The Manchester Flower Show is returning this summer, and those with a green thumb are being encouraged to get themselves involved.
The city centre streets will, quite literally, bloom into life once again in just a few month’s time when the prestigious annual festival – organised and delivered by Manchester Business Improvement District (BID) – returns to celebrate the start of summer and the Queen’s Jubilee weekend from 2-5 June 2022.
You can expect to see fabulous floral trails, gardens, and green installations take over the city centre for the extended Bank Holiday weekend.
Manchester Flower Show first began all the way back in 1955, but the event has evolved in recent years, according to Manchester BID, to offer “an urban take on its predecessor”, and bring plenty of “fun and floral frivolity” to the city’s streets.
The festival is also known to bring a wide range of al fresco dining opportunities, and festival-themed cocktails and afternoon teas too.
The Manchester Flower Show offers the chance for the Greater Manchester green-fingered community to showcase their talent, all while helping create an unforgettable floral takeover of the city centre, Manchester BID says.
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Which is why the organisation is calling on both professionals and amateurs to get involved this year.
The festival’s organisers are calling out to gardeners, florists, and landscapers, as well as local businesses, charities, and schools across the region to be a part of the “urban floral extravaganza”.
Participation to the 2022 festival is free with no cost for using the spaces allocated, although displays are required to be self-funded, and can either be a garden or large display, or a smaller more bijou container garden, Manchester BID explains.
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Local businesses and offices in the city centre are also being encouraged to show their support by greening or floralising their shop fronts and offices too.
Find more information about Manchester Flower Show 2022here.
Manchester to celebrate National Play Day next week with 100+ FREE activities for families
Emily Sergeant
Manchester is set to celebrate National Play Day next week, and there’ll be more than 100 free activities for families to join in with.
You may remember that Manchester City Council announced it would be bringing 14 weeks of free activities for children to parks across the city this summer, as Parktastic returned by popular demand with everything from sports, games, arts, and crafts, to dance, drama, nature activities, storytelling, and messy play to get stuck into.
And now, a packed programme of activities to celebrate National Play Day – which is taking place this year on Wednesday 5 August – has been revealed.
There’ll be whole series of free events taking place right across the city on a drop-in basis throughout the day – with more than a hundred different activity sessions taking place in the city’s parks, libraries, community centres, and youth clubs.
PLAY DAY is in one week!
Wednesday 5 August
All FREE
🤾🏽Outdoor games 🎪Bouncy castles 🎨Arts &Crafts ⚽Sports coaching 📚Poetry Trail 🤹🏽Circus Skills 🚴🏻Bikes and more!
Activities for children of all ages, across the city
— Manchester City Council (@ManCityCouncil) July 29, 2026
Families can also head on down to two big Family Fun Days taking place on the day – one at Platt Fields Park, and one at Boggart Hole Clough.
Activities will run from 11am through to 2pm at both parks, and will include things like sports coaching, circus skills, cycling taster sessions, live demonstrations, storytelling, and a range of other interactive and hands-on experiences.
National Play Day is actually a country-wide celebration of a child’s right to play, but the day has a special significance for Manchester this year, coming off the back of the city earning recognition from UNICEF as a Child Friendly City last month.
Manchester is celebrating National Play Day next week with 100+ free activities for families / Credit: Manchester City Council
“Having fun and playing with other children is such an important part of growing up and helping children and young people of all ages to gain confidence and develop their skills,” commented Councillor Julie Reid, who is the Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People at Manchester City Council.
“We’re very lucky in Manchester to have so many fantastic parks, playgrounds, and sports and leisure facilities across the city for our children and young people to enjoy, as well as amazing libraries, galleries and museums right here on our doorstep.”
Cllr Reid said Manchester’s National Play Day on Wednesday 8 August will be offering ‘a whole host’ of different activities for young people to get involved in and enjoy.
You can find out everything happening on the day here.
Featured Image – Artem Kniaz (via Unsplash)
What's On
Co-op Live appears to tease major Mariah Carey Christmas gig sending fans into a frenzy
Emily Sergeant
All we want for Christmas… is Mariah Carey in Manchester.
And maybe, just maybe, our Christmas wish might come true very soon, as Co-op Live has taken to social media today to tease its next gig announcement with its hundreds of thousands of followers, and without jumping to conclusions, it does appear to be hinting at the queen of Christmas herself making an appearance.
Look, we know it’s only July and right in the middle of summer, but even if you think it’s too early to be talking about the festive season, you have to admit that the potential of Mariah Carey coming to Manchester is worth getting excited any time of the year.
The US pop powerhouse last performed in our city nearly a decade ago now when she brought her famous All I Want For Christmasshow to the UK for the first time ever, taking to sold-out Manchester Arena stage on 10 December 2017.
Mariah has not performed in Manchester since, but all that could be set to change as Co-op Live has hinted that an announcement is ‘coming soon’.
Taking to its official social media platforms today, Co-op Live posted a very festive-themed AI video of snow falling on the arena as the camera zoomed in and the instrumental of Mariah’s absolutely iconic hit ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ playing in the background, and the caption hinting at the song’s title too.
Of course, we could be wrong, it might not be Mariah at all, but if the 300+ comments from fans in a frenzy thinking the same as us are anything to go by, it’s looking like we might be right.
“The countdown to Christmas is on,” Co-op Live said in its video, before letting fans know that they would be getting some form of confirmation soon.
Emily Sergeant -
31st March 2022 
