Manchester Christmas Markets will open for the last time on Thursday before closing for the year. It comes as the markets celebrate a bumper season with visitors back up to pre-Covid levels.
Thousands of shoppers have descended upon this year’s markets, which have featured 220 wooden chalet stalls spread across nine different locations in the city. The market has proven so popular this year that it has even sold out of the special 2022 Manchester Market Mugs - breaking all previous records.
A total of 140,000 collectable mugs have been taken home as a memento by shoppers, forcing market bosses to bring out vintage mugs from previous years to meet the demand. Visitors were bolstered this year by the introduction of the Festive Sundays programme, which saw six weeks of roaming puppets, supersized penguins and illuminated bands taking to the streets to bring extra festive cheer to the city.
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The first ever Manchester Christmas Parade was also held on Sunday December 11, the only parade of its kind in the UK. Thousands of people turned up to watch the free event which featured 200 participants taking part in the procession through the city centre.
This year’s markets have also been the greenest yet with measures taken to reduce the carbon footprint of the markets, such as using low energy LED lighting and Biofueld rather than diesel for electricity. Accessibility has been a priority this year with the provision of fully accessible toilets and changing facilities, along with priority seating and dedicated spaces for visitors to rest.
Councillor Pat Karney, Christmas spokesperson for Manchester City Council, said: "Visitor numbers to our world-famous Christmas Markets have exceeded all expectations this year, with thousands upon thousands of visitors flocking into the city centre to enjoy them. We're definitely back up to pre-Covid levels and it's clear that visitors are really enjoying having their freedoms back and are making the most of this.
"Despite a bit of a dip in numbers seen during the train strike days, our first-ever Manchester Christmas Parade and our Festive Sundays aimed at families really helped boost overall visitor numbers and helped create an extra bit of Manchester Christmas magic. And with visitors gulping down the Gluhwein and managing to get through a whopping 140,000 Christmas mugs, thank goodness we had some spares from previous years and were able to bring out the vintage.
"It's not just the mugs either that have been going down a storm this year, we've also been talking to our traders and have worked out in a very scientific fashion that if all the bratwursts and sausages sold at the Christmas markets during their run this year were laid end-to-end, we'd have a line of sausages that would stretch pretty much from Manchester all the way to Liverpool.
"More than anything though, what our visitor numbers this year tell us is that it's clearly game-on for 2023, and we're already starting to think about how we can make Christmas in Manchester next year even greener and greater than ever. Our planning will start in earnest in the new year and we'll be looking closely as we go at all the brilliant suggestions people have come up on how we might do this.
"I'm also told by the elves-in-the-know that this will include suggestions from the big red man himself, who as well as confirming he will definitely be back in his favourite city in the world again next year has, I believe, a couple of ideas of his own on how we can make Manchester even more San-tastic in 2023."
You can visit the Christmas Markets for one last time until 5pm on Thursday, December 22. The market stalls at Cathedral Gardens, alongside the Ice Rink, will remain open in the run-up to Christmas and again after Christmas until New Year’s Eve.
The opening times for the Cathedral Gardens stalls are: December 22-23: 11am -9pm.
December 24: 10am - 5pm.
December 25: Closed.
December 26-31: 10am to 6pm.
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