Sankeys returns to Manchester with a 500-capacity city centre club
Industry BriefPublished: 2025-11-25 By: Michael Lawson
Nine years after closing its Ancoats home, Sankeys is coming back to Manchester with a new 500-capacity club in the city centre. Launch parties are set for January 30th and 31st, with further details to follow.
Key details
- Sankeys reopens in Manchester nine years after its Ancoats closure
- New 500-capacity venue located in the city centre
- Launch parties on January 30th and 31st, lineups TBA
- Open one day a week on Saturdays after launch
- Tribal Sessions to hold a monthly residency
- Stripped-back design with LED matrix grid and chill-out room
A city centre comeback
Sankeys is set to return to Manchester nearly a decade after its long-running Ancoats space shuttered. Teased earlier this year, the new venue sits in the city centre and tops out at a 500-person capacity, marking a more intimate scale for the storied club brand.
Two launch parties will take place on January 30th and 31st, with lineups still to be announced. Following the opening weekend, the club will operate one day a week on Saturdays, focusing activity into a single night designed for dance floor energy.
Design stripped back, phones off
Opened in 1994 as Sankeys Soap, the original venue became synonymous with a bare-bones, industrial aesthetic and forward-thinking bookings that helped shape UK club culture. The new space nods to that legacy with a similarly minimal approach, including the reinstatement of an LED matrix grid and a dedicated chill-out room.
Creative director David Vincent described the vision as “an intimate underground club with a chill-out room,” adding that there will be no VIP areas and no phones allowed on the dance floor. The emphasis is squarely on the collective experience: as Vincent put it, everyone is a VIP, and the dance floor is for dancing, not pictures.
Tribal Sessions returns monthly
Sankeys’ flagship party series, Tribal Sessions, will anchor the club’s programming with a monthly residency. The brand’s influence is tied to its long-running commitment to cutting-edge sounds, and its revival as a regular fixture underscores the club’s intent to reconnect with its roots while shaping new nights for the city.
Further information and updates will be shared via Instagram, including details of the opening lineups and subsequent programming once the doors are open.
