Bluedot festival is finally set to return next weekend after two years of cancellations.
The much-loved festival marries together the worlds of music and science and takes place at arguably the most beautiful location in the UK.
Some of the world’s biggest artists will be performing beneath the awesome sight of the 76-metre-wide Lovell Telescope, which will be lit up with projections as a huge digital artwork for the first time.
Bluedot will be back between 21 and 24 July for its fifth instalment.
Here’s everything you need to know about the massive festival near Greater Manchester.
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Who are the headliners?
Bjork and Metronomy will both headline Bluedot 2022. Credit: Supplied
This year, headliners at Bluedot will include Groove Armada (as part of the band’s final live tour), post-rockers Mogwai, and Metronomy.
In a UK festival exclusive, Bjork will perform a uniquely commissioned performance with the Halle Orchestra to close the festival.
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Bluedot’s now-traditional opening concert on the Thursday evening will see Mercury-nominated Hannah Peel and Paraochestra take to the stage.
Also confirmed on the bill are psychedelic space rockers Spiritualized, current chart-toppers Yard Act, Warp Records mainstay Squarepusher, multi-instrumentalist composer Anna Meredith, the legendary likes of A Certain Ratio and Tim Burgess, and techno producer and creator of the official theme for the 2023 Women’s World Cup Kelly Lee Owens.
Bluedot 2022’s science programme will welcome key speakers including Radio 4’s Jam Al-Khalili, British filmmaker David Olusoga, space scientist Monica Grady, and many more.
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Comedians such as Desiree Burch, Olga Koch, Robin Ince and Ahir Shah will also be making appearances as part of the culture programme.
How much are tickets?
Bluedot Festival. Credit: Lucas Sinclair
There are still some tickets available for Bluedot festival.
Last release weekend tickets for adults are £205.25 including booking fees (then it’s £87 for 11-15 year olds, and £27.50 for children aged between six and 10 years old).
If you want to add on early Thursday entry, it’s £31.90 for adults.
You can also add on access to the VIP Village for £110.00 including booking fees.
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Where is Bluedot festival and how do I get there?
Bluedot Festival. Credit: George Harrison
Bluedot takes place at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
If you’re making your own way there, you’ll need to use the postcode SK11 9DW.
There are also coach travel packages available with National Express from cities around the UK.
What are the gate times?
The weekend campsite will open from midday on Thursday 21 July for those with a Thursday add-on ticket. For everyone else, it will open from 9am on the Friday.
For Friday, Saturday and Sunday, gates to the festival will be open between 9am and 9pm.
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What’s the camping situation?
Bluedot Festival. Credit: Scott Salt
There are several camping options to choose from at Bluedot, and general weekend tickets include access to the standard camping site.
There are also a limited number of boutique campsites at The Colony, which are selling out quick – you can browse remaining availability at discoverthebluedot.com/accommodation.
Bluedot has included family-only areas within the standard campsite for those bringing children, and space for live-in vehicles.
Bluedot is a fully cashless festival across its bars, food stands, merchandise and other points of sale, in a bit to improve customer experience with faster service and shorter queue times.
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Unlike 2019, the festival won’t be operating a payment wristband system and will instead just be using standard payment methods.
That means all major credit and debit cards can be used, either as contactless or chip and pin, as well as wearable forms of payment like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Featured image: Lucas Sinclair
Audio
Sankeys shares sneak peek at new venue as legendary Manchester nightclub gears up for return
Daisy Jackson
Sankeys has given Mancs a glimpse inside its new venue as the legendary nightclub gears up for its return.
The club was one of Manchester’s top nightlife spots for years, before shutting down seemingly for good almost a decade ago.
Set within Beehive Mill in Ancoats, Sankeys was a true icon of Manchester’s global nightlife scene.
And while the old Sankeys Soap nightlife space is now full of co-working spaces, the spirit of Sankeys is about to be reborn.
The exact location of the new club is still being kept under wraps ahead of its reopening at the end of January, but new renderings have been released to give us a glimpse of how it will look.
Sankeys is promising ‘A reimagined space. New energy. Same legendary nights’.
The new Sankeys Manchester will be a 500-capacity venue, designed to ‘capture the raw underground energy that made Sankeys one of the most iconic club brands in the world’.
It will feature an LED matrix grid installation that will immerse clubbers in ‘light, sound and atmosphere’.
Sankeys Manchester officially opens on 30 January – you can see a glimpse of how it will look below and grab tickets HERE.
The most annoying songs of 2025 according to ‘science’ have been revealed
Emily Sergeant
A list of the most annoying songs of 2025 according to ‘science’ has been published.
Music fans have already been sifting through their Spotify Wrapped, which came out earlier this month, with searches for it surging an astonishing 5,000% in recent weeks, proving that 2025 has been a memorable year for music.
We’ve had record-breaking releases, viral TikTok hits, and artists pushing creative boundaries across genres.
Despite the hits though, some tracks have sparked debates over how irritating they are – from repetitiveness to ‘harmonic dullness’.
Interested to discover the most annoying song releases of 2025, the experts at SeatPick analysed the most popular songs of 2025 according to official top charts, then measured their repetition, shrillness, harmonic dullness, and filler lyrics to calculate the percentage chance that listeners would find the song to be so-called ‘annoying’.
The most annoying songs of 2025 have been revealed according to ‘science’ / Credit: Jonas Leupe | Ketut Subiyanto (via Unsplash and Pexels)
Unfortunately for one artist – one very popular artist, it has to be said – they have claimed both the top and second spot, and that artist is pop royalty Sabrina Carpenter.
SeatPick’s findings revealed that Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Sugar Talking’ and ‘Tears’, which were both featured on her latest album Man’s Best Friend, are the most annoying songs released in 2025, as the data metrics indicated that nearly half of listeners (46%) are likely to find these songs irritating due to they’re repetitiveness.
Lady Gaga’s ‘The Dead Dance’ ranks as the third most annoying track of the year, scoring high on the ‘annoyingness index,’ with repetition, brightness, and lyrical filler contributing to an overall 45.8% likelihood that listeners would find it irritating.
Rounding off the top four most irritating songs of 2025 is ‘Who’ by BTS member, Jimin, with there being a 45.5% chance that listeners would find his song irritating due to its repetitive hooks and bright, high pitched tones.
When it comes to the list of most irritating TikTok trending songs of 2025, that title went to ‘Dame Un Grrr’ by Fantomel and Kate Linn, with a 45.7% likelihood of being found irritating by listeners, closely followed by ‘She Twerkin’ by Ca$h Out in second, with a 44.1% likelihood of being found annoying by listeners.
One song we’re sure many of you won’t be surprised to find on the most irritating list is ‘Hold My Hand’ by Jess Glynne, which, of course, initially gained popularity through its use in a Jet2Holiday advertisement, and then later became widely featured in more than 3.4 million TikTok videos.
So, what do you make of these results then? Do you agree? What do you think the most annoying song that came out in 2025 is?
Daisy Jackson -
20th July 2022 
