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Mancs invited to ‘dress up and join in’ as Halloween hits the city this weekend

Ghastly ghouls, wicked witches, curious cats, and more will all be welcome in Manchester city centre this weekend.

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant - 26th October 2021

The spooky season is finally here, and Halloween in the City is returning to Manchester this weekend to celebrate.

With so much happening over the two-day festival as part of the annual Halloween in the City celebrations – which are organised by CityCo and Manchester Business Improvement Distict (BID) – visitors to the city centre this weekend are being encouraged to “dress up, join in, and get gruesome” to look the part.

It won’t be something you see every day, but everything from ghastly ghouls, to wicked witches, curious cats, and more will all be welcome in Manchester city centre this Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 October.

The more people in spooky fancy dress, the better.

While the Halloween in the City celebrations will be largely taking place over this weekend, if you’ve got a keen eye, then you may have already noticed that giant inflatable monsters with hanging tentacles, fanged teeth, and bloodshot eyes have been starting to take over the rooftops of Manchester this week.

Dotted at eleven different locations across the city centre, you’ll be able to go on adventure to discover them at places like KAMPUS, Selfridges, the Manchester Arndale, Great Northern Warehouse, Printworks and The Royal Exchange Manchester, Spinningfields, and at the ‘spooktacular’ Cathedral Gardens outdoor ice rink.

And then on Halloween weekend itself, there’ll be even more monsters set to pop up on the ground, so keep your eyes peeled around Exchange Square.

The monsters are just the tip of the iceberg of events happening at Halloween in the City this weekend though – think a welcome procession of roaming monsters, a monster carnival, top monster bands, monster DJs, a monstrous photo trail across the city

Here’s a round-up of everything you can get involved with.

Credit: CityCo / Manchester BID
Credit: CityCo / Manchester BID

A ‘monsters welcome’ procession

Walk The Plank, who also create the annual Manchester Day parade, are putting on a crazy procession of monster puppets, stilt walkers and a five-piece band across the Halloween weekend – and everyone is invited.

Find out more here.

Dr Mancenstien’s Castle and Gardens

Visit the home of Manchester’s mad-for-it scientist, Dr. Mancenstein, encountering dragons, giant marauding crows, Mr Arsenic the castle butler and eerie groundskeepers along the way whilst dodging the man-eating plants.

Free to attend, her garden and cemetery is also home to a menagerie of creepy characters.

Find out more here.

The Monster Lab

Get up close and personal with giant monster Scary Gary at this year’s Monster Lab, located in Exchange Square. You can also make your own slime at the Monster Slime School and create your own mini monsters to take home.

Dr Mancenstein’s radioactive lab assistant will be on hand to help with all your weird and wonderful experiments.

Find out more here.

Credit: CityCo / Manchester BID

A carnival of monsters ‘freakshow’

Billed as a ‘family-friendly freakshow’, New Cathedral street will be transformed for spooky season with roaming circus monsters, sideshow stalls, a kids’ carousel and a traditional helter-skelter.

You can also get up close and personal with the inflatable monster, Creepy Annie.

Find out more here.

A trail of spooky photo opportunities across the city

Discover eight different spooky backdrops scattered across the city, ranging from a ‘monster invasion’ Manchester skyline, to depictions of the Grimm Reaper, aliens, zombies, the marshmallow man, dragons and creepy castle gates.

There will also be backdrops featuring Cbeebies and CBBC characters – perfect for the little ones.

Find out more here.

Credit: CityCo / Manchester BID

Two giant magpie puppets stalking the streets

Known as ‘The Keeper’s Nests’ these giant magpie puppets draw inspiration from the rhyme “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told…”.

The pair will stalk the streets at a height, looking down from their rickety nests in search of secrets.

Find out more here.

A monster DJ truck (feat. DJ Ghostman)

DJ Ghostman isn’t the first selector to hide his identity, but he might be the first to do so with a bed sheet. Find him playing a host of Halloween hits and monster bops from the Monster DJ Truck on Market Street across Halloween weekend.

Find out more here.

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Don’t forget to follow the fun over on Halloween in the City’s socials too – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Featured Image – CityCo / Manchester BID

What's On

What we know about Oasis’ Heaton Park reunion shows based on their first comeback gig in Cardiff

Danny Jones Danny Jones All the info we know about Oasis Live '25 reunion night 1 Cardiff

Ok, so there’s no more need to pinch ourselves or double-take every time we check our phone: Oasis aren’t just back together, they’ve now kicked off the reunion and following those incredible Cardiff scenes, we’re already thinking about what this means for their Heaton Park homecoming.

