There is no shortage of things to do in Manchester no matter who you are or what you are interested in Manchester has it all. No matter what time of the day or night it is Manchester has an activity or a place to go so you will never be stuck for something to do.
Urbis Manchester is situated in Cathedral Gardens close to Manchester Cathedral and Victoria Station. It opened on 27th June 2002 as part of the renewal of Exchange Square known as the Millennium Project. It received £30 million from the Millennium Commission and £1m from Manchester City Council. The building, designed by Ian Simpson Architects (who is also responsible for Manchester’s highest building, The Beetham Tower) was originally a museum and exhibition centre that showcased city life. It has hosted exhibits on popular culture including music, fashion, art, photography and computer games as well as seminars, concerts and special events.
The Trafford Centre Manchester opened in September 1998 and is the highest valued shopping centre in the UK at £1.65 billion. It is currently the UK’s second largest shopping centre with plans to make it the largest. It is situated in Dumplington next to Trafford Park Industrial Estate. With 10% of the entire UK population living within a 45-minute drive of the Trafford Centre, it’s hardly surprising that it attracts over 35 million visits a year.
The Etihad Stadium Manchester which is also known as Eastlands and was formerly the City Of Manchester Stadium, is the home of the newly crowned Premier League champion Manchester City Football Club. It was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and cost £110 million. It had already been decided that MCFC would take over the stadium in 2003 after vacating Maine Road.
Whether you know it as Theatre of Dreams or simply the home of one of the world’s most famous football teams, Manchester United, Old Trafford Manchester is a must-see destination for all sports fans visiting Manchester. Situated in Stretford in the borough of Trafford, Old Trafford Manchester has been home to the ‘Reds’ since 1910. Allot has changed over the years and the state-of-the-art stadium of 2011 bears little resemblance to the ground that the club would have played on at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Museum of Science and Industry Manchester, or MOSI for short, occupies the former Liverpool Road Station, one of Manchester’s most historically significant sites. It’s a particularly fitting venue for such an important museum since Liverpool Road Station was the terminus of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway which was the world’s first purpose built goods and passenger railway. Liverpool Road Station is the world’s oldest railway station.
The MEN Arena Manchester, situated in the north of the city centre, is the biggest indoor arena in Europe. Its capacity is 21,000, which puts it just in front of the O2 Arena in London’s Docklands. It is one of the world’s busiest indoor venues playing host to pop concerts, boxing ice hockey and basketball.
The Manchester Museum is situated on Oxford Road in the middle of the University of Manchester’s neo-Gothic buildings. The museum is owned by the university and is open to the public as well as serving as an academic research resource. It houses about six million artefacts from every continent on the globe. The Manchester Museum was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, the architect of London’s Natural History Museum, opened to the public in 1888.
The Bridgewater Hall Manchester is an internationally renowned concert venue hosting over 250 performances every year from classical music to pop, rock and jazz. It is best known as the home to the Halle Orchestra as well as the BBC Philharmonic and the Manchester Camerata. It is one of the top music venues in the UK and one of the main attractions in Manchester.
The Arndale Centre Manchester, with a retail floor space of around 1.5m sq ft, is the largest city-centre shopping mall in Europe. Having been built in the 1970s, when such malls were springing up around the UK, it was dramatically redeveloped from the eyesore it had become with its Stalinist architecture, thanks ironically to the IRA bomb that ripped through Manchester in 1996. Its 38m visitors a year (ahead of the mighty Trafford Centre which is on 35m) make it one of the most popular shopping malls in the UK.