. With Space Afrika providing the soundtrack throughout the evening.
Saturday 19th sees the UK’s first party underneath the wings of Concorde – featuring heavyweight headliners Crazy P and Dan Shake. Support will be courtesy of The Hacienda’s finest and Moovin founder Herbie Saccani and Manchester’s party connoisseurs, the residents of Surco.
Club Concorde: Party Under A Plane
The Pen & Pencil in the Northern Quarter will be hosting ‘Glitter Babe’ this Saturday 19th, which isn’t actually a gang of women who have ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ on their living room walls, but instead a DJ duo playing the very best in quality house music. It’s FREE too.
With St Patrick’s Day, you should also expect a load of live music flying about in the city’s Irish boozers (Mulligan’s should be on your list) and Irish-themed nights from most of Manchester’s biggest clubs.
Art & Culture
This week sees the triumphant return of Disney’s Bedknobs & Broomsticks, this time heading to The Lowry in Salford after a week-long run at the Palace at the end of 2021.
It’s actually really good, improves on the movie somewhat and involves an actual, flying bed whizzing about on stage. Seeing the actors cling on for dear life whilst still trying to deliver lines is worth the ticket price alone.
Bedknobs & Broomsticks Tickets
Also at The Lowry this week is Hollywood comedy megastar Bob Odenkirk, whom many of you will know as Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
He’ll be in town flogging his new book, and firing a ton of anecdotes about his 30 years in the ‘biz – including the time he worked with Steven Spielberg and when he had a heart attack on the set of BCS last year. There’s a few tickets knocking about for it – so grab them while you can.
HOME welcomes the 28th Spanish & Latin American Festival – ¡Viva! – this week, with a programme of the most exciting cinema from across the Spanish-speaking world, including seven UK premieres, Q&A’s and special events until 7th April.
Contact Theatre will be ‘Celebrating Syria‘ with a series of events this week, including their Made with Magic Music Concert on Friday, and learning how to dance DABKE like a pro on Saturday, plus a two-film cinema screening of Double Vision and Sugar Cage, followed by a post-screening discussion with the filmmakers.
Saturday 19th will also see Cotton On MCR take over Halle St Peters in Cutting Room Square with their Art All Dayer, with 65 Manchester based artists selling their arts, crafts, jewellery, ceramics, homeware and more.
Plus, they’ll be displaying the works of MMU Fine Art students, giving them a space to expand their work beyond art school!
