The new age of clubbing has finally arrived: Raving in a box.
The minds behind La Discotheque are launching a brand new ‘socially safe rave experience’ in Manchester next month – giving the late night crowd a chance to throw shapes in the strobe lights for the first time in months.
Beginning on 7 August, Puffin Box will welcome party-lovers into the basement of Hilton House for an eight-week series of events running Thursday to Sunday.
Described as an “electrifying 90-minute mini-clubbing experience within your own social bubble”, each box will hold up to eight guests at a time – complete with a fully-stocked fridge of pre-ordered drinks, comfy sofas, a poseur table and dancefloor space.
Guests can leave their boxes for toilet or smoke breaks.
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Each event will have a maximum capacity of forty guests, with boxes thoroughly cleaned before the next slot begins.
Ticket-holders have been told to “expect the very best light, sound and music” for Puffin Box, with takeovers from local and international club brands and DJ collectives.
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Familiar names popping up across the series include Hit & Run, Kaluki, Funkademia, Joy Social vs High Hoops, Zutekh, So Flute, Ghosts of Garage, Bad Fun, Hip Hop / Hula, Love Dose and La Discothèque – with the events delivering a diverse range of disco, soul, funk, hip-hop, house and techno music,
Puffin Box say they have launched their new series to “support music, hospitality and events industry workers with paid work whilst simultaneously creating a safe environment for music lovers to come together.”
Additional health and safety measures include a one-way entry-exit system, 2m rule in queues and hand sanitiser stations around the venue.
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Co-founder of Puffin Box, Kat Warburton said: “As the spiritual home of rave, we’re so excited to launch Puffin Box in Manchester.
“While we can’t go to stereotypical raves in the city we have to adapt, so here we have a rave in a box.
“Manchester’s a buzzing city and everyone’s desperate to get back out but still stay safe, so this is exactly what we’re offering – ace music, exciting entertainment, decent drinks packages, a space for people to enjoy a mini-clubbing experience with friends in a safe and controlled environment.”
You can register online to receive exclusive pre-sale tickets on Tuesday 21 July, 24 hours before general sale goes live on Wednesday 22 July at 9am.
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?
The Manc -
16th July 2020 
