/BEST OF MANCHESTER HOW TO GET YOUR FRIGHT NIGHT RIGHT
Halloween in the City City-wide spookfest Halloween in the City returns to Manchester this October, filling the streets with thousands of pumpkin lanterns and lighting landmarks up in green. A haunted maze will also pop up in St Ann’s Square as part of the festivities, which run from October 21 to 31 with a weekend of family-friendly activities on October 28 and 29. Come nightfall, some of Manchester’s most recognisable buildings including Manchester Town Hall, House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and The Printworks will again glow a ghastly green. Manchester city centre / October 21 to 31 / cityco.com/event/ halloween-in-the-city / Free Festival of the Dead After a bewitching debut last year, this Halloween fiesta inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead returns to take the party to another level with Festival Of The Dead - Chapter 2: Limbo. Expect circus performance, burlesque, professional skull facepainting and DJs spinning a soundtrack of house, bass and garage with a Latin twist. Bowlers Exhibition Centre / October 27 / 2018.festivalofthedead.co.uk / £22.50 The Wizard and Wand at the Trafford Centre The witching hour arrives at the intu Trafford Centre as a wizard-themed bar pops up for Halloween. The Wizard and Wand will serve up buttery fizz, smoking mocktails and other mystical potions when it opens on lower Peel Avenue. There’ll also be wizarding cloaks for guests to wear, along with ‘dark arts demonstrations’ and magical photo opportunities. intu Trafford Centre / intu.co.uk/ traffordcentre / October 26 and 27, 6pm to 9pm, and October 28, 2pm to 8pm / Free entry The Village Screen Halloween cinema at Victoria Baths Manchester’s Victoria Baths is hosting a Halloween cinema weekend with three family horror favourites. There’ll be spooky screenings of 80s and 90s classics Beetlejuice, Hocus Pocus and The Addams Family inside the grade II* listed building on Friday October 27 and Saturday October 28. Film fans can also enjoy street food from Dim Sum Su, the Blue Caribou Canteen and Mac Daddies, plus craft beers from Peak District brewery Thornbridge. Prosecco, wine, soft drinks, hot drinks, popcorn and fresh doughnuts will also be served. Victoria Baths / thevillagegreen events.co / Friday October 27 and Saturday October 28, 4pm and 8pm / Balcony tickets from £13, pool level from £50 FLICK does Night of the Living Dead A zombie apocalypse is coming to Manchester this Halloween at a horror film screening where the undead won’t just be on screen. Soup Kitchen is the only place where the living will be safe from the walking dead roaming Stevenson Square on Tuesday October 31. A £5 ticket will get you shelter inside the rescue station along with fellow survivors Bobby, Patricia, Larry and Tammy, where everyone will have to work together to stop the zombies getting in. But as fans of the genre will know, when a group of strangers are thrown together in the most dire of situations, things will only go one way... The chilling experience is all part of an immersive screening of zombie classic Night of the Living Dead, hosted by Manchester cinema club FLICK. Soup Kitchen / Tuesday October 31, 7pm / Tickets £5 from Fatsoma Halloween Ginema at Wood Manchester A ‘ginema’ experience combining food, film and gin tasting launches in Manchester this Halloween. Dreamed up by the founders of Alderman’s Didsbury Gin, the cinematic banquet will take place for the first time at MasterChef winner Simon Wood’s restaurant, Wood. The screening of classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho will begin with a glass of fizz on arrival, followed by cinema-style canapes and flavoured Didsbury Gin and tonics to accompany the first half of the film. In the intermission, guests will settle down to a main course from the First Street restaurant, washed down with more G&Ts, and rounded off with coffee and petit fours after the film is finished. Alderman’s Didsbury Gin founders Liam Manton and Mark Smallwood will also be on hand to talk through the story of the spirit throughout the night. Wood, First Street / woodmanchester.com / Tuesday October 31, 6.30pm / £39 - email reservations@woodmanchester.com to book VEVO Halloween Now in its fifth year, VEVO’s fancy dress Halloween gig is one of the best value dates in Manchester’s musical calendar. Headlining the Victoria Warehouse show year is BRIT award winner Rag’n’Bone, joined by Rat Boy, Jonas Blue, JP Cooper and Yungen, with tickets on sale at just £5. As well as a night packed with new hits, VEVO Halloween partygoers can expect to be transported to The Other World, the evening’s nightmarish theme - a parallel world where nothing is quite as it seems. Victoria Warehouse / vevo.com/ Halloween / October 28, 7pm / £5 Deadbolt’s Tim Burton Halloween Special Alternative club night Deadbolt is paying tribute to cult director Tim Burton this Halloween with a party celebrating his films. There’ll be screenings of some of his best-loved movies on the big screen along with Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter’s Tea Party photo opps, a Beetlejuice dance-off, Willy Wonka chocolate giveaways, themed cocktails and much more. The Bread Shed (formerly The Pub/ Zoo, Grosvenor St) / Friday October 27, 10pm to 3am / Tickets £4 from redcardinalmusic.com Penny Dreadful Halloween Special at The Fitzgerald Stevenson Square speakeasy The Fitzgerald presents an evening of Victoriana horror on Saturday October 28. Expect to find Sweeney Todd behind the bar, and old jazz and contemporary electronic music filling the eerie air as you sip spooky cocktails by candlelight against a backdrop of black and white horror films playing on the projector. There’ll be a DJ from 9pm and prizes for the best dressed. The Fitzgerald, Stevenson Square / thefitzgerald.co.uk / Saturday October 28, 9pm to 2am