It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year since we last gave you a list of New Year’s Eve parties, but time marches on and it’s already time to ring in another new year.
As is usual with Manchester, there’ll be lively celebrations going on in all corners of the city, from the tiny club nights that go til dawn to the world-famous series drawing tens of thousands into one room.
Some of the city’s biggest parties – like The Warehouse Project’s New Year’s Eve club night at Depot Mayfield – have already sold out, but there are plenty more events to sink your teeth in to.
There’s loads going on in Manchester on 31 December, with tickets still available for a lot of the city’s biggest parties.
Here’s our pick of the crop…
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Homoelectric New Year’s Eve at New Century
One of Manchester’s best-loved club nights will be taking over the newly-reborn New Century for an almighty New Year’s Eve party.
Homoelectric’s NYE party promises ‘an evening of cosmic grooves, street soul, slo mo dance, boogie, black heart disco, us garage, house, technoid outerspace sonic science and bass buggin’ rawness’.
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They say: “It seemed perfect timing to host a very special Homoelectric at this venue on New Years Eve and do something completely different from our normal dark basement back street affair.
“This our last Homoelectric party of the year. To say we are excited is an understatement.”
Famed for its all-in lavish parties, The Refuge won’t be holding back as it rings in 2023, promising to ‘turn up the heat a little’.
They’re promising to add a dash of tropical energy to Manchester, with afro-latin music, deep house and disco, explosions of colour and immersive performances.
Artists will include Hannah O’Gorman and Isaac Williams a.k.a. DJ collective, Nossa, and Levi Love.
Dine and Dance tickets are sold out but you can still get Let’s Dance tickets £30 here – including a glass of prosecco if you rock up before 9pm.
Dance into the Future at Ramona
Credit: Ramona
Fast becoming a fan favourite for a night out is Ramona and the Firehouse, located in an old MOT garage just of Swan Street.
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By day it’s pizza and margaritas, but by night, it’s glitterballs and catwalks.
31 December will be their ‘biggest party yet’ in the Ramona festival tipi, featuring live performances including Age of Glass, guest DJs and dance tents.
Tickets cost £27.50 and are available through See Tickets.
One of the city’s longest-running club nights is getting stuck in to all the New Year’s Eve action, right through to 4am on 1 January.
Funkademia has been running since 1995 and is heading back to its spiritual home Mint Lounge with disco and funk bangers all night long.
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From Michael Jackson to Aretha Franklin to James Brown to Chaka Khan to Stevie Wonder to Snoop Dogg to Prince to Diana Ross to Chic and Sister Sledge and everything in between, you’ll absolutely not want to leave that dance floor.
Tickets start at £6.60 if you’re quick – visit Skiddle for yours.
Disco Dancer at Bundobust Brewery
Bundobust Brewery. Credit: Supplied
Bundobust Brewery, easily one of Manchester’s coolest restaurants and bars, is keeping the doors open and the vibes going until 1am on New Year’s Eve.
Their Disco Dancer event – theme is Bundobust Brewery goes to Bollywood – will have entertainment, projections, and a party soundtrack from Andy Votel.
Starting the party will be Niamh McGuinness from Angel Meadows Soul Club, one of Manchester’s rising clubnight heroes. Expect rousing Northern Soul, Motown, and R&B selections 6-9pm before Andy takes over the decks.
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Tickets are just a tenner, which includes two drinks. Would be rude not to. Get yours here.
Keep It Unreal Nye: Mr. Scruff + Mc Kwasi at Band on the Wall
You know it’s going to be a good Manc knees-up when Mr Scruff is on the bill, and especially when that bill is taking place at the legendary Band on the Wall.
Alongside MC Kwasi, they’ll bring in the new year with a six-hour DJ session of jazz, soul, hip hop, funk, disco, deep house, reggae, afrobeat, latin, electro, techno, new wave and ‘plenty of goodies that don’t fit into any category’.
Band on the Wall stresses that all are welcome to party, ‘regardless of age, nationality, mobility, gender or sexuality’ – which is what we like to hear.
More 90s vibes now – because why not – as the beautiful Albert Hall is turned into a nostalgic dance party.
90s Baby will feature a wide range of the decade’s biggest live acts and DJs, from Alex Party (best known for her massive hit Don’t Give Me Your Life to Baby D (Let Me Be Your Fantasy).
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Rounding off the star-studded line-up is N-Trance, Phats & Small and K-Klass with some throwback DJ sets.
Final tickets, priced £28.00, are on sale now through Skiddle – and there’s a group discount of four tickets for the price of three if you round up some mates.
Hidden NYE at Hidden
UK Garage will be the order of the night at Hidden, one of Manchester’s most-loved clubbing venues.
Explore the four rooms, from the courtyard through to the graffiti-covered walkways that lead to the basement den, a Blue Room and Hangar Space, while you count down to midnight (and beyond).
Legendary DJ John Digweed will be rocking up at Joshua Brooks with his even more legendary club night Bedrock.
John has been a pioneer of electronic music for more than three decades thanks to his technical mixing style, while Joshua Brooks has cemented itself as one of Manchester’s post popular nighttime venues.
Featured image: Photography by Rob Jones (www.instagram.com/hirobjones)
Feature
Football fans are debating whether Manchester City made a mistake selling Cole Palmer
Danny Jones
Football clubs are always going to have to roll the dice on players as we all know promising players who went on to become stars: Kevin de Bruyne, Gerard Pique, Mo Salah and so on just to name a few from the Premier League – but is that what Manchester City have done with Cole Palmer?
