We love to bring you fes­ti­val news – espe­cial­ly free ones that also ben­e­fit their local community.

We Invent­ed the Week­end, tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 15th and Sun­day 16th June, returns to MediaC­i­ty and Sal­ford Quays. High­lights include North­ern Music Awards’ Best DJ DJ Paulette, Sacha Lord, Zed Bias, LIINES and a Sounds from The Oth­er City takeover.

We Invent­ed the Week­end
●  The two-day FREE fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ing how peo­ple spend their free time has announced new inclu­sions across music, fam­i­ly, well­be­ing, cre­ative work­shops and sports
●        Organ­i­sa­tions from across Greater Man­ches­ter includ­ing the BBC, British Cycling, The Lowry and the RHS are col­lab­o­rat­ing on the fes­ti­val
●        New Plaza Stage and fes­ti­val area added out­side The Lowry

Music 

Secret Night Gang, DJ Roesh, Uni­ty Radio presents Zed Bias, Eves Drop Col­lec­tive and Play­house Project all fea­ture. with a line­up of free boat par­ties host­ed by the likes of Man­ches­ter Lit & Phil, Age UK, post-punk-trio LIINES. Hacien­da leg­end DJ Paulette will be spin­ning clas­sics in a Sun­day after­noon slot on the Piaz­za stage, with DJ Mix Stress also bring­ing her unique mix of vibes to the decks. Sal­ford under­ground favourites Sounds from The Oth­er City will takeover Cen­tral Bay, invit­ing fes­ti­val-goers to dance to a range of DJs on the water­front ter­races. And LIINES is one of our favourite bands, we inter­viewed them here at Beard­ed The­o­ry festival.

Fam­i­ly

Mr Moti­va­tor, along­side his ener­getic team of moti­va­tors will be host­ing CBee­bies themed dance work­outs. Car­toon dog Bluey will also host live per­for­mances and CBee­bies Bed­time Sto­ries is set to return with CBee­bies House Stars, Evie, Joan­na and Dodge with more guests and pre­sen­ters to be announced. The BBC Phil­har­mon­ic will also take fam­i­lies through a Musi­cal Sto­ry­land where children’s favourite fairy tales and tra­di­tion­al folk tales are re-imag­ined with mag­i­cal music per­formed by musi­cians from the esteemed orchestra. 

A jam-packed sched­ule of activ­i­ty awaits at The Lowry includ­ing an aer­i­al dance duet from All or Noth­ing on The Swings, a 5m high instal­la­tion at the end of the Lowry pier, behind the scenes tours of the the­atre with spe­cial light­ing and sound demon­stra­tions, spe­cial gallery tours of the LS Lowry Exhi­bi­tion, and a high-ener­gy excit­ing flash mob from SIX The Musi­cal. Out­side The Lowry on the Plaza stage, there’s an Our Kid Social huge fam­i­ly dis­co-tas­tic DJ par­ty. Atten­dees can also expe­ri­ence opera for the first time in a work­shop with Lowry part­ner com­pa­ny, Opera North.

And a range of cre­ative and craft work­shops suit­able for all ages will also be on offer, includ­ing screen print­ing as well as a Giant Card­board Play­ground and Den Build­ing for All sessions.

Sports & Wellbeing

We Invent­ed the Week­end will get every­one mov­ing too – from BMX­ing ses­sions with British Cycling, earn­ing a medal by walk­ing the Bupa Loop around Sal­ford Quays, show­cas­ing footie skills with Man­ches­ter Unit­ed Street Reds, hav­ing a go on the climb­ing wall or try­ing skat­ing or scoot­ing with the team from Gray­stone Action Sports. And for those look­ing for a good stretch, join award win­ning actor and artist Scot­tee for an inclu­sive yoga practice.

Super Movers for Every Body, the BBC’s excit­ing new inclu­sive sport cam­paign for schools and fam­i­lies will be show­cas­ing a selec­tion of bril­liant inclu­sive sport activ­i­ties, catchy songs and dances, cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Pre­mier League and ParalympicsGB.

Retail Ther­a­py / Food

Melanin Mar­kets will show­case 10 black-owned inde­pen­dent busi­ness­es and traders. Founder of Com­mu­ni­ty Cloth­ing and pre­sen­ter of BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee Patrick Grant will join the talks pro­gramme as well as the Com­mu­ni­ty Cloth­ing shop. Char­i­ty Super.Mkt sup­ply a curat­ed col­lec­tion of fash­ion, acces­sories and home­wares from a dozen of the UK’s best local and nation­al char­i­ty retail­ers. Quay­side MediaC­i­ty will prove food and drink offer­ings with high­lights from Jerk Junc­tion, Super Fry Guys and Hot & Wild.

Gardening/Green Ini­tia­tives

RHS Bridge­wa­ter will be show­ing fes­ti­val goers how to get green with activ­i­ties and gar­den­ing work­shops as part of the ‘We Get Green’ strand of the fes­ti­val. Title spon­sor Auto Trad­er will be high­light­ing sus­tain­able week­end activ­i­ties.

Joy­ful mass par­tic­i­pa­tion moments

Dar­ren Pritchard and Ghet­to Fab­u­lous will be lead­ing the festival’s first-ever The Peo­ple’s Cat­walk – Sun­day Best, a fash­ion show which cel­e­brates per­son­al style and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, and is open for any­one to join.  The Free Time Parade will return for 2024 and invite every­body to take part in a one-off, mass par­tic­i­pa­tion parade through the fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate free time.

Edu­ca­tion / We Think Big Talks

Patrick Grant is join­ing the festival’s We Think Big talks, pre­sent­ed by The Uni­ver­si­ty of Sal­ford and will sit at the cen­tre of the fes­ti­val site on a new out­door stage. Patrick will dis­cuss his new book ‘Less: Stop Buy­ing So Much Rub­bish: How Hav­ing Few­er, Bet­ter Things Can Make Us Hap­pi­er’. The wider We Think Big pro­gramme will include talks from fash­ion PR and out­door lover Neil Sum­mers, Kings Arms own­er Lisa Con­nor, lead­ing yoga instruc­tor Scot­tee, Night Time Econ­o­my Advis­er for Greater Man­ches­ter  Sacha Lord as well as fes­ti­val co-founder Wayne Hem­ing­way MBE, with top­ics cov­er­ing every­thing from Sal­ford pub cul­ture to the his­to­ry and future of the high street.

We Invent­ed the Week­end cham­pi­ons dif­fer­ences in how peo­ple spend their leisure time, sit­u­at­ed where the week­end was orig­i­nal­ly invent­ed in Greater Man­ches­ter, 1843*. 

Wayne Hem­ing­way MBE, co-founder of the We Invent­ed the Week­end fes­ti­val com­ment­ed on the final pro­gramme announce­ment “We Invent­ed the Week­end cel­e­brates Greater Manchester’s gift to the world in a tru­ly unique and spe­cial way. The two-day pro­gramme invites all to come down to MediaC­i­ty and Sal­ford Quays to try out some­thing new from the 200 plus FREE activ­i­ties, work­shops and per­for­mances we have planned. We Invent­ed the Week­end 2024 will be anoth­er unfor­get­table moment in the calendar!”

We Invent­ed the Weekend

Pho­tog­ra­phy: Mark Waugh