There simply isn’t a brick-and-mortar Manchester venue big enough to hold as many Manc fans as want, need and deserve to see them back on stage after waiting all this time, so it’s only fitting that barely a month on from Parklife, the massive outdoor space will welcome us all back to witness history.

Quite literally millions of people tuned into various livestreams on Friday evening to see Oasis return at the Principality Stadium, so lots of you will have already seen plenty from the colossal concert – including that bald bloke balancing a pint on his head – but there was, understandably, a lot to take in.

So, with that being said, here’s what we hope, we think, we know about Oasis’ highly anticipated Heaton Park shows based solely on the details we gleaned from Cardiff night one.

The timings (roughly)

For starters, one of the most important things fans will be hoping to know is when Oasis got back on stage, as well as the set times of the other ‘Live ’25‘ support acts.

Liam, as per usual, was the mouthier of the two Gallagher brothers and let the cat out of the bag early on X (Twitter), before being clearly told off by management and deleting the details shortly after; still, it was confirmed that the main event for Friday and Saturday night gets underway at 8:15pm.

However, these things are always subject to change, as both Richard Aschroft and Cast were slightly premature on night one in Cardiff, and who knows what other arenas will be like for the rest of the reunion tour?

Credit: Oasis (via Instagram)/Dianne Bourne (screenshot via X)

The Live ’25 setlist – or at least on night one

Another big debate online that has raged ever since the Oasis reunion was confirmed is the subject of what they’re going to play from their extensive catalogue.

Obviously, most people could rattle off most of the all-time favourites and cobbble together a pretty decent ‘greatest hits’ of Oasis setlist, but people have been more concerned with what the opener, closing track, and encore will be.

Having watched all of these moments back multiple times already, we can confirm the first track was not the old intro, ‘F***in’ in the Bushes’, as many suspected, but ‘Hello’, rather fittingly.

As for the last track in the main running order, the crowd got to bounce up and down to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ before the legendary ‘Champagne Supernova’ beckoned the very end of the first night in Cardiff.

They’ll still be reactive

That being said, this inaugural comeback show was somewhat of a pilot for the rest of the ‘Live ’25 world tour, which now totals more than 40 dates, and any good artist knows that tweaking the setlist from show to show can be key to not only to success, but keeping things fresh for you and the audience.

As a result, we wouldn’t be surprised if you see Oasis mix things up as the nights roll on, especially when playing multiple gigs in the same city as they’re doing pretty much everywhere for this reunion.

That flexibility isn’t just limited to song choice either: Liam did his famous twist on the ‘Wonderwall’ lyrics and told the crowd, “There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don’t speak Welsh”, and in case you haven’t seen it already, they also took a moment to honour a late Liverpool star.

Gallagher brothers pay touching tribute to Diogo Jota on first night of Oasis reunion tour
There were lots of little details on night one in Cardiff, but this was a very nice touch from Oasis.

A bigger focus on production than ever

The glimpse at the AV presentation seen above is just a small taster too. From the various clips we’ve seen on social media over the last 24 hours or so, Oasis aren’t just back playing music together, but they’ve levelled significantly in terms of production and stage design.

In fairness, so too has the music indusry as a whole – you’d be hard-pressed to found a tech team that could pull of the pre-gig light-show they put on in the days leading up to night one at the Principality – but it was still cool to see the greatest rock band in the world be given a proper big budget backdrop.

For instance, you can see what flashed on the gigantic screens behind them as they walked out in front of more than 70,000 in Cardiff down below.

What a way to make an entrance…

Blues, through and through

Now, if you’ve ever been to see either of the brothers’ solo shows, you’ll know that football and, more specifically, references to Man City, often feature at some point.

Noel, in particular, has maintained a strong City presence in his set, be it the blue colour palette, the MCFC badge, or even a tall cut-out of manager Pep Guardiola half during most High Flying Birds gigs.

Cardiff night one was no different as his LG instructed the crowd to turn around and do the familiar ‘Poznan’ celebration regularly seen up in the stands of the Etihad Stadium.

The bitterness had turned to banter

It was bits of comedy like this that’s been one of the biggest part we’ve missed about Oasis; both Liam and Noel have always been very humorous in their own ways over the years, but they were never funnier than in those old clips you see of them cracking each other up in their younger days.

