With Manchester being ranked the 5th largest city in the UK and containing a population of approximately 540,000, hosting an event will surely be hard on the wallet. However, we at Helm have compiled this list of 9 free/low-cost venues in the city of Manchester to help you find the venue your event deserves at a reasonable price.
Manchester is a city full to the brim with culture, history and architectural beauty. So, the city’s fast pace can be overwhelming, even for the most seasoned event planner, so we chose venues that are closest to the city centre, allowing easier access to your event through public transport, which will boost the turnout and popularity of your event. If you’re struggling to find an affordable yet professional venue, look no further, we’ve got you covered.
Location: Work. Life Manchester, Core building, Brown Street, Manchester, M2 1DH Capacity: 10 guests Price: £70 per hour Travel: 12-minute walk to Salford central station and a 5 min walk to st peters square tram stop
Suitable for: The Burgess room @ work. Life Manchester is an excellent venue for a small intimate gathering such as a small business meeting, group brainstorming session and workshop. The burgess room isn’t a large venue; however, this room is nowhere near cramped. And with its contemporary design,your guests will have optimal room to create new and forward-thinking cutting-edge ideas thanks to your forward-thinking event.
Work. Life Manchester has multiple venues onsite, so it would be worth checking them out through the link and enquiring directly with the venue to find the best possible space for your event.
Location: Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester, M2 5GP Capacity: 12-30 guests Price: ££ Travel: 9-minute walk to Manchester Oxford Road station and a 6-minute walk to st peters square tram station
Suitable for: Private room 12 is tucked-away, although that doesn’t mean a stuffy old room with no windows, private room 12 is the room with the largest natural daylight source within the Edwardian that will allow you and your guests an uninterrupted space with a sleek and formal design that is perfect for business meetings, seminars, product launches and workshops. This space will maximise the turnout of your event with its professional atmosphere, which will complement your event’s professionalism and boost your guests’ productivity.
Location: 9-century street, Manchester, M3 4QL Capacity: 50 -150 Price: £60 per hour (min. 3 hours hire) Travel: 1-minute walk to Deansgate station and a 1-minute walk to Deansgate-Castlefield tram station
Suitable for: With a brick ceiling and a comfy, relaxed atmosphere, the attic and study at Lock 91 is a great venue for product launches, seminars, workshops and informal gatherings. With the space of two seating areas, the attic and study are a versatile and spacious venue for any event that you can throw at it. In this venue, your guests can relax in an atmosphere that feels comfortable and will breed interest in your event. This old 19th century, Victorian lock keepers cottage is a small independent but with the passion and ability to make your event massive, boosting both turnout and the success of your event.
Location: Eleven Didsbury Park, Didsbury Park, Didsbury Village, Manchester M20 5LH Capacity: 80 guests Price: £300 per day (12:30- 22:00) Travel: 8-minute walk to East Didsbury station
Suitable for: Although this venue isn’t right within the city, it’s great, tucked away venue for any type of event: seminars, product launches, networking events, business parties or a small conference; the walled gardens can suit any event. Its relaxed, spacious and comforting environment makes it a great backdrop for any event you want to host. The Victorian walled gardens is a perfect venue for an outside event that takes you and your guests away from the strains of a simple office room and gives you the space to breathe and let your creativity and productivity run wild.
Location: Deansgate, Manchester, M1 5LH Capacity: up to 560 guests Price: £150 min spend Travel: 2-minute walk to Deansgate station and around a 1-minute walk to Deansgate-Castlefield tram station
Suitable for: With Lola lo Manchester, you can give your guests an authentic tiki experience that would be perfect for workshops, product launch parties, team getaways, and business parties. The space is versatile for anything you can throw at it. Lola lo pull out all the stops when trying to make your event memorable for your guests. They can provide entertainment ranging from firebreathers to sax players; they truly can provide an experience that will leave your guests stunned. The venue also has a bar on-site that can provide a wide range of premium spirits and their very own tiki cocktails.
Location: Pollard Street, Manchester, M40 7FS Capacity: up to 40 guests Price: £25 per hour Travel: 5-minute walk to Butler street tram station and a 4-minute walk to Cambrian street tram station
Suitable for: This quaint little workspace is a great venue to host your creative event. Wellington studios breathe creativity, so why not host your own training day or workshop at this space? The event and workshop space’s open plan layout means that your space has room for your guests to expand their artistic ideas and creations without cramping on others space. This venue is then only enhanced by the natural light that will flood your event, which will help the venue look even more spacious. Wellington studios also provide tea and coffee making facilities and a breakout area if you need to take a break from all the creating.
Location: 24 Hood street, Ancoats urban village, Manchester, M4 6WX Capacity: 6 guests Price: £24 per hour Travel: 12-Minute walk to Shudehill tram station
Suitable for: Meeting room 1 is a small room perfect for those small and intimate crucial business meetings. The room is small; however, it never feels cramped but rather a perfect amount of space for the number of people needed for the meeting you’re hosting. Room one was specifically designed in mind for meetings and had the right technology for all of your needs. Host your next meeting here, and you’ll leave knowing you accomplished the right tasks within the right space.
