Some of the best names from this year’s Parklife line-up will be heading into the city centre for free shows over the weekend.
The weekend of free music will be taking place in one of Manchester’s most-loved beer gardens at The Oast House.
Headlining will be legendary garage duo Artful Dodger on Saturday night, who will take over the terrace in Spinningfields.
Then other DJs will be hopping over from the huge Heaton Park festival to play too, with Majestic, 220 Kid and Charlotte Van de Peer all on The Oast House’s bill.
The completely free weekend is being hosted by Jägermeister, which is also the name behind one of Parklife‘s many stages this weekend.
The bar was also recently crowned ‘Leading Bar’ at last year’s This Is Manchester Awards.
Parklife DJs will play at The Oast House. Credit: Supplied
The Oast House hopes to fill the festival gap for anyone who missed out on Parklife tickets with an impressive line-up lifted from its stage at the festival itself.
Artful Dodger will take to the stage at 11pm on Saturday night, continuing the party taking place in Heaton Park.
The event will kick off on Friday 9 June from 6pm until midnight, continuing at 2.30pm until midnight on Saturday 10 June and 2.30pm until 8.30pm on Sunday 11 June, with a jam-packed line-up of musicians playing live including bands, solo artists, duos and DJs.
It’s completely free to attend but people will be admitted on a first come, first served basis.
The Oast House’s street food menu will also be on offer for those looking to line their stomachs during the festivities, featuring signature dishes such as Buffalo Chicken Mac ‘n’ Cheese, Bury Black Pudding Scotch Egg and Northern Poutine. Vegan options include the Plant Based Burger and Vegan Meatball Protein Bowl.
Greater Manchester’s transport ‘masterplan’ has been released ahead of Oasis’ huge run of reunion gigs starting next week.
Manchester is all set for a sensational summer of sound, and as more than 300,000 music fans prepare to descend on our city next week as a little-known band called Oasis (sarcasm detected) reform for the first time in over a decade, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has now announced its plan to transport everyone to and from Heaton Park.
With the Gallagher brothers staging five nostalgia-drenched gigs starting from next Friday (11 July), the transport network wants to make sure no one is left ‘looking back in anger’ over their travel arrangements.
Travel arrangements for the hotly-anticipated reunion shows have involved months of planning by TfGM and its partners, so over the next couple of weeks, you can expect to see additional staff on the network, more frequent, all-double tram services running to Heaton Park from Victoria station, and a shuttle bus service running from the city centre.
TfGM’s state-of-the-art control room will also be operating 24/7 to monitor and coordinate the public transport system and respond to any emerging incidents as they materialise.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Greater Manchester’s transport ‘masterplan’ has been released ahead of the Oasis gigs / Credit: TfGM | Simon Emmett (Publicity Picture)
Travelling by tram
The best way for fans to beat the traffic and get to the 80,000-capacity outdoor venue over the five dates will be to travel using the Metrolink network.
On each night, there will be a six-minute service from Victoria Station to Bury – the only city centre station with a direct tram to Heaton Park – and this service will be capable of carrying 4,000 passengers an hour, with concertgoers travelling from other lines told to change onto a Bury-bound tram at Victoria.
If you have a ticket for front standing, your best option is to get off and on again at Bowker Vale, which is the closest stop to the venue entrance on Sheepfoot Lane, as the Heaton Park stop will be closed at 9pm on all nights.
Both the Bowker Vale and Heaton Park stops are just a few minutes away from the park gates, but as as the Heaton Park stop will be closed at 9pm on all nights, if you have a ticket for front standing, your best option is to get off and on again at Bowker Vale, which is the closest stop to the venue entrance on Sheepfoot Lane.
For the shows on 11, 12, and 19 July, the final trams will leave for the city centre at 2:02am and for Bury at 1:16am, and on 16 July, the last trams will run at 1:32am to the city centre and 12:46am to Bury.
Travelling by tram to Heaton Park is recommended by TfGM / Credit: TfGM
Travel by shuttle bus
Alternatively, there will be frequent shuttle buses from Lever Street in the Northern Quarter from 1:30pm on each event day, with the last bus departing at 7:30pm.
Buses will then start running back to Manchester after the event – with the city centre drop-off point being Shudehill Interchange – from a temporary bus station inside Heaton Park from 10pm, and buses will continue to run until all passengers have cleared the bus station.
Limited shuttlebus tickets, priced at £10, are available, but these must be purchased in advance through the Bee Network app.
Further details on how to buy the tickets can be found on the Bee Network website.
There will be increased congestion and various road closures in place around Heaton Park and the surrounding areas on each of the event dates.
Those who have to drive or need to be dropped off and picked up are encouraged to consider taking advantage of the 24 ‘park and ride’ sites in Greater Manchester, where you can park for free and hop on a tram to your destination.
The park and ride sites on the Bury line are Whitefield, with 331 spaces and 13 disabled spaces, and and Radcliffe with 480 spaces and 22 disabled spaces.
Shuttlebus services will be in operation on all dates of Oasis’ run of gigs / Credit: TfGM
And if all of that wasn’t busy enough as it is, Manchester will also be playing host to a number of other big events during Oasis’ run of shows – including Kool & The Gang at AO Arena and Billie Eilish at Co-op Live.
So as you can see, public transport and roads will be busier than usual during this exciting time, so TfGM encourages everyone to allow plenty of time for their journey and check the Bee Network app or website for the latest travel advice.
English punk rap duo Bob Vylan have been dropped from an upcoming music festival in Manchester following the recent controversy surrounding their set at Glastonbury 2025.
The media storm surrounding their much-talked-about and heavily televised Glasto appearance has seen them reportedly dropped by their agency and their US Visas cancelled, along with multiple concerts – one of those being right here in Greater Manchester.
Bob Vylan were scheduled to play RADAR Fest at Victoria Warehouse in Stretford this weekend, but now the organisers have informed gig-goers that the artists will not be performing in their planned slot on Saturday.
The alternative music event did provide any additional details, posting nothing but this image:
For anyone unaware, Vylan were heavily criticised for the pro-Palestine chants, which Glastonbury itself has deemed as having “crossed a line”, labelling the chants against the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as antisemitic.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also commented on the situation.
In addition to RADAR, Vylan were also due to appear at Kave Fest in France the following Sunday, 6 July, but the music event has also decided not to host them.
The BBC also opted not to broadcast Northern Irish band Kneecap as part of their coverage this year, as the Belfast rap trio have also been outspoken on the issue, among many other musicians of late.
Responding to the decision on social media not long after the news broke, the act simply shared the post on their Instagram story along with the caption: “Silence is not an option. We will be fine, the people of Palestine are hurting. Manchester, we will be back.”
Daisy Jackson -
9th June 2023 
