Dandy: NEW QUEERS EVE at The Deaf Institute
Johnny James, Managing EditorBook now
Dandy : NEW QUEERS EVE
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
New Queers Eve takes over all three floors of The Deaf Institute, turning the building into Dandy’s end-of-year playground and swapping the usual resolutions for something louder, wilder and decisively gayer.
The night has become one of Manchester’s more reliably chaotic New Year’s rituals – part club night, part performance zone, part collective exhale after another strange twelve months.
Dandy’s residents run the rooms, joined by guest DJs Sum Ting Wong, Sandra D, Zoe McVeigh, Leila Liines and Choke On My Pronouns, with Amped pushing the basement into full mosh-pit mode. Performers appear throughout the night – Vienna Rose, Jacko, SXSZ, Thanasis, Inflateacub and Fatality KO – giving the place the loose, one-night-only atmosphere Dandy does so well.
The standout booking is BIG SOFTY, in from London with the kind of sleek, hook-driven pop that lands perfectly on a night built for collective euphoria. Their work with Sugababes, Reysha Rami, Amara Ctk100 and Nova May gives a sense of the calibre on show.
Dandy has always been a dance floor, a mosh pit, a safe space and, as the organisers like to joke, a threat to your marriage. It’s unabashedly for the LGBTQ community and the people who show up for it, with the usual line held firm: no TERFs on the turf.
Tickets are £15, with a limited number of £5 concessions. A loose, loud start to 2026 is pretty much guaranteed.