Location: 24 Hood street, Ancoats urban village, Manchester, M4 6WX Capacity: up to 180 guests Price: £420 (9:00-17:00) Travel:12-Minute walk to shudehill tram station
Suitable for: With a great view and open space, the roof terrace at jactin house is a great venue for an event with a large group of guests. With the spaciousness, the roof terrace is perfect for corporate parties, product launches, seminars or networking events as it allows your guests to intertwine and mingle in an open space. This space is a great place to hold your next event as it inspires creative thinking as well as relaxing your guests in an area that they can feel comfortable in, which in the long run will boost turnout and the popularity of your next event.
Location: Dale street, 20, Manchester, M1 1EZ Capacity: up to 100 guests Prices: from £200 per half-day Travel: 1-minute walk to lever street tram station and an 8-minute walk to Manchester Piccadilly
Suitable for: The side room at twenty twenty-two is a great place to take your guests for a casual and entertaining event that will bring out their creativity as well as their inner child. The ping pong bar is a relaxed area for your guests to mingle and engage in the odd game of table tennis to spark up some friendly competition. Still, other than that, it’s a great place to host events such as corporate parties, team getaways, workshops and product launch parties. The side room has a modern aesthetic that will allow your guests to be as productive at your event as they can but without the constraints of feeling like they’re stuck in an office.
We chose Manchester for this list due to its abundance of venues that would be perfect for any event you wish to throw, sadly we couldn’t put every great venue that Manchester has, but instead we picked these venues to show you a wider range of venues that Manchester can offer. Whether it’s your first event or you’re an event planning master, these venues are perfect for anything you could throw at them. We at Helm always try to show you what’s available, but we love seeing when event planners that use our services find a venue that they have found themselves as we encourage exploration of new venues and amazing events.
Bristol may be the green capital of the UK, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the cheapest city. This list has been created to help you save those green notes in your wallet when choosing your event venues.
Bristol is a bustling city. We’ve researched and found the venues closest to the city centre, allowing easier access to public transport, maximising your events’ accessibility, boosting turnout and popularity. Whether you’re organising a meetup, seminar, training or a product launch – we’ve got you covered. Many of these venues have multiple rooms, so it’s worth clicking through the links and enquiring directly with the venue to find a space suitable for your event.
Choosing the date to run your event is one of the biggest decisions during the whole management process. If you choose a date too soon, you risk not selling enough tickets in time. If you choose a date in the future, your event could be usurped by a larger, annual event that’s announced after yours; there could even be problems if you pick the wrong day of the week.
With that in mind, please take a look at some of our tips for researching the best day of the week and month to host your event, as well as suggestions on how to ensure you don’t clash with another.
The time of year of your event should be based on the type of the event, the industry standard and your target market. The planning could also be ‘time of year’ based if your event is season-specific (we don’t need to tell you not to run your Halloween House of Horrors in March or your Christmas Craft Day in August…)
The starting point for selecting a good date for your event is identifying your target market, then understanding it. Like you would with any marketing or business plan, consider the needs of the target market.
Day of the Week
Overall, choosing a day of the week is more about ensuring potential guests’ availability and appropriate for your industry, type of event and target market. It’s important to position your event in the most accessible and attractive way for attendees. Don’t let potential ticket buyers have any doubt about being able to/wanting to attend.
Professional Events
Suppose you’re running a straight-up networking event. In that case, it’d be more appropriate to host it midweek – no one’s going to attend your accounting meetup on a Saturday night – it’d be extra work. During the week, guests will be in professional mode and may potentially be looking for a reason to skip out of the office early after lunch…
Some professional events are more casual than others; for example, if you organise networking events at cocktail bars, you don’t need to host your event during the workday. Consider Thursday evenings – it’s late enough in the week for guests to feel they deserve a break, but it’s not Friday when everyone is ready for the weekend by 2pm.
Entertainment and Leisure
If you organise club nights for the 25-35 market, it’d be more suitable for your event to be a Friday or a Saturday, allowing those who’ve had a long week to let off some steam. On the other hand, a kids club would be more attractive to parents if it were on a weekday, where the children could go straight from school.
Month or Time of Year
If your event isn’t dependant on the time of year or themed at all, considering when to hold the event should be based on external factors, like what else is scheduled for the same time. Consider this on a variety of bases; from what’s happening in the local area, your event will be held into what’s happening on a global scale that could affect attendance.
Locally:
When organising an event targeted at a certain location, you need to consider a variety of factors. Consider:
Accessibility: Is there anything happening locally that could limit the accessibility of your venue on that day? Even if it’s not another event, consider things like scheduled road closures.
Are there any events in the area that could attract your attendees? Even events not targeted at your specific market could affect. For example, a community fun day or local sports day could pull potential attendees from your event as it attracts a wider, more general audience.
