Summer

Creative Tourist

Looking for interesting things to do over summer? This guide features everything from festivals to adventure activities to more sedentary pastimes like plonking yourself in a beer garden outside a great British boozer.

Our top picks

Festivals

Festivals. We do them well up north. From giant, inhibition-loosening weekends in farmers’ fields to inner-city parties that showcase the best of local, underground scenes, music lovers are spoilt for choice. This guide rounds up our top picks for this spring and summer, taking in everything from hedonistic escapes to contemporary jazz showdowns via family-friendly fun.

Festival-goers at Green Island
Green Island Festival

Parks and Gardens

The North of England is home to some absolutely stunning parks, and what better time than summer to go and visit a few you’ve never been to. In this guide we’ve rounded up some of our favourite gardens, city parks and patches of outdoor space in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and right across the North. If you only want to see green spaces in Manchester, no problem. We’ve a guide for that, too.

Flower beds beside a wide lawn

Summer Holidays: the best things to do with kids

Come July, school will be out for six heady weeks of adventuring. Indoor, outdoor, free, ticketed…whatever you fancy. Look no further for your ultimate guide for cultural and just outright fun things to do together to make long-lasting memories (and also achieve precious hours of relative sanity during the hols).

Summer Holidays: the best things to do with kids
Image courtesy of Mark McNulty.

Open Air Theatre in Manchester and the North

Balmy summer evenings and pre-show picnics; popping of corks and the clinking of glasses; high-quality performance, good company and nature’s very own top tier ventilation system, make open air theatre one of our favourite things. Check out our highlights for this summer, featuring standout shows in Chester’s Grosvenor Park and Lancashire’s Williamson Park.

The Jungle Book at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre
The Jungle Book at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre

Adventure Activities in the North

The North of England is home to the longest high wire bridge in Europe, over 1,000ft above the Honister Pass in Keswick, and one of the UK’s largest outdoor inflatable water assault courses near Sheffield. This part of the world, then, has no shortage of incredible adventure activities. Make the most of the fleeting British summer and tick a few off.

Treetop Adventure Manchester
Treetop Adventure Manchester.

Wild Swimming in the North of England

We’ve put together the definitive guide to Wild Swimming in the North of England, which is veined with cuts and canals that were once vital to the functioning of our society. Our lakes are treasured by all and none go unpainted for long, while rivers forge through our towns and cities, defining them. Get closer to this side of nature by actually immersing yourself in it.

Beer Gardens in Manchester & Salford

What’s the best thing to do in the sun? Many people on this well-watered isle will, without blinking, respond that it’s having a cold pint in a beer garden with your mates, obviously. And that’s what this guide is all about: revealing Manchester and Salford’s very best outdoor spaces to enjoy beer, cocktails or whatever boozy (or non-boozy, we don’t judge) drink floats your boat.

Society Manchester
Spotlight on

Things to do in Blackpool

Fancy a day trip? Explore our guide to Blackpool and build yourself an itinerary featuring attractions, galleries, restaurants and more.

Take me there

Culture Guides

Poet Vik Shirley
Literature Events in the North

Some of our favourite leftfield live literature regulars are back with their first events of the year – we’ve picked a weird and wonderful heap we think you’ll love.

NEXT: A Primer on Urban Painting production still
Cinema in the North

Street art, LGBTQ+ History Month, and the first film festivals of the year are amongst our cinema highlights this month.

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

Feminist farce, a magical circus show and Oldham Coliseum return with a brand-new off-site show. All in our latest theatre guide.

FKA TWIGS
Music in the North

Masters of minimalism, leftfield electronica and cutting edge pop. We bring you the lot in our latest live music round up.

The Super Duper Family Festival
Family things to do in the North

We might be past the holiday season, but Manchester and the North's arts and cultural calendar is still packed with brilliant events and activities for families

A painting of a young child being bathed in a sink of a 197s style kitchen. Around the sink are a rubber duck, a bottle of  washing up liquid, a jug, a kettle and a mug.
Exhibitions in the North

Galleries are racing to announce new exhibitions so check out our top picks, from art films and nostalgic paintings to Hockney's collages.