Manchester Punk Festival 2025

Creative Tourist

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Manchester Punk Festival

Gorilla, Manchester
18-20 April 2025

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

Photo by Jack Kirwin - JK Photography.
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Manchester Punk Festival is a volunteer run, multi-day and multi-venue DIY punk rock festival held in Manchester City Centre, brought together by TNSrecords, Anarchistic Undertones and Moving North.

Now in its 10th year, MPF 2025 will feature over 140 bands from around the world, playing across three days at The Union, Gorilla, The Bread Shed, YES, Rebellion, Sandbar, Flour & Flagon and The Salutation.

Headlining are the Philadelphia legends The Menzingers, an institution on the punk scene. More long-running heavyweights come in the form of Minnesota’s Dillinger Four as well as California’s Strung Out and Death By Stereo.

Elsewhere there’s a crazy amount of underground bands to choose from, with our highlights including Bristol’s grunge-tinged Grandma’s House and Liverpool’s gothy Coughin’ Vicars.

Check out the full line-up via the button below.

Where to go near Manchester Punk Festival 2025

Dog Bowl bowling alley and restaurant Manchester.
Manchester
Bar or Pub
Dog Bowl

A bar and 10-pin bowling alley combined, Dog Bowl is a neon-lit venue that serves up cocktails and Tex-Mex food to go with your time on the lanes.

City Centre
Bar or Pub
The Temple

Originally called The Temple of Convenience owing to its former life as a public toilet block, this is a tiny bar with some of the finest bathroom graffiti in town.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
The Thirsty Scholar

Friendly pub under a railway arch serving vegetarian and vegan pub food, as well as hosting regular live music.

Palace Theatre Manchester
Manchester
Theatre
Palace Theatre

A Manchester landmark for almost 130 years, The Palace Theatre is reopening in early August 2021 with a few small but vital changes to ensure a safe and pleasant experience for all.

The glass atrium inside The Refuge
City Centre
Restaurant
The Refuge

The Refuge is a restaurant and bar based at Kimpton Clocktower Hotel, specialising in bright, exciting small plates.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
Bundobust Brewery

Launched in 2021, the Bundobust Brewery makes modern beer with their vegetarian and vegan food menu in mind.

City Centre
Bar or Pub
Peveril Of The Peak

Iconic Manchester pub adorned with the sorts of bottle green, yellow and brown Victorian tiles that are a reclamation yard’s dream – this gem of a boozer is named after Sir Walter Scott’s novel of the same name and was a favourite hang-out of Eric Cantona.

Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
Burgess Cafe Bar
at IABF

Small but perfectly-formed café – which also serves as the in-house bookstore, stocking all manner of Burgess-related works, along with recordings of his music. It’s a welcoming space, with huge glass windows making for a bright, welcoming atmosphere.

Rain Bar pub in Manchester
City Centre
Bar or Pub
Rain Bar

This huge three-floor pub, formerly a Victorian warehouse, then an umbrella factory (hence the name), has one of the city centre’s largest beer gardens. The two-tier terrace overlooks the Rochdale canal and what used to be the back of the Hacienda, providing an unusual, historic view of the city.

City Centre
Restaurant
Nudo Sushi Box

Nudo Sushi Box on Manchester’s Oxford Road specialises in freshly-prepared boxes of – you guessed it – sushi.

Manchester
Theatre
The Dancehouse

From its charming Art Deco interiors to a quirky, highly original creative arts output, our theatre is firmly established within the city’s famously vibrant cultural scene.

What's on: Music

GB by Samuel Wilson, courtesy of Grey Lantern.
Music
GB at The White Hotel

Copenhagen’s GB spent weeks cutting up a free London newspaper to build Herzsprung’s angular art-rock, coming to The White Hotel.

From £14.40
CinemaManchester
Queer Up North

Queer Up North’s new digital archive sparks a city-wide programme including a return for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at HOME.

Matt Spratt.
MusicManchester
Madra Salach at New Century

This Irish folk six-piece released a stark and often beautiful debut EP that gives little hint of their “feral, snarling” live show.

From £21.00

Culture Guides

Matt Spratt.
Music

Aphex Twin-endorsed electronica, an eight-hour organ marathon and the most exciting band in Ireland's current folk revival all feature this month.

Woodhill by LUNG Theatre.
Theatre

Contemporary performance, verbatim theatre, dark comedy and a bold vision of Gaza - an eclectic mix for the start of autumn.

Food and Drink in the North

Step into autumn safe in the knowledge that you have the North's very best mid-September guide to food and drink in Manchester and beyond.

Exhibitions

Our latest exhibition picks include a lost recording of the Strangeways protest, Manchester's first sound art festival, and queer archives revisited.

Emily Lloyd-Saini as Grace in Space and Harrie Hayes as Lieutenant Strong in Horrible Science
Family things to do in the North

Whether you’re after storybook theatre, museum wanderings or illusion-bending play spaces, there’s plenty to keep curiosity ticking through winter and beyond.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

There's no shortage of great films out at the moment, whether you're looking for the latest blockbuster, that hot arthouse flick fresh from Cannes or a cosy classic.