The Manchester Flower Festival is one of the city’s annual, flagship events. Taking place across the late May Bank Holiday weekend, the festival of flowers transforms the city centre with themed decorations and green installations alongside live music, entertainment, alfresco food and drink, talks, demonstrations, processions and workshops.
Now in its seventh year, the urban festival attracts hundreds of thousands of additional visitors to the city centre and launches the summer event season in the city.
The event is supported by a multi-channel marketing and PR campaign, including outdoor media, online digital advertising, a dedicated event portal on the city’s tourism website (VisitManchester.com), social media, and local, regional and national press.
2024 Event: 24th – 27th May Bank Holiday
Festival Zone: Exchange Square, New Cathedral Street, St Ann’s Square, King Street, Market Street
- ‘Manchester Icons in Flowers’: Floral Displays and Garden Trail
- Floral Marquee
- Green installations, displays and gardens from top brands, gardeners, charities, community groups and floristry talent
- Floral street art and installations
- Al fresco dining, street food and outdoor bars
- Live music and entertainment
- Talks, demonstrations and workshops
- Flower, art and craft market
- Family Play Zone and Sensory Gardens
City Wide Fringe: Installations across the city centre
- Floral displays from city businesses, hotels, neighbourhoods and cultural venues
- Explore Manchester’s green spaces with a specially commissioned trail and map
- Workshops, events, experiences and exhibitions
- Citywide street art and dressing
2023 Headlines
Contributors and Sponsors
National Trust, The RHS, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Grey Goose, M&S, Vimto, Lexus, Mercedes, Lush, Kuoni, FROG Flowers, Flowers from the Farm, Ardwick Climate Action, The Bridgewater Hall, Spinningfields, The Cloud Gardener, Science and Industry Museum, Royal Exchange, In Our Nature, Blossom MCR, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, CBRE, Plant NOMA, Treehouse Hotel, Sow the City +++
Footfall Stats
- 100,000 additional visitors to the city centre v the 2022 Flower Festival
- Footfall +24% v 2022 Flower Festival
- Footfall +44% v same weekend in May 2022
- Footfall on Sunday 28th May doubled v Sunday of the 2022 Flower Festival
Digital Stats
- +115,000 views on mcrflowerfest.com
- +1.2 million paid digital impressions across Facebook, Instagram and Google
- +540,000 organic social media reach
Press Coverage
- £502,000 of press coverage (AVE) across 121 titles, including BBC North West Tonight, Yorkshire Evening Post, BBC Radio Manchester, Manchester Evening News, Manchester’s Finest, The Manc, Cheshire Life, Business Desk
- Success featured as Place North West’s ‘Thing of the Week’
Economic Impact
The 2023 festival brought an additional £4.6 million into the city v 2022 event [Based on 100k additional visitors]
Take Part this Year
Our theme for 2024 is ‘Icons’, inspired by excellent work in 2023 that displayed gardens themed around Manchester icons such as Hilda Ogden, Tony Wilson and Emmeline Pankhurst. As well as iconic buildings like The Town Hall.
This year we open the category to interpretation. Pick a Manchester icon, a music icon, or an iconic figure from any creative industry. Choose an icon that symbolises a city or place from across the world. It could be a celebration of an iconic flower or plant. Or even an iconic part of gardening life – such as the garden gnome or shed!
What are we looking for?
- Florists who want to create floral displays at the event
- Professional garden designers and landscaping companies who want to create a garden in the city centre of Manchester
- Charities, community groups, garden groups, amateur individual gardeners
- Street artists who want to create floral art in the public realm
- Brands who want to sponsor the event
- Brands who want to take advantage of commercial spaces at the event
- Companies who want to create a garden or display at the event but need to be teamed up with a gardener or florist
- Companies who want to sponsor a community garden
- Manchester property managers, developers, businesses, collectives, individual business, cultural venues, bars and restaurants in the city who want to highlight their business or public realm by creating a floral display or green takeover
- Stall holders for our flower, plant, food & drink and art & craft market
How to get Involved
- Event sponsorship
- Brand activations in the Festival Zone
- Create a show garden, mini garden or floral display in the Festival Zone
- Sponsor a community garden in the Festival Zone
- Take up food and beverage opportunities in the Festival Zone
- Take up market stall opportunities in the Festival Zone
- Create a Fringe floral display
- Put on a Fringe event, workshop or experience
Why be part of it?
The Manchester Flower Festival is an urban remix of the traditional flower festival or flower show. It uses the city’s streets as it’s canvas and presents a unique challenge to gardeners and florists.
The festival is loved by local residents, workers and visitors, creates amazing PR for the city and participants – and shows that cities can be greener and more sustainable.
The event has a great legacy every year with many projects remaining in the city or finding their way to local community gardens or projects.
Get in Touch
We can’t wait to hear from you. If you would be interested in taking part, email events@cityco.com
