AREA Manchester reviews by real event-goers

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Over promised and under delivered. This could have been an amazing event. The music was not great, the performances were tame. The downstairs area was not laid out properly. What a missed opportunity

Review of CirXcus Manchester

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Review of CirXcus Manchester

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Felt like the experience was oversold based on the Instagram posts. Staging seemed basic and unrehea**ed. Downstairs far too hot and too bright. It could be great with a little more thought

Review of CirXcus Manchester

The down stairs room has no atmosphere, and was more like a common room. Not busy so no atmosphere overall.

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Good venue. Well laid out. Friendly staff. Different prices for the same drinks from different staff which was a bit odd. ?" was expecting a more circus look or feel from the advertising.

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Review of CirXcus Manchester

The atmosphere was awkward, music was mostly bad remixes, and being "circus" themed there was only 1 fire performance... no acrobatics or trick performers/hula hoopers or anything else related to circus. The drag queens didn't dress to the theme either (except 1 of them). I am a professional aerial acrobat and I was highly disappointed and a bit insulted by this. A lot of the advertised performers/go go dancers and sex workers were nowhere to be seen. The play area had nothing except a couple of spank paddles and the dark room was a well lit cupboard space. We were there for a good few hours to give it a chance hoping it would pick up... but it didn't.

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Security in toilets & play area too prominent. Lacked a vibe

Review of CirXcus Manchester

This could have been fantastic but there are a lot of areas that need some thought and tweaking. They clearly hadn't sold as many tickets as they hoped (early birds still available the day before and staff flyering up and down canal street on the night of) so they kept the main dancefloor artificially busy by not opening the playroom for hours after the club itself opened. When I asked staff when the playroom would be opened, they clearly didn't know answering "in good time" and "there will be an announcement" which was irritating (and there was no announcement!) The dancers were clearly under-rehea**ed and very underwhelming and amateur. The fire-breathing guys was good though. The staff all being made up as clowns was a nice touch and the cloakroom staff were really lovely.
It felt like there were a lot of people who were there just to be 'seen' and potentially either had been paid to be there or were there free due to being so-called influencers. They didn't help the atmosphere at all, showing off, pushing through the crowds with an attitude like they owned the place and generally being annnoying, especially when messing about in the playroom ruining the mood.
The playroom itself needs a LOT of changes to make it successful: building the tiny Gloryhole cabins on the left must have seemed a good idea to someone, but all it actually did was make people think that was the ONLY place you could play. This meant a massive crowd pushed into a space equivalent in size to 2 domestic wardrobes whilst the rest of the playroom was filled with the aforementioned "influencers" or people treating it like a secondary bar. The space was far too bright for a play area and would have been massively improved with (for example) material being hung from the ceiling to create a maze-like atmosphere and different areas, like Action in London used to do, or Alert does - at least separating the Bar from the rest of the space. It also did not help that the security guard kept walking up to the entrance of the little Gloryhole play area and standing staring into it for quite long periods. I'm sure he meant no harm, but it was very off-putting. Finally the design of the entrance into the play area created an immediate and obvious fire hazard and bottleneck - I left the play area around 02:30 to look for a friend upstairs only to find a queue up the stairs to get in and that a one-in-one-out policy was being enforced despite the playroom not being anywhere near full. The staff member at the entry/exit wasn't telling people as they left "if you leave the play room you can't get back in" ... so that was it, I was separated from my friends and my night was effectively over unless I wanted to join that line for goodness knows how long. So I got my jacket from the cloakroom and left.
Agin this night could a brilliant event but it needs some thought and some changes and basically far better planning

Review of CirXcus Manchester

unfortunately the music upstairs was terrible. there was no atmosphere as a result and many people were saying it. it didn't know whether it wanted to be popular or dance. Proper house music would have been better, also could do with being louder.

Review of CirXcus Manchester

Everyone just left!!

Review of Underworld: House & Grooves Halloween (TICKETS SELLING FAST!!!!)

Absolutely dead no one there even tho it said online selling out fast

Review of The Reggae Brunch Manchester - Sat 19th Nov

Could have played more reggae music