Things to do before you go to a gig in Manchester

On the 28th October, I went to Manchester to see Metallica play at the Manchester arena.

As we don’t live in Manchester, we decided to get a hotel. We stayed in Manchester Sale Travelodge. It was a handy place to stay because unlike the Travelodge’s in the centre of Manchester, it had free parking. Transport was easy as there was a tram line a 10-minute walk away that took you straight into the centre of Manchester and ran until 00:30.

After we dropped our stuff at the hotel, we went into the city centre. In true Manchester style, it was chucking it down with rain, so our plan to wander the city had been foiled.

We found ourselves at The Printworks which is full of places to eat and drink. As it’s within walking distance of the Arena, it’s an ideal place to go before a gig as everything is all together. If you’re not familiar with places to go in Manchester, its a one-stop kind of place that has all the following:

 

Not only that, but it was filled with people in Metallica shirts ready to go to the gig, too. So it’s a great way to get in the mood.

We ate at Chiquito, a lovely Tex-Mex place I’ve always wanted to go to. I had a pulled pork and chorizo burger and my boyfriend had pork tacos.

After, we went for Yates for some drinks. We would have like to have eaten at Hard Rock but there was a 45-minute wait on tables and we were starving.

• 13 things to do in Manchester

When the gig had finished, we went back to The Printworks to have a drink at Irish Bar Waxy O’Connor’s. It had loads of people enjoying drinks and it was a bit of an adventure – the bar has wooden staircases and wooden paneling everywhere. It’ a bit like a bar you would imagine in Lord of the Rings or something!

We got the last tram back to our hotel, after stopping by M&S for some food.

The next day, the weather was much better so we managed to walk around the city a little bit and take some photos.

Have you ever visited Manchester for a gig? What did you do before?