Night Clubs in City Centre - St Peter's Square & Oxford Street (Manchester)

The Attic

Located above the popular student pub The Thirsty Scholar, just off Oxford Road, the Attic has been a popular club venue for several years, spawning some classic — and extremely successful — nights such as Northern Funk on Fridays and Funkademia on Saturdays. This hot, dark, sweaty, but fun place is always spilling over with fabulous soul, ska and funk grooves. During the rest of the week the venue takes on a more general student theme, with various indie nights and regular cheap drink promotions a feature.

The Ritz

Although the Ritz was built as a traditional ballroom (with a properly sprung floor for ballroom dancing), it has moved with the times to add club, dance and live music to its ample repertoire. The interior is deceptively spacious, with 2 floors linked by sweeping stairways and decorated with unusual tapestry designs in rich reds and browns. Monday night has been Student Night for nearly 20 years and offers a cheap and cheerful alternative to some of the newer clubs in the city. A mix of indie, dance, and hip hop nights along with occasional live bands are held on weekdays, while weekends tend to attract an older crowd.

Generation X

Generation X is a bright, airy 3-floor venue offering a complete range of feel, atmosphere and location, just off the bustling mayhem of Oxford Road. From the basement club, through the spacious, ground-floor cafe-bar area, up to the scenic roof-garden and general chill-out zone, you can enjoy a varied mix of nights from deep funk grooves to electro and big beat, all with a relaxed ambience and a more choosy, fashion-conscious crowd. Food is available every lunchtime and early evening.

The Peveril of the Peak

This historic old pub is distinctive for its green Victorian tilework on the outside walls (making it resemble a bathroom) but in all other ways it is traditional in every sense of the word. It offers a games room with darts and snooker, comfortable nooks and crannies and even puts on live Irish folk music every Tuesday night.This is a surprisingly popular haunt for media and professional types as well as for a loyal regular clientele. It is located conveniently close to both the G-Mex Centre and Bridgewater Hall.

Aqua

Tucked away between fashionable Deansgate Locks and Whitworth Street, Aqua is a fun little bar and club that may seem a bit off the beaten track but is well worth checking out if you fancy a night of light-hearted, kitschy fun. If you want to get an idea of what the place is like, check out the entrance with its display of photographs, showing regular revellers having a great time. You can enjoy yourself dancing around - or you can just talk away on the big comfy sofas if you like - to a mixture of funky pop tunes, garage, house and the odd touch of Latino groove.

Po Na Na Souk Bar

This two-floor bar successfully works on a Turkish theme with lots of small rooms filled with ottoman-style couches under ceilings of muted white and deep yellow billowed cloth, offset by the low-lit beige walls. Playing host to several popular DJ nights through the week - mainly mixing soul and funk - this lively place attracts a trendy mixed crowd who enjoy its unique feel and deadly range of drinks and cocktails - particularly recommended is the fiery, inspired and Chartreuse infused Russian Quaalude.

Revolution

One of the early success stories of Manchester's now burgeoning bar society, this is the original Revolution along with its new sister in the highly fashionable Deansgate Locks. This popular vodka bar plays host to a wide range of clientèle, from affluent students to businessmen. The interior is a mixture of cozy and cool with big leather sofas and crimson walls adding warmth to the room. A wide variety of flavored vodkas and other spirits are available along with Stella Artois, Staropramen and Boddingtons on tap.

Jilly's Rock World

Jilly's Rock World—also affectionately known as just Jilly's—has been an institution on the Manchester club scene for over 20 years, offering a hugely popular rock and heavy metal alternative to the usual dance-orientated venues. Inside, it is appropriately dark, sweaty and slightly scruffy, but always full and great fun.Although fashions change, the club has resolutely stuck to its original ideals, and even if you can now also hear Gothic, hard-edged indie, industrial and nu-metal in the 3 main rooms, the emphasis is still on guitar music of the heavy variety.

Jam

A small, rather dark and dingy (although in the best sense of the word) basement sweat-box of a club that has been through a host of permutations over the last few years, currently fixing on Jam. Massively popular with both students and a generally mixed crowd - particularly at weekends - Jam works by offering cheap door prices, reasonable drinks deals and a selection of solid nights concentrating on mixing up soul, Latino grooves, jazz-funk and garage.

The Music Box

The alter-ego of sister club Rock World, the Music Box takes the spacious basement floor of this eclectic club complex and fills it with a mixture of dance music and live bands. Although the standard matt black décor is basic and the main room is more reminiscent of an aircraft hangar, the addition of lighting, projections and coloured drapes soon transforms the atmosphere. From mid-week onwards you can catch a diverse and popular mixture of nights and sounds from pure techno and break-beat through to samba and world dance. There are even occasional forays into live music and contemporary arts, with alternative theatre groups and events from such Manchester iconoclasts as The Divine David.

Love Train

If afro hair, medallions, flares, tank tops, platform shoes and disco are your thing then you could probably do worse than joining Brutus Gold and his friends on the massively popular Love Train.5 years on from its inception and this highly successful 70s disco themed club and cabaret night has still not run out of steam. Always great fun with a relaxed, anything-goes atmosphere it is beloved of office parties, suburban girls nights out and students alike. This is definitely the place to live out those Saturday Night Fever fantasies where no-one will even raise an eyebrow.

Infinity

Infinity is a £3 million make-over of the old Discotheque Royale, a massive 1500 capacity nightclub housed in an impressive neo-grecian building close to St Peter's Square. A complete refit has given the club a much needed facelift with additional dancefloors, lots of hi-tech lighting and an impressive new soundsystem. The music policy is shamelessly populist with plenty of garage, house and trance nights that appeal to a younger crowd, as well as students keen to take advantage of the regular promotions and special deals that help balance the normally expensive bar prices.