Campfield Market Hall

Department  and GRUB will be bringing Campfield back to life this June with The Weekender, a free festival on Saturday 28 June. An event set to revive the building’s market‑hall roots. You’ll find over thirty independent traders – bakers, distillers, crafters, florists and more – alongside DJs and surprise buskers, creative workshops from laughter‑yoga to life‑drawing, kids’ activities and street‑food flavours. This celebration marks the building’s grand reopening to the public, a vibrant first act in its new life as Manchester’s creative and tech heart.

Campfield itself is a breath-taking Grade II listed complex, arranged around two splendid Victorian market halls – a site steeped in trade, fairs and civic display. Once bustling with produce, later hosting exhibitions and wartime functions before becoming the Air & Space Museum. Now, having undergone years of transformative and restorative work, the complex will now be known as Campfield Mega Campus, Manchester’s most ambitious creative-tech destination.

Operated by Department, the campus offers flexible co-working zones, private offices, workshops, media-production studios and meeting spaces – all lit by soaring glass roofs that flood the interiors with daylight. Its centrepiece, Campfield House, houses a stylish café, mezzanine bar and event venues designed for screenings, talks, launches and gatherings under that iconic vaulted canopy. The adjacent Campfield Studios offers adaptable studios and a dramatic central atrium perfect for shoots, exhibitions or immersive events.

More than bricks and beams, Campfield is plugged into Exchange, Manchester’s flagship accelerator programme, supporting over 200 creative-tech businesses. By day it buzzes with entrepreneurs and digital makers; on weekends, its heritage spaces shift back toward their market‑hall past, hosting a regular programme of vibrant, community-focused events featuring independent traders, street food, music and creative workshops – bringing fresh energy to the building every Saturday and Sunday.

Campfield is open weekdays for workspaces, café, events and accelerator activity – plus craft markets, food stalls and public gatherings on weekends. For a venue that threads together Manchester’s industrial history, post‑war reinvention and creative‑tech future, this is the place to watch.