Gone from the main bar are the plain white walls and chunky wooden tables with mismatched chairs, a fixture there for more than a decade.
Instead, velvety green chairs, dark walls, and exposed filament bulbs overhead give the revamped space a sort of New York speakeasy vibe that more than fits with plans to host late-night music acts here for ‘after show’ parties, some running as late as 2.30am throughout the week.
Image: The Manc Group Image: Jody Hartley
Little nooks carved out in corners make for intimate date spots at night (or a good hidey-hole to work away in during the daytime), and right at the back the original bar has been replaced by a stage draped in theatrical red velvet curtains – perfectly setting the scene of a late-night jazz bar.
In the day, they’ll be serving Patel’s Pies and other snacks here, with a new bar menu full of bespoke cocktails, cask beers from Hebden Bridge brewery Vocation, low-intervention wines from Kwas, and a solid no and low section with different wines, beers and spirit offerings.
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By night, it’s all pints in hands and party atmosphere as the venue’s live music programme gets rolling again after months of reconfiguration, postponements and delays.
Image: Jody Hartley
Some shows taking place this month are part of tours the Band On The Wall team had organised in 2019 or 2020, showing just how long it has taken for things to get back to normal after the pandemic. At last, nature is healing.
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The main bar and stage area has been expanded, the stage pushed back from the stage door and lifted high above the crowd to ensure even those in the back now have a decent view (as long as they’re not stuck behind one of the supporting pillars).
The balcony area is still there, as is the main stage bar – with most of the work here going into tweaking and upgrading the already-excellent PA system and installing a brand new lighting rig.
Image: Jody Hartley
We’re told the capacity has now grown in here to at least 500, but the team is anticipating being able to sell even more tickets once they’ve worked out a few kinks. It’s cost a pretty penny, too, with around £3.5million being fundraised for the project’s development since 2015.
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Backstage, a connecting platform makes it easy to roll the grand piano from the main stage to the bars, and lots of work has been done throughout the venue to ensure it’s completely wheelchair accessible for both performers and artists.
More is still to come, with ongoing construction at the back of the building currently putting in a new recording studio, workshop spaces and a roof terrace that will be used by students of Manchester College.
Image: Jody Hartley
The work is set to be fully completed at the end of April, but after a long period of closure, bosses were keen to get the doors open again to keep doing what they do best: booking brilliant underground musicians and filling up dancefloors with fans eager to hear (and see) them play.
With so many closures of small, intimate venues in recent years, the new bar makeover at Band On The Wall brings something Manchester is sorely lacking – a small, intimate space where upcoming artists can play and be heard, right in the hearrt of the city centre.
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Riding the line between the big mainstream venues and the spit and sawdust dive bars, it’s great to see it open once again with a promising lineup for artists all confirmed for its reopening.
Featured listings for the Band On The Wall reopening:
MF Robots / Fri 11th March / Buy Tickets Amadou & Mariam and Blind Boys of Alabama: From Bamako to Birmingham / Tue 15th March / Buy Tickets Avi Kaplan / Sun 20th March / Buy Tickets Balimaya Project / Tue 22nd March / Buy Tickets Bill Laurance Trio / Thu 24th March / Buy Tickets Soft Machine / Mon 28th March / Buy Tickets Ibibio Sound Machine / Fri 1st April / Buy Tickets Mario Biondi / Sun 3rd April / Buy Tickets Focus / Tue 5th April / Buy Tickets Asian Dub Foundation / Fri 8th April / Buy Tickets Roberto Fonseca / Thu 21st April / Buy Tickets James Taylor Quartet / Sat 14th May / Buy Tickets
Luxury Manchester gym Blok confirms permanent closure after weeks of uncertainty
Daisy Jackson
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure, weeks after the doors to the premium fitness facility mysteriously closed.
Around a fortnight ago, members began to arrive to their classes to find the gym on Ducie Street locked up and a forfeiture notice on the door – but at the time, Blok said that it was fighting to reopen.
Sadly, in an email sent to members today, its founder has confirmed that the studio is now permanently closed.
Blok – which has several very successful sites down in London – said that its relationship with its landlord has ‘broken down to a point where trust has been lost’.
The gym wrote that it’s been left with ‘no workable way forward’.
They said: “BLOK Manchester was a space built by our loyal and dedicated community. Whether you joined us for one class or one hundred, we are deeply grateful. You helped create something genuinely special in an incredible city.”
In the immediate future, they said they’ll be supporting the team of fantastic trainers who worked here, as well as looking after members.
Members will be contacted within a few hours with options and refunds owed.
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure. Credit: The Manc Group
CEO and founder Ed Stanbury said: “While this marks the end of a chapter, we don’t see it as the end of our story in Manchester. We’re already speaking with developers about potential future sites and remain committed to returning to the city when the time is right.
“Thank you for being part of our story so far. Let’s shape the future of wellness. The mission continues.”
Commenting on Blok’s Instagram post – its first in almost a fortnight – people have been sharing their sadness at the closure of its Manchester site.
One person wrote: “beautiful space, beautiful staff and beautiful community.”
Another said: “Sending love to all the instructors !! :(((( gutted”
Someone else commented: “THE BEST CLASSES. I’m gutted.”
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Georgina Pellant -
8th March 2022 
