A brand new gig venue with a late-night bar and restaurant and a plunge pool is opening in Manchester city centre next month.
Canvas will throw open the doors to its ‘next-generation’ music venue at the new Circle Square development just off Oxford Road.
The new three-storey hangout will have live music, club nights, a members’ lounge, and a bar and restaurant open until 4am, seven days a week.
It comes from the team behind two legendary London venues, The Pickle Factory and Oval Space, as well as the MAMA Group, which operated Lovebox and Wilderness festivals as well as the Manchester Ritz, G-A-Y and Hammersmith Apollo.
Canvas comes from the team behind Oval Space in London. Credit: Supplied
Canvas will also welcome creative music, art, wellness and technology programmes.
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The 600-capacity gig space itself will host live concerts, album launches and listening parties.
It will be kitted out with cutting-edge technology to deliver a world-class sound and visual experience, with video mapping and projectors enveloping audiences.
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Canvas will host panel talks for members. Credit: Supplied
It hopes to create a ‘blank space’ for emerging and underground talent.
The Canvas members’ lounge will invite members to participate in events, panel discussions and wellness classes, and will host some of Manchester’s most enterprising young professionals.
Later this summer, a plunge pool and sauna will be added for members to find their own serenity in the city.
At Your Beat dance classes will take place in a dark room filled with colourful lights and pumping tunes.
Memberships will be held in the form of a Canvas token (an NFT) which will include benefits like free access to gigs and club nights, discounts on food and drink, and part-ownership of the members’ club platform.
They’re priced at £15 per month for under 30s, with a different option for older members.
A food and drink lounge will serve global small plates – curated by Miam Miam Glou Glou – all day, before switching to a late night bar after 10.30pm.
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Diners can expect breakfasts like the Persian (Merguez sausage, hummus, spinach, harissa and poached egg) and the Cali (avocado, chilli, lime and egg) with sides of fresh juices, breakfast cocktails and health shots.
The rest of the day, small plates will incorporate dishes including sumac lamp chops, disco fries, and Korean barbecued chicken, plus slow-cooked chicken thighs, steak bavette, and road plum duck leg.
It will also serve sandwiches between 12pm and 5pm every day.
Cocktails will champion ‘a new breed of bartending’, like the Jasmine Margarita (El Jimador Blanco, Muyu Jasmine, silver needle and citrus), the Jungle Bird (Bacardi Cuatro, Appleton 8, Campari, pineapple, galangal and tamarind cordial) and Cafe Torino (Mr Black Coffee Amaro, Martini Rubino and soda).
Dean James, co-owner and co-founder, said: “We’re thrilled to finally open our doors at Canvas. With authenticity at the forefront of everything we do, our key ambition is to provide the most innovative space where emerging music and new talent can grow.
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“We’re incredibly proud of our diverseness; in both what we do and who we are – from our growing Canvas community, right through to our teams.
“By giving people a platform to share and collaborate, Canvas has a really unique way of bringing together artists and audiences from underrepresented backgrounds. We try hard to avoid being polarised – I think it’s this passion that keeps us ahead of the curve and relevant to what our communities actually want adjoin to.
“Through the development of Canvas membership programmes, our long-term vision is to forge an environment that young creatives and grass-roots talent are not only excited to be a part of, but we also hope that they share in a sense of ownership with us too.”
Featured image: Supplied
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Oasis 2027 tour announcement is imminent, as drone show lights up Manchester
Daisy Jackson
An Oasis tour announcement appears to be officially on the way, with a huge drone display lighting up the skies above Manchester.
The Manchester band sent up drones above their beloved Manchester City’s home ground, the Etihad Stadium, which just so happens to be the venue that rumours are tipping for their 2027 tour dates.
And after weeks of teasing and cryptic videos, hints on X, and leaked dates, we finally know when Oasis will be announcing their 2027 tour for real.
The drones above Manchester late last night spelled out ‘Oasis. 4pm BST. 14.09.26’.
The display took place around 11pm, just as thousands of music fans were leaving an Evanescence gig as the nearby Co-op Live.
Liam and Noel Gallagher finally put aside their differences back in 2024, announcing an Oasis reunion tour for the summer of 2025.
Oasis Live ’25 set the world alight, and included five massive nights at Heaton Park in their native Manchester.
And it’s looking like their 2027 tour will be even bigger, with rumours suggesting a whopping 12 night residency at the Etihad Stadium next summer.
Appeal launched to find the owner of live chickens found at Creamfields festival
Daisy Jackson
The hunt is on to find the owner of a pair of chickens who were discovered at Creamfields festival.
The two birds were spotted on the grounds of the huge electronic music festival by bewildered festival-goers.
The cockerel and hen were trapped in a hedge, after it appears they wandered onto the festival campsite before the security barriers were installed.
The birds then found themselves trapped inside as around 70,000 music fans poured into Cheshire for a line-up that included Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia, Disclosure, and Tiësto.
The chickens have been safely rescued from the Creamfields festival site and are recovering at a wildlife centre, and now the RSPCA is on a mission to find their owner.
Festival-goers first called the RSPCA on Saturday 29 August to alert them to the cockerel and hen trapped inside the festival, one of whom assisted in the rescue mission.
RSPCA Inspector Leanne Cooper: “I was surprised that they were inside the festival site and I needed to get through the road blocks and security before reaching them on foot through muddy fields. I met the caller who helped me as they were just running up and down the hedge line where there was a wire fence blocking access.
Where the chickens were discovered at CreamfieldsThe RSPCA wants to track their owners down
“We managed to guide them out and I caught both of them with my rescue net which was a bit of a sight for the festival campers.
“I don’t think they were abandoned and they’re more likely to be stray because it’s farmland all around the festival site. They don’t have any health issues, apart from being quite underweight.
“With the fences going up a week before the festival starts they’d probably been unable to get out for some time and had been left foraging in the hedge. Someone mentioned that a third bird was also trapped, although we couldn’t find any others.
“I am really grateful to the festival-goer who found them and alerted us to their plight.”
Daisy Jackson -
12th May 2022 