Will there have been an event similar to yours recently that could have saturated the market? If you’re the one organising a local community day, double-check there hasn’t just been one!
Industry:
Perhaps you organise meetups for users of a specific piece of software. You might not be connected much online to the community. Still, if an updated launch is scheduled during a tech conference or everyone will be attending an enthusiasts trade show, it might be better to wait until attendees aren’t distracted.
Seasonal trends
Other notable sector events
Nationally/globally:
What will be happening on the day that could attract national or international attention? Even if you’re not interested in the World Cup Final or a Royal Wedding, those events could take away potential attendees from your event. So, check calendars for the following:
Public holidays (Bank holidays, national holidays depending on your location)
Religious holidays (Consider your target audience and their network, even if they’re not religious, their attendance could be affected by their community observing a holiday)
Potential weather (i.e. if your event could be called off due to snow or ruined by rain)
When guests could be on holiday (July/August)
Long term, notable events like sports competitions (Wimbledon, Olympics).
Tools for Finding Clashes
There are some easy ways to double-check for event clashes in your area, industry and nationally.
Search the date – a cursory search of months and even days on a search engine will draw up any key events, like below. You can even search on Wikipedia for notable, scheduled events by looking at the month/day.
Search local – where relevant, check local sites. Many cities, counties and regions will have a ‘What’s On’ page or a tourism website with scheduled events.
Search communities – look for relevant platforms, forums and groups online for the sector you’re targeting to find potential clashes or dates to avoid.
Organisers and customers can now raise invoices for tickets. When creating or editing an event, you can choose to allow invoice payments and set your own deadline for payment – between 1 and 4 weeks.
The functionality is currently only available upon request, so get in touch today to have it enabled on your account.
More flexible payments
Customers can choose to pay by invoice or normally by card. When pay by invoice is selected, the customer will be able to send the invoice to the payer and any tickets ordered will be reserved until the invoice is paid or the payment term period has lapsed.
You can easily manage your ticket sales and cash flow by looking at the Orders page of your event, where you’ll see which orders have invoice payment pending. By using the invoice functionality, you’re able to cater to a wider audience of attendees, including businesses who may prefer to pay via invoice – or be required to internally. As well as benefitting customers, the functionality gives organisers more control over their event – whether that’s by requiring invoice payments in certain timeframes or the ability to cancel any tickets with payment pending.
Raise an Invoice
As well as allowing customers to choose to pay by invoice, organisers can also raise invoices for attendees through the improved Offline Ticket functionality – by adding an offline ticket with the Helm Tickets invoice payment type, the customer will be sent the invoice directly.
This new functionality puts the event organiser back in control of how tickets are paid for and especially supports the selling of tickets to businesses for the B2B market.
You can now make reserve and waiting lists available on your Helm Tickets event. These tools are great ways to easily manage your attendance numbers and ticket availability – providing you with the opportunity to increase capacity and immediately inform those interested in purchasing tickets. These new features give organisers more control over how event tickets are managed whilst also making tickets more accessible to those who would like to be notified when they go on sale.
The two types of lists have different functionality. Which one you use is dependant on your event and how you choose to distribute tickets. Here’s a quick rundown on what the new features can do and how they’re best used.
Waiting Lists
Waiting lists are almost a more basic form of reserve lists. If you want to notify anyone interested that tickets are on sale or more have been made available, waiting lists are perfect.
Enabling a waiting list will allow customers to sign up to the mailing list, automatically notify them if/when more tickets become available. As soon as a ticket is cancelled or increase the number of tickets on sale, guests on the list will be emailed. No one on the mailing list will prioritise anyone else – waiting lists are solely first come, first served.
Waiting lists are simple, can be set up with one click and do not require any management, giving you more time to organise and market your event.
Reserve Lists
Although similar to waiting lists, reserve lists are more like a queue and can be customised to suit the organiser’s preference. If you organise an event that sells out and wants to give priority access to those interested early on or those who just missed out on tickets, reserve lists are the tool for you.
When enabled, customers can add themselves to the list to be notified when tickets are made available. The difference is that you choose who gets contacted first. There are three options for reserve lists:
First come, first served: Those on the list will be notified in the order they registered.
Randomly: The system will randomly select a user based on their ticket preference and notify them.
Manual: The organiser can select customers manually from the list. You can also specify how long a ticket is reserved for before the next customer is contacted. If a customer does not purchase the ticket within the specified timeframe, the next customer in the queue will be contacted.
You can use reserve lists to allow ticket buyers to register their interest ahead of your tickets going live or if you want to redistribute returned tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.
The new reserve and waiting list functionality will also enable you to provide a more flexible refund policy, should you want to. If you’d like to offer returns but don’t want to miss out on ticket revenue, these lists guarantee those who want to attend can purchase tickets within minutes of further tickets becoming available. These lists can be enabled quickly and easily during the event creation/editing process.
