Halloween in the City 2025

Shekina Rose, Families Editor

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Halloween in the City

Until 1 November 2025

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

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Looking for some fearsome family fun? Halloween in the City is back to haunt Manchester over Halloween weekend, with a petrifying programme of spooky events and activities taking place across Manchester city centre and Manchester turning into a full-blown monstrous playground, running Saturday 25 – Sunday 26 October 2025.

Hosted by the Manchester City Centre Business Improvement District, the festival promises everything from inflatable monster art installations to ghoulish games and (perhaps most terrifying of all) a city-wide fancy dress frenzy. Families, thrill-seekers, and anyone with a penchant for capes are urged to descend upon the city centre for the UK’s biggest Halloween gathering.

Highlights include the return of the legendary MCR Monsters, those supersized inflatable creatures who perch on rooftops looking impressive, alongside family storytelling, interactive games, and the raucous, wonderful Monster Party Procession. Expect puppets, stilt-walkers, live bands, and a sense of organised chaos courtesy of Walk the Plank, inspired by designs from Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas.

Halloween is not Halloween without something slithery. The Leech, an eight-metre-long wriggling creature last seen terrorising Manchester will once again slither its way through the streets, joined by its skeletal clan.

For the first time, the giant MCR Monsters will stick around beyond the weekend, occupying rooftops and landmark buildings from 25–31 October. Locations already set for a monstrous makeover include Manchester Arndale, Selfridges, The Royal Exchange Manchester, KAMPUS, and AO Arena, with more to come.

As dusk falls, expect the city to glow a witchy green as iconic buildings light up, while thousands of pumpkin lanterns line the shopping streets offering the perfect backdrop for your Instagram post!

Manchester: where monsters run wild, pumpkins light the path, and no one blinks at a grown adult in fangs and face paint.

Where to go near Halloween in the City 2025

Manchester
Food hall
Kargo MKT

Mighty food hall in Salford Quays, with around twenty street food vendors, serving a huge range of cuisines.

Asap Coffee Interior/ Counter
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
ASAP Coffee

If you’re looking for quality coffee and a decadent brunch in a setting that nails the Northern Quarter brief, you’d struggle to do better than ASAP Coffee.

Interior of George St Chapel
Manchester
Event venue
George Street Chapel

This beautifully restored former Independent Methodist Chapel in the heart of Oldham is as much a creative hub as a heritage landmark.

Chinatown
Restaurant
Pho Cue

Family-run Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. Prepare to queue for Pho Cue.

Come to Swithens Farm for a great family day out in Leeds. Our farm has plenty to offer whatever age you are!Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around. We now have a farm shop, café, playbarn and petting farm. When we first opened we only had the usual farm animals – cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and it was free entry. We now have llamas, alpacas, meerkats, rabbits, guinea pigs, donkeys and a pony.On the working farm, we breed our own cows, pigs and sheep and we sell the meat through the farm shop and the café. If you buy a sausage sandwich from the café the sausage will be from the butcher who has made the sausage by hand using our own pork. We also produce our own free-range eggs.
Leeds
Swithens Farm

Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around.

Peak District
Restaurant
The Chequers Inn

The Chequers Inn is a 16th century, family-run, traditional country inn with an impressive dining space. The Peak District at its best.

Testbed Main Space
Leeds
Event venue
TESTBED

TESTBED is a newly renovated 10,000 sq foot event venue in Leeds that offers endless possibilities for creating unique and inspiring experiences.

Manchester
Restaurant
Salt & Pepper

Chinese inspired British food in the centre of Manchester, backed up by plenty of well-deserved local hype.

What's on: Festivals

Get Outside with Bradford 2025: An image of a large man made pool with fountains in front of a historic building with a clock tower
Until
FestivalsBradford
Get Outside with Bradford 2025

Explore art in the moorlands, soundscapes through the glen and appreciate how the city has become totally transformed when you get outside with Bradford 2025.

Free entry

Culture Guides

Hofesh Shechter - Theatre of Dreams at Lowry
Theatre in the North

Picks this month include bold visual art, wondrous opera and cinematic dance - plus a touch of ghostly storytelling for the Halloween season.

A white mattress is burning in a black rocky landscape.
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Galleries in the North are far from spooky this October - instead you'll find tactile sculptures, plant magic and curatorial experiments.

Poet Helen Mort.
Literature Events in the North

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A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

It's busy month across the cinemas of the north as Halloween programming leads into two of the region's biggest film festivals.

Music in the North

From New York’s experimental underground to the most exciting sounds coming from local scenes, we're lining up a noisy autumn of gigs.