Manchester Day is an annual

parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually some variety ...

and celebration of

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

held in

Manchester city centre Manchester city centre is the central business district of Manchester, England, within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way, which collectively form an inner ring road. The City Centre ward had a ...

, United Kingdom. The event has been held each June since 2010 and commissioned by

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester has had an elected local authority since 1838, which has been re ...

and created by

Walk the Plank Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an "inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults over ...

. The event is inspired by the New York Thanksgiving parade.

History

Manchester Day started in 2010, being organized by the Manchester City Council with help from Walk the Plank and sporting organizations. The event brought an estamated 4 million pounds to the economy. After the first Manchester Day was a success, the Manchester City Council voted to repeat the event with £250,000 of funding. This result was met with push back from Liberal Democrat's on the Council. The Liberal Democrat leader on the Council stated, "If they said it was £100,000 and we'd get the money back from people like

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

and

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational List of coffeehouse chains, chain of coffeehouses and Starbucks Reserve, roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gor ...

and other sponsors, then we'd be happy to go along. But we think the subsidy is too much when they are making cuts to frontline services like gating schemes and playing parks." Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, there was a two year period between Manchester Day 2019 and 2022 where no Manchester Day festival was held. In 2023, the Manchester City Council ended the parade format to change it into an all day and night festival. The Council stated the new format is, "better than a parade that's all over in an hour."

Events

In 2011, an estamated 80,000 people attended the Manchester Day Parade. The theme of the parade was voyage of discovery, with a Lancaster bomber and a giant Gulliver figure being the prime attractions of the parade. In 2012, Manchester Day was attended by 80,000 people. The event was primarily a parade, which featured a 150-piece band and giant puppets. In 2017, Manchester Day was attended by 100,000 people and 22,000 people took part in the parade. The parade commemorated the victims of the

Manchester Arena bombing The Manchester Arena bombing, or Manchester Arena attack, was an Islamic terrorism in Europe, Islamic terrorist suicide bombing of Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, on 22 May 2017, following Dangerous Woman Tour, a concert by the Americ ...

. In 2022, Manchester Day Parade was attended by 20,000 people. The parade's prime attractions were a queen bee and the Little Amal puppet. In 2024, Manchester Day was attended by 50,000 people and had 300 performers. The city centre was also turned into sports themed playground;

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby union: 15 players per side *** American flag rugby *** Beach rugby *** Mini rugby *** Rugby sevens, 7 players per side *** Rugby tens, 10 players per side *** Snow rugby *** Tou ...

, and

taekwondo Taekwondo (; ; ) is a Korean martial art and combat sport involving primarily kicking techniques and punching. "Taekwondo" can be translated as ''tae'' ("strike with foot"), ''kwon'' ("strike with hand"), and ''do'' ("the art or way"). In ad ...

events happened.

References

{{reflist Culture in Manchester Parades in England Summer in England