But it seems like the titles just won’t stop coming, as now, renowned media company Time Out has released its fifth annual list of the best cities in the world to visit right now – and Manchester has made the cut.
Every year, more than 20,000 people in cities around the world are surveyed for the Time Out Index to identify the best places to visit right now, and this year, the company has also decided to tap into the expertise of Time Out’s global network of local editors and city experts to compile the annual ranking.
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Last year, the list focused on how cities pulled together through the COVID-19 pandemic through community spirit and resilience, but for the 2022 ranking, Time Out says its has added extra weight to the things that make cities great places to visit as well as to live.
Manchester has been named one of the best cities in the world for 2022 / Credit: Unsplash (Josh Taylor | Chris Curry)
This means that the top cities this year are places that excel at going out, including eating and drinking, art, culture and museums, and nightlife, and they are places that locals rate highly for fun, for beauty, and basically, aren’t boring, overly expensive or overrated.
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To make for an even more enjoyable break, the top picks also score well for practical factors like walkability, good public transport, safety, and sustainability.
And Manchester has taken the overall 11th spot on the list.
According to Time Out, us Mancs have voted our city as the second friendliest, with 74% of locals’ votes, and it also came second for its resilience (67% of residents), and the third best for progressiveness (65%) – however, out of all of the global cities surveyed, Manchester received the least votes for its beauty, with only 11% of residents surveyed rating its looks.
The city has taken the overall 11th spot on the annual Time Out Index 2022 / Credit: Visit Manchester
Also, after topping the list for nightlife last year, Manchester doesn’t even feature in the top three this time around, but Time Out pointed to there being “great things to do on the horizon”, with the upcoming opening of arts venue The Factory, and the Castlefield Viaduct highline-style park.
Edinburgh has taken the top spot on the 2022 list, followed by Chicago, Medellín, Glasgow, and Amsterdam rounding out the top five, and other UK cities like Birmingham and the capital of London also making an appearance on the longlist.
“The Time Out Index 2022 combines the experiences and opinions of more than 20,000 people in hundreds of cities around the world,” explained Dave Calhoun – Chief Content Officer North America & UK at Time Out.
“This year, we are showcasing the cities that locals, and our editors, not only love living in, but that we think everyone should be visiting.
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“Our list of the Best Cities in the World provides the ultimate travel bucket list.”
Featured Image – Flickr
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‘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…
Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one
Danny Jones
American pop sensation and unrivalled king of unnecessary front flips, Benson Boone, has just announced his first-ever headline Manchester arena gig as part of a new arena tour.
The solo artist and acrobatic chart-topper has seen a meteoric rise in the US and, as is usually the case across the Atlantic, he’s become increasingly popular over here too.
Benson may have performed here in Manchester before as part of the 2024 MTV EMAs and for a small show at The Deaf Institute, but now big fans have the added Boone of getting to watch a standalone show at one of Europe’s leading indoor entertainment venues.
Announced on Friday, 30 May, the 22-year-old will be making his way across the pond from Washington for a limited run of UK concerts, with a date at Co-op Live arena being one of just five dates.
Extending his ‘American Heart Tour’ ahead of the release of his eponymous sophomore record, with this autumn leg, Co-op Live will mark his individual visit to 0161.
The Grammy-nominated artist has earned several nods of recognition already for his first album, Fireworks & Rollerblades, which was released just last spring.
He has been described as among the current trend of male singers who fit into the American Idol and ‘Voice audition pop’ genre (a term recently coined online), along with the likes of Teddy Swims, Shawn Mendes, Alex Warren and others.
Regardless of the slightly tongue-in-cheek term, he’s become a huge hit around the world and landing him is still a big coup for the venue that has already welcomed similarly massive pop contemporaries like Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more.
In case you’re wondering just how big a deal he is over in the States, even this early in his career, his domestic headline dates sold out in seconds, quite literally…
The last time he visited Co-op Live was to perform at the most recent MTV EMAs
Benson Boone is coming to Manchester on Monday, 27 October and will be playing just two other British venues: The O2 in London (two nights) and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
Safe to say you don’t want to miss this one if you like soaring vocals and lots of flipping.
General admission tickets go live at 10am on Thursday, 5 June, but Co-op Members can gain access via the arena’s official pre-sale window from the same time on Tuesday (3 Jun).
Emily Sergeant -
12th July 2022 
