Whether your loved one is an an all-out mandolin-plucking romantic or a jaded cynic who peevishly mumbles about a ‘pointless corporate invention’ wherever possible during Valentine’s Day discussions, a variety of venues around Greater Manchester host a selection of reinvigorating wild card events which offer a reprieve from the dim lighting, delayed starters and petal-strewn hotel bed linen.
Here are some of the best alternative Valentine’s activities across Greater Manchester.
Whether you’re hopelessly in love, stubbornly single or partying with pals, GRUB covers all bases this February with an eclectic programme of events running throughout the week.
On Valentine’s Day, visitors can head down to Red Bank for Floating Art’s UV Painting and Cocktail Evening in the Main Hall, try out ‘Femigami’, an alternative Valentine’s feminist origami workshop in the Dining Room, or stop in at Cultplex for a special romantic movie edition of Quiz Show.
Kicking off on Sat 10 Feb, Cultplex presents an offbeat romantic cinema series beginning with indie favourite Juno, followed by True Romance (Sun 11 Feb), neo-noir Lesbian love affair classic Bound (Sat 17 Feb) and Richard Linklater’s generational masterpiece, Before Sunrise (Sun 18 Feb).
Check out GRUB’s full schedule below.
For culinary couples and foodie friends, Zouk offers a one-off Valentine’s cooking class in which their renowned in-house chefs guide guests through their intricate cooking process, creating some of the dishes included in the Valentine’s set menu before inviting all to pull up a chair and dine banquet style for the remainder of the morning.
Promising frosty steins, happy hour cocktails and ‘exceptional shooting realism’ in a ‘fully loaded night out’, activity bar Point Blank offers a thrilling inventory of laser-based replica guns, from Desert Eagles to AK-47s. Choose your weapon and enjoy a unique Valentine’s Day with your loved one, or wordlessly exorcise the festering emotional stasis at the core of your relationship with high-resolution targets and bullet-tracking technology accurate to within 0.3 millimetres.
Led by founder and owner Guillaume, Ma Lumiere’s Valentine’s candle-making workshop invites couples to learn the basics of wax-wielding, choosing 2 fragrances from 20 oils and creating their own 200ml soy candles worth £36.
With a timeless, well-trodden combination of pop ballad sing-a-longs and the heartrending opus of history’s greatest symbolist painter, Whitworth Locke hosts PopUp Painting’s Valentine’s ‘sip and paint’ event during which guests follow the guidance of a practicing artist to create their own interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, with all supplies, canvases and drinks provided as well as a themed playlist full of Austrian symphonies and classic heartbreak anthems.
Taking place in their intimate, low-lit concert hall, The Blues Kitchen hosts a Valentine’s celebration of the romantic soul queen with an evening of live orchestral covers spanning all her greatest hits, while the bar and restaurant serves £6 cocktails and sumptuous bbq dishes all night long as part of its weekly Soul Sacrifice party.
For just £25 – with £10 redeemable on wine purchases on the night – Harvey Nichols offers an extravagant wine-tasting experience for lovers and friends alike, with light nibbles and a 90-minute session featuring five wines pre-selected by their resident experts.
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Mon 5 Feb 2024
For a less conventional yet classically opulent Valentine’s experience, couples can book the romantic roundtrip of a lifetime with East Lancashire Railway on Fri 16 and Sat 17 Feb.
For £79 a head, or £280 for a table of four, passengers receive a welcome prosecco followed by a four-course silver-served meal, accompanied by live classical music, as the immaculately restored Pullman-style steam train rolls through the Irwell Valley on an achingly idyllic voyage which lasts the entire evening.