The 21-year-old from Wythenshawe was sold to Chelsea back in September 2023, having only managed to make a few scattered but impressive appearances for Man City, scoring crucial goals in the Community Shield and the UEFA Super Cup, but was still ultimately deemed surplus to requirements.
Shown the exit through nothing other than the sheer quality of Pep Guardiola‘s starting XI, not to mention plenty of strength in depth and quality off the bench already, the West London club paid what looked to be a handsome £42.5 million for the still relatively unproven youngster at the time.
However, with another hattrick to his name – a perfect one scored all inside half an hour, no less – and a fourth for good measure thanks to a penalty against Everton, he’s quickly become by far and away Chelsea‘s star man.
In the same breath, many are now naturally wondering why he was sold in the first place. It’s no secret that City are spoilt for choice when it comes to talent amongst their ranks and certainly didn’t need the money from his sale; it was simply a case that Palmer wanted more minutes that Pep couldn’t promise.
Shouldering the responsibility for the decision at the time, Guardiola said he completely understood the Manchester-born and bred star’s drive and ambition, admitting that “[With] young players, we always want them to stay but this is normal.
“After one season it is nice, and the second season, but the third season it is, ‘Oh guys, I want to play, I don’t want to sit on the bench’. It’s normal. We understand as a club. We got an offer from an incredible top club like Chelsea and I’m really happy for him. In all clubs these types of things happen.”
However, we dare say that if you were to tell the Catalan coach that same hungry prospect would end up being joint top-scorer with his Erling Haaland the following season and being, we think it’s fair to say he might at least hesitate before green-lighting his departure – and there are plenty more stats to boot.
Now, it’s impossible to know whether or not having the knowledge he has now would have made Pep second-guess his decision and take a chance on integrating Cole Palmer into City’s first team more regularly but put it this way, 25 goals and 13 assists in all competitions is hard to ignore.
Cole Palmer's 20th Premier League goal brings him level with Erling Haaland in the race for the Golden Boot 🤝 pic.twitter.com/8Nq2Bn5bLH
That’s all inside what is for all intents and purposes his full debut season as a first-team starter (which isn’t even over yet), let’s not forget, and while they’ve had similar situations play out with the likes of Jadon Sancho in the past, it must be a little frustrating to see him playing this well in the same only league only in a darker shade of blue.
On the other hand, it’s still early days Palmer could also follow that same narrative even further and see that huge momentum trickle out depending on how his sophomore season goes. He’s also a boyhood Man United fan and not that we’re saying we can see him make that move down the line, but we all know how that switch sadly ended up for Sancho.
For many fans, City or otherwise, the logic seems to be that letting him go was the right decision for everyone, as it’s allowed him to get that crucial playing time and shine like he has this season, which may not have happened while waiting to grab his opportunity off the bench at the Etihad.
Moreover, it’s not like the treble-winners aren’t still looking like they could defend all three of their trophies this year – although it would be interesting to see what impact Palmer has when he comes up against his former club in the FA Cup semi-final this weekend.
What do you think, were City right to sell Cole Palmer or should they have held on to him and given him the minutes he was clearly more than ready for?
Remember when the Manchester Marathon used to be too short?
Danny Jones
One of the most popular runs in the UK returns this weekend as the 2024 Adidas Manchester Marathon gets underway on Sunday morning, but did you know the famous race was once too short to count as the full shebang?
Yes, it may very be one of the flattest and most accessible races anywhere in Europe but once upon a time the Manchester Marathon was technically a marathon, as those in charge of measuring the thing up didn’t quite nail it.
One job, guys. You had one job…
Here’s the story of for three whole years, tens of thousands of runners sadly didn’t technically complete the Manchester Marathon.
The 2024 Manchester Marathon boasts a record 32k racers.A 2013 finisher. We’ve got some bad news for you, mate…Manchester Marathon now and then (Credit: Supplied/Wikimedia Commons)
Manchester Marathon: The ‘ish’ years
As was widely publicised at the time, in 2016 it was found that roughly the three previous years of the race course that runs throughout Manchester city centre, into the likes of Trafford, Chorlton, Altrincham and beyond didn’t actually fulfil the complete distance needed to qualify as a marathon.
While the race route has to stretch for 26.2 miles, or approximately 42.195 kilometres if you prefer metric (always one that splits the crowd) to count as an official marathon, it turned out that in 2013, ’14 and ’15, Manchester’s biggest running event fell just short of that mark.
Due to a measuring error – for which blame was placed on the Association of UK Course Measurers (AUKCM), who said an accredited measurer had ridden the course in 2013 but fell foul to an error in the calibration of the bicycle wheel – those three years ended up being 380m too short.
As a result, roughly 24,000 runners who ran the Manchester Marathon during this three-year period essentially had their races voided, including plenty of elite athletes, as the official UK Athletics governing body simply could not recognise their times. How fuming would you be?
Speaking in an official statement at the time, AUKCM said they regretted the mistake, confessing: “Significant errors in measurement are rare – our procedures are designed to find them at the reporting or checking stages”.
Xtra Mile Events, who were still the organisers of the event at the time, went on to add: “We all understand the anguish and huge disappointment this creates and want to assure our runners that we share the upset and emotion from the AUKCM news regarding the race distance.”
Thankfully, such mistakes haven’t been suffered since and now under the umbrella of sporting giants Adidas, you won’t catch them making the same slips-ups.
Best of luck to all of you racing this Sunday and rest easy in the knowledge that while you might be absolutely dying by those last few miles, at least you can be sure those every one of those final yards is going to count. Now go and smash it!