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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to visit Manchester next month in ‘surprise’ UK return

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant - 15th August 2022

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have announced they are to make a surprise return to the UK next month, and they’ll be paying a visit to Manchester.

Marking the first time the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been back in the UK since they attended the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations back in early June, the pair are to return to the country for a series of official charity events from next month, and that includes a stop-off right here in Manchester city centre.

A spokesperson for the couple said they are “delighted” to be visiting in early September.

They will visiting “several charities close to their hearts” during their European trip, and will most-notably be attending the One Young World Summit at The Bridgewater Hall on 5 September – which will bring together young leaders from more than 190 countries.

The Duke and Duchess will also meet with a group of delegates working on gender equality. 

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One Young World is a global charity that develops young leaders who are taking action to solve the world’s biggest challenges, and the annual Summit sees 2,000 people from every country and sector gather to “inspire and empower” them to build “a fairer and more sustainable world”. 

Read more: Prince Harry and Megan Markle step back as senior royals and leave for North America

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Following their One Young World Summit appearance, Prince Harry and Meghan will then be attending the Invictus Games Dusseldorf 2023 One Year to Go event in Germany.

The Sussexes stepped down as senior royals in January 2020, and now live in California.

The couple’s return to the UK next month comes after they kept a low-profile at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June – which was their first royal engagement together since stepping down – and opted to watch the Trooping the Colour parade in London from a window, and not take part in the carriage procession.

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/ Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Before that, they visited the Queen in April on their way to the Invictus Games in the Netherlands.

Prince Harry was last reported to be in the UK in the previous July, according to BBC News, while Meghan was not thought to have been in the country since 2020.

Featured Image – Bruce Detorres (via Flickr)

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‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data

Danny Jones Danny Jones the average price of a pint in the UK by region

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.

@the.manc Just trying to walk home and the Northern Quarter keeps tempting me in for a pint. 🙈 #themanc #manchester #mcr #northernquarter #spring ♬ original sound – The Manc

The average price of a pint per region in the UK

  1. Wales – £4.21
  2. North East – £4.28
  3. Northern Ireland – £4.42
  4. Scotland – £4.42
  5. Yorkshire and the Humber – £4.42
  6. North West – £4.42
  7. West Midlands – £4.42
  8. East Midlands – £4.42
  9. East England – £4.56
  10. South West – £4.93
  11. South East – £4.94
  12. London – £5.44

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.

Happy hour Manchester – The best drinks deals in the city centre
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…

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For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — The Manc Group

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Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one

Danny Jones Danny Jones Benson Boone Manchester gig tickets

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).

You can get ready to grab yours HERE.

We’re pretty excited by the pending arrival of another trending pop name very soon as well.

The UK’s 2025 Eurovision act Remember Monday has announced a Manchester gig

Read more:

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — Press Shots/Audio North

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