YOUR EX’s Oliver Hall discovers Manchester doesn’t whisper its brilliance — it belts it out like Liam Gallagher – It’s a city that hums with history and house music, where drag queens and factory workers share the same cultural DNA. The fastest-growing city in Europe, Manchester has always known how to turn the patriarchy on its head. In the mid-1800s, when the North-West’s textile mills gave women income and independence, it sparked a civic personality that still thrives today: industrious, inventive and gloriously rebellious.
We arrived by train from Edinburgh Waverley, watching the landscape shift from Scottish stone to northern soul. It felt poetic: leaving one festival — Edinburgh Fringe — and arriving for another, on one of those gloriously windy journeys that make the UK rail network feel like a sightseeing tour. As the train curved through Pennine peaks and red-brick towns, I could already sense Manchester’s energy on the horizon.
Stay & Play @ Moxy Manchester
Our home base was the playful and perfectly placed Moxy Manchester (@moxymcr). A neon-lit playground of social spaces, bold art and mischievous décor, it’s the kind of hotel that winks at you when you walk in. Downstairs is all cocktails, board games and people actually talking to each other (wild, right?), while upstairs, rooms are clever and comfortable — industrial chic with soft edges.
Caffeine & Cobblestones
Our first morning kicked off with caffeine from Bold Street Coffee (@boldstreetcoffee) — a Liverpool import now thriving in Manchester’s Spinningfields neighbourhood. It’s a slice of modern café culture with substance: expertly brewed flat whites, hearty toasties and a queue of locals who clearly know their beans. The surrounding Spinningfields neighbourhood blends high finance with high fun; shiny glass towers share pavements with colourful restaurants and bars, creating the perfect warm-up for a long Pride weekend.
Decadence on a Plate
You don’t go to Manchester to eat meekly. You go to The Ivy Spinningfields (@the_ivy_collection) for British dining turned art form. Their roof terrace, complete with a retractable ceiling, transforms even a grey-skied northern afternoon into something cinematic. Think truffle-drenched fries, cocktails that could double as décor, and a dining room so plush it makes Gatsby look minimalist. The staff glide, the playlist bops, and you feel you’ve entered a fever dream of foliage and flair.
Glitz, Glam & Grill
If The Ivy is whimsical, Sexy Fish Manchester (@sexyfish_manchester) is a maximalist fantasy. A Japanese-inspired temple to sushi, sashimi and Robata-grilled everything, it’s where art, appetite and excess collide. The coral-lit interiors glitter, the seafood sings, and, on this particular weekend, it also happened to host the Manchester Pride 2025 launch party. Cue drag, DJs and enough sequins to blind a bishop.
Pride for the People
Manchester Pride (@manchesterpride) is not just a festival — it’s a declaration.
Every August Bank Holiday, the city transforms into a four-day celebration that stretches from the Gay Village and beyond. 2025’s edition (22–25 August) introduced a brand-new Mardi Gras — a high-glam, high-energy, high-queer extravaganza starring Billy Porter, Gok Wan and Nelly Furtado — alongside Village headliners Sister Sledge, B*Witched, Samantha Mumba and Danny Beard.
When the Parade rolled through the streets, we shouted until we lost our voices. When Mardi Gras turned Depot Mayfield into a fever dream of sequins and sweat, we danced until our legs gave out. When the Candlelit Vigil filled Sackville Gardens with quiet light, we cried, hugged strangers and remembered why Pride matters.
The Gay Village: Canal Street Calling
The Gay Village is Manchester’s queer heart. Anchoring it all is Canal Street, made world-famous by Queer As Folk but kept alive by Mancunians themselves. Across one cobblestoned strip you’ll find an entire ecosystem of queer spaces including: Molly House for tapas and plush sofas; Via for drag, DJs and that glorious mix of locals and tourists; Eagle for late-night liberation; Vanilla for women who love women; Richmond Tea Rooms for Alice in Wonderland whimsy; Oscars for musical-theatre and cocktails; New York New York for karaoke that could raise the dead.
Each bar has a personality; together they form the beating heart of queer Manchester — a community hub, not just a nightlife novelty.
A Walk Through Queer History
Want to understand why this city loves so loudly? Book the Queer History & Culture Manchester Walking Tour (@LGBTTour_MCR).
Our guide, Josh, led us through decades of hidden drag, police raids and protest marches. We learned Polari phrases whispered in bars when queerness was illegal, and we stood in the same streets where activists demanded rights decades before hashtags existed. Standing under rainbow flags, we heard how Manchester fought for decriminalisation, built one of the UK’s largest LGBTQ+ communities, and continues to celebrate that fight every year through Pride, the Pink Picnic, and Sparkle Weekend — the world’s biggest trans celebration.
This tour is moving, mischievous and quintessentially Mancunian — full of humour even in hardship.
A City Built by the People
Manchester wears its history like glitter — boldly and everywhere.
At The People’s History Museum (@phmmcr), banners of suffrage and socialism hang beside Pride flags. This is where the trade union movement began, where ideas worth fighting for have always had a home. Their August Pride Trail links today’s queer struggles with yesterday’s labour ones, showing how intertwined liberation truly is. The stat declared on one wall still echoes in my mind: there are 136,000 victims of slavery living in the UK today — a sobering reminder that activism never ends.
From there, we marvelled at the neo-Gothic John Rylands Library (@thejohnrylands) — a cathedral of learning — and stepped into the Royal Exchange Theatre (@rxtheatre), where a futuristic sphere of performance sits inside a Grade II trading hall. The theatre’s round stage symbolises perfectly what Manchester stands for: performance in the middle of the people, not above them.
Corrie, Camp & Culture
Of course, no visit is complete without walking the famous cobbles at the Coronation Street Experience (@coronationstreetexperience).
Our flamboyant guide, Scott, deserved his own Bafta for delivering gossip, trivia and camp aplenty as we toured the world’s longest-running TV soap set at MediaCity in Salford — home to the BBC and ITV. Filming 50 weeks a year, five days a week, Corrie proves once again: this is a city that creates culture for the masses, not the elite. For over 11,000 episodes, Corrie has been Manchester in microcosm: ordinary lives with extraordinary heart.
Neighbourhood Love
The Northern Quarter and Ancoats are ground zero for indie spirit — street art, vegan cafés, small galleries and grit with glamour. Afflecks (@afflecks_manchester), the legendary maze of alternative shops, is pure queer treasure: from vintage jackets to handmade jewellery, it’s impossible to leave empty-handed.
These neighbourhoods remind you that Manchester’s cool isn’t curated — it’s community-grown. Every mural feels like a manifesto. Every latte (try lesbian-owned Ezra & Gill) tastes like defiance.
A People’s City
What sets Manchester apart isn’t just its Pride — it’s its politics of belonging.
This is the city that gave us Emmeline Pankhurst, Alan Turing and The Smiths; that split the atom, invented the computer and inspired Oasis anthems. It’s where ideas and idealists coexist, often in the same pub.
London dazzles with polish; Manchester glows with purpose. The former bows to aristocracy; the latter raises a pint to humanity.
As my train rolled out of Piccadilly, the city’s skyline glimmered under post-Pride sunshine, I concluded that Manchester isn’t about grandeur or gatekeeping, but inclusion, activism and artistry. It’s a place where history meets hedonism, and where regular people, not elites — still — run the show.
So come for Pride, stay for the people, and leave knowing in a world obsessed with Kings, Manchester reminds us that the real power has always belonged to those who show up, speak out and dance on the cobbles.