Despite being estranged for more than a decade and a half and who knows how many years of bad blood overall, they look to have at least put it to one side and what was once a combative back and forth from a distance has circled back around to brotherly banter – or at least we hope it has.

We’re not going to pretend they absolutely adore all of a sudden, but they’re at least trying and recognising each other’s roles.

They actually seem to like each other again

As you can see, those snaps of them smiling during the first reunion photo shoot back together don’t appear to be just for show.

Seeing the two of them walk out holding hands sent the internet into an absolute frenzy of emotion and had people joking that they were finally going to message their own troublesome relative and at least try to mend fences.

But that was just one small moment.

The duo have always admired and respected their respective talents, but for the first time in even longer than the 16-year hiatus itself, it seems like there’s some genuine love there again. See for yourself:

They’re still as massive as they ever were – if not more so

All this is to say that, in short, Oasis’ first comeback show in Cardiff isn’t just the start of the ‘Live ’25 reunion tour that will span the globe, it’s also confirmation of something people began to question in their lengthy absence…

They really are the biggest and, in so many people’s opinions (including our own), the greatest rock band of all time.

From what we can tell, it feels like one of those watershed music moments where you have be there in person to truly see and believe it – not to be part of some exclusive ‘I was there’ comeback, but because we can’t thing of any other reunion that has had this kind of impact.

Roll on the five nights at Heaton Park and strap in, folks, because you will never forget it.

Read more:

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

Featured Images — Oasis (via X)/Finnlay K (via Instagram)

What's On

Grassroots music venue The Yard announces new outdoor festival – and it’s got a great name

Thomas Melia Thomas Melia

City centre grassroots music venue The Yard has just announced its new outdoor festival, where you can expect lots of impressive local live music.

Independent and grassroots music venue, The Yard, is known for hosting some of the best gigs, creative events and live music in the city, and this festival is no different.

Titled ‘Stranger Ways’ – if you don’t get that reference, then we don’t know what to tell you – anyone attending can expect to hear music that champions Manchester’s indie spirit, with a lot of local talent represented in the lineup.

There’s an appearance from Alex Spencer, who has previously featured in our Manc artists of the month back in May.

Alex Spencer is set to headline day one of Stranger Ways Festival.
Alex Spencer is set to headline day one of Stranger Ways Festival.
The Yard is a brilliant venue known for hosting a variety of live music events.
The Yard is a brilliant venue known for hosting a variety of live music events.
Credit: Supplied

This talent has seen praise from the likes of Lady Gaga and The Coral, even getting his track ‘Nightmares’ featured in EA Sports FC25 (FIFA).

Wigan lads The Lilacs are also fronting the bill, known for their high energy sets and indie tune ‘Vicarage Road’ which they performed live at The Yard for music TV show, Spill The Sound.

They’ve seen massive success this year playing at the Isle of Wight Festival earlier this summer and supporting ‘Every Breath You Take’ penman Sting in Cardiff.

Another of our picks for Manc artists of the month for June, Arkayla. Named after “a terrible Oasis demo” from 1991, the band will be stopping by to sing a couple of their hits, too.

The band are already making waves, quite literally, receiving plays from one of the biggest rock radio stations in the UK, Radio X.

Wigan band The Lilacs are set to headline day two of Stranger Ways Festival.
Wigan band The Lilacs are set to headline day two of Stranger Ways Festival.
Arkayla are one of the headliners for The Yard's new outdoor festival.
Arkayla are one of the headliners for The Yard’s new outdoor festival.
Credit: Supplied

And of course this festival falls during Oasis’ massive reunion tour, so it would be rude not to have a tribute act, or two, performing at this outdoor festival – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Carpets and The Oasis Experience.

Now, as far as tribute bands go, that’s up there with one of the best and quietly clever names we’ve heard since we came across, well… Stranger Ways.

Speaking of Oasis, every ticket purchased for The Yard’s outdoor festival, Stranger Ways, gets entered into a prize draw to win tickets for one of the Burnage boys’ Wembley gigs with an overnight stay.

Erm. Yes. Please.

Read more:

Stranger Ways Festival is taking place at The Yard across 19 and 20 July – To access the full lineup and grab your tickets, you can find everything you need to know HERE.

Anyone who has managed to bag themselves those precious Oasis tickets is in luck too, as if you can show proof on arrival to The Yard, you can guarantee yourself free entry.

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

Featured Images – Publicity Pictures (via Supplied)

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