Venue that launched the careers of the Chemical Brothers, Frank Turner and Everything Everything battles against closure

One of Manchester’s grassroots music venues, Retro Bar, is facing forced closure by July 2025 to make way for a major redevelopment project expected to generate billions of pounds.

Despite decades of cultural contribution and a vital role in nurturing musical talent, the venue’s operators say they have been left “an afterthought,” offered only what they describe as “basic business funeral costs.”

“In August, developers will demolish our premises. We cannot trade past July 2025,” said the Retro Bar team.

“We have only been offered a small financial contribution, which will aid in winding down our business with staff redundancies. It is a fraction of the cost we face to move site, recover lost business and keep staff employed.”

Retro Bar, Manchester

Retro Bar, which has operated in various guises in Manchester city centre for more than 35 years, currently delivers over 200 live gigs and club nights each year, welcomes more than 20,000 customers annually, and supports an extended team of 20 people. It has also built strong collaborative links with local academic and cultural institutions, hosted art exhibitions, film screenings, spoken word events, and played a key role in skill development for the city’s creative sector.

“The current reality is business extinguishment,” they added. “It feels wrong that we have essentially only been offered basic business funeral costs when we are still very much alive and ready to continue doing what we love. This mentality completely ignores everything we have built up over the past seven years under my stewardship.”

Artists and supporters across the UK music scene have expressed outrage and disappointment at the threat facing the venue. Frank Turner, a chart-topping musician who has played at venues around the world, credited Retro Bar as instrumental in launching his solo career.

Frank Turner supports the Retro

“The Retro is where I played my first solo show in Manchester (show #20, 20th November 2005!),” Turner said. “Without venues like this, I would never have been able to build my career up to the point of headlining the Academy earlier this month. What these vital spaces provide are stages for musicians to develop their skills, learn their craft and a pipeline on to bigger things. They run off passion.”

Turner, who recently performed at Manchester Academy, said it is “common sense” that Retro should be relocated, not lost.

He added: “The cultural value of this space alone cannot be underestimated. It is becoming a common thread seeing city centre grassroots music venues forced to close due to redevelopment plans.

“If we don’t raise our voices on this matter, it won’t be long before emerging musicians will wonder where they can play their first gig. They cannot start without them.

Everything Everything

Everything Everything, another Manchester-bred band with international acclaim, shared similar sentiments:

“Everything Everything played two of our very earliest gigs at Retro Bar, and before that we’d played it in more embryonic bands, embracing Retro’s vital training ground. There are fewer and fewer of these essential resources nationwide, and Manchester must protect Retro Bar and her ilk, if we want to remain the music city we are celebrated as globally.”

The legacy of the venue is undeniable. Retro was the site of The Chemical Brothers’ earliest DJ sets in the 1990s and has since become a key stop for up-and-coming bands on the national touring circuit, focusing on ska, punk, rock, and alternative genres.

Retro’s in-house festival, R-FEST, saw more than 100 bands perform over a week, across two stages – a feat rarely matched by similar venues.

But Retro’s impact has gone far beyond music. The venue has become a hub for skill development, offering young creatives opportunities in sound engineering, event management, design, and more. It has launched educational outreach programmes with local music colleges, supported visual artists, run charity fundraisers, hosted popular LGBTQ+ events during Pride, and even introduced its own line of sustainably sourced beers.

“We want to carry on doing all of this and serving our communities,” the team stated. “We have the necessary equipment and a wonderful team of driven people ready to go. All we have requested from landlords throughout the past 12 months has been an alternative space to relocate to and continue.”

While two replacement sites were proposed, Retro says both were “wholly unsuitable” and failed to consider the operational, cultural, and spatial needs of the venue and its community. In response, the venue team has taken it upon themselves to conduct their own extensive search for suitable premises.

Despite this progress, the uncertainty remains crushing. “Throughout this process we’ve been led to believe that there would be a fair outcome presented where we didn’t face the total loss of our business,” the statement reads. “But our future has now been thrown into complete uncertainty.”

The call to action is clear: Retro is seeking financial and moral support from the public to ensure it can relocate and relaunch in a new space.

The startup costs are substantial – it took more than two years to make the original venue viable – but the team is hopeful that with community backing, a new chapter can begin.

The Retro fundraiser

You can donate to The Retro fundraiser by clicking here

“This is as much about demonstrating support for the venue as it is about raising money,” they said. “Whether that’s £1 or £100, every supporter is valued. Let’s show that Retro is here to stay. By being vocal and united, we can overcome these challenges.”

For Turner, the stakes are existential: “What is often sadly overlooked is not only the loss of the venue itself, but the tightly networked teams and communities that rely on and operate within them. They are efficient, professional and passionate individuals.”

“Let’s send a very simple message: Save The Retro.”