Progress Centre
Johnny James, Managing Editor
After serving two summers of temporary parties, Progress Centre was reinvented into a new permanent outdoor club in 2024, before adding two new permanent spaces – Square One and Cakebread Street – in 2025.
Tucked on Charlton Place in Ardwick, Manchester’s coolest new club is an open-air but covered venue, created with “the sole intent of making you dance”.
Run by the well-respected heads behind The Loft, Animal Crossing and Summer of Love festival, the venue features a top quality Funktion-One soundsystem, a custom lighting rig as well as segmented areas away from the dance floor, for revellers to chill, chat, and grab some food.
The additions of Square One and Cakebread Street have turned the Ardwick site into a 5,000 capacity, multi-stage venue, and all this spring and summer it will be filled forward-thinking electronic music and grassroots culture. Think Maceo Plex, Shy FX, Chaos in the CBD, Rossi., Ross From Friends, Kolter, Conducta, Call Super, Amaliah, Dr Rubinstein, East End Dubs, MK, Sicaria and many more.