One of Manchester’s most popular museums will be transformed into an immersive ‘Light Lab’ for the festive season.
As the temperatures begin to drop and Christmas creeps closer, this is your chance to escape the cold and brighten up the winter holidays with an adventure though light and colour, as the Science and Industry Museum has now unveiled its upcoming festive events programme.
You can also explore a gaming extravaganza, and be engrossed by festive-themed science shows at the city centre-based museum this December.
Back by popular demand, after enchanting visitors of all ages in previous years, the museum’s free Light Lab will be making a return for 2024 – with everyone invited to discover the secrets of light through illuminating activities, special shows, and immersive experiences.
The Science and Industry Museum will transform into immersive ‘Light Lab’ this winter / Credit: Jason Lock (via Science Museum Group)
As Greater Manchester is known for its grey winter days, a series of illuminating experiments will bring colour to your lives in the interactive Light Lab, where you can explore a hall of mirrors, discover how to bend light, and even take a dance break in the rave room, before taking a journey from the Sun back to the Earth during special science shows led by the museum’s team of expert Explainers.
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You’ll be able to discover how light travels through our atmosphere, explore the science of solar flares, and even marvel at a mesmerising display of the Northern Lights – with real NASA footage of the Aurora Borealis.
If all that exploring has got you tired out, then you can slow things down in the Recharge Retreat and get comfortable with a picture book, or explore the relationship between colour and mood and why nature is so important to our health.
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You can escape from the cold, and learn a thing or two while you’re at it / Credit: Science Museum Group
But if you’re looking for a change of pace, you can also enjoy the museum‘s ultimate gaming experience, Power Up, to immerse yourself in a whole host of different digital worlds by working your way through five decades of video games, or learn about how what we eat can have a huge effect on our brains and bodies at the Operation Ouch! exhibition.
Then, for something a little different all together this festive season, you can grab a ticket for the first of the 2024 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures being screened live at the museum on Tuesday 10 December, ahead of the broadcast on the BBC.
The Winter Holiday Programme at the Science and Industry Museum runs from 14 December 2024 through to 5 January 2025.
Find out more about everything happening on the museum’s website here.
Featured Image – Science Museum Group
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Grammy-winning disco legend Purple Disco Machine is heading to Manchester for a huge gig
Daisy Jackson
Legendary German nu-disco and house producer Purple Disco Machine has a huge Manchester gig on the horizon, hot off the back of the release of his Paradise album.
The Grammy Award-winning artist’s latest release is packed with collaborations from some of the biggest names in music, including Nile Rodgers, Metronomy, Jake Shears, Duke Dumont, Sophie and the Giants, Nothing But Thieves and more.
And now he’s bringing his unforgettable disco vibes to a dance floor on our home turf, with a massive gig lined up at O2 Victoria Warehouse.
Set to take place on Friday 7 March, Purple Disco Machine will promise an incredible night of sizzling dance and house music, with support from Dan Shake, Oden & Fatzo Live!, and Urbi.
His irresistible sound includes hits like Hypnotised, Dished (Male Stripper) and, never one to miss a trend, an addictive remix of I’m Just Ken from the Barbie soundtrack.
His other remixes have included tracks for Dua Lipa, Sir Elton John, Mark Ronson, Calvin Harris, Fatboy Slim and Britney Spears.
And of course there’s that Grammy win for his remix of Lizzo’s About Damn Time.
On Paradise, he’s released tonnes more addictive disco beats, notably Substitution with Julian Perretta, and Honey Boy with Nile Rodgers.
And live, Purple Disco Machine has cut his teeth on the British festival circuit, including recently joining Fisher at his headline Gunnersbury Park show in London.
Now a multi-platinum-selling artist, with more than two billion streams worldwide, the Paradise tour is set to take Manchester by storm.
Purple Disco Machine will be at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester on Friday 7 March – you can get tickets HERE.
A club night dedicated to the emo anthems of your youth is heading to Manchester
Daisy Jackson
Manchester, prepare to dust off your stompers and dig out your fingerless gloves, and get ready to party to the biggest emo anthems into the early hours.
A club night dedicated to 00s Emo Anthems is heading back to one of the city’s most iconic venues this spring.
Black Parade will be taking over the O2 Ritz Manchester for a night of pure noughties punk, running all the way from 9pm until 1am.
That’s four hours packed with party anthems from the likes of My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Blink-182 and loads more.
On Friday 11 April, Black Parade will promise a playlist that’s filled with hits from the biggest names in emo.
That list also includes Taking Back Sunday, Bring Me The Horizon, Panic! At The Disco, The Used, All American Rejects, Jimmy Eat World, Linkin Park, Enter Shikari, You Me At Six, Pierce The Veil and loads more.
Black Parade has been running for eight years in venues all over the UK, even featuring at the mighty Download Festival for all that time, taking the prime spot in The Doghouse.
Black Parade, a club night dedicated to 00s emo music, is heading back to Manchester
And now it’s Manchester’s turn to rock out like it’s 2005 again.
I can’t be the only one who still remembers all the words to I Write Sins Not Tragedies, surely…
If you spent your teenage years sleeping beneath a poster of Gerard Way and scouring the shops for that perfect checkerboard belt for your skinny jeans, or if you just developed a love for this elite genre of music at any stage of life, this is the club night for you.
Maybe just step away from the boxed black hair dye this time around…
Black Parade – 00s Emo Anthems will take place at the O2 Ritz Manchester on Friday 11 April, from 9pm to 1am.
Emily Sergeant -
14th November 2024 
