Manchester Flower Festival 2024 – 2

Continuing my walk round the festival displays the next one I came to was a tribute to Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sir Ian started his acting career at school in my home town and continued in one of the local theatres of which he is still a patron.

Round at the lower end of King Street was the ‘Hacienda Garden’, a rehash from last year featuring the former Hacienda nightclub’s well-known bright colours, stripes and disco balls and a bit further along were the ‘Ginnel Gardens’, a series of small quirky gardens inspired by creative gardening in relatively small spaces.

Next was ‘A Simple Man’, dedicated to Manchester-born artist L S Lowry and the working people he featured in his paintings. Born in 1887 he would spend his days collecting rents for a property company and his evenings caring for his disabled and often difficult mother, painting into the early hours of the morning while she was asleep. He died in 1976 and was buried next to his parents in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery.

In the middle of the Manchester Ship Canal close to Salford Quays is the quirky Gnome Island and in the middle of King Street was a smaller version of it which included tributes to some of Manchester’s icons. Manchester United, Manchester City, poet/comedian John Cooper Clarke and activist Emmeline Pankhurst were all represented by gnomes created with help from television and film design students at Salford University. The random gorilla further up the street seemed to have no purpose but I took a photo of it anyway.

Higher up the street was ‘Emmeline’s Town Hall’ decorated with posters, sashes and purple, green and white plants representing the colours of the suffragette movement. This was basically just a rehash of two separate pieces with a similar theme from last year, the town hall and the twisted willow figure, brought together to make a ‘new’ display.

Away from the main festival zone and tucked away round a side street a hair and beauty salon sported a couple of purple wisteria shrubs and an archway of orange and yellow flowers covered the entrance of the nearby Belvedere contemporary office block, while the entrance to the Refuge restaurant at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel had a small display set in a corner which, although quite pretty, bore little resemblance to the online description. Although not listed as part of the festival the First Street arches were looking very floral, while the urban flower garden painted around Stevenson Square was looking much brighter than when I was round that way in April.

The Printworks entertainment complex has recently undergone a £21 million upgrade and refurbishment and now features the largest digital ceiling in Europe. Running the length and breadth of the central walkway it displays a variety of moving scenes which change at specially programmed times and to coincide with the festival it featured bright flowers swaying gently against the background of a blue sky.

My trek around the festival displays had been an interesting experience which produced a lot of good photos but in some ways I was rather disappointed. The ‘Icons’ theme was very much the same as last year and several of the displays had been used before but were now just in different places; some of the smaller ones, which I didn’t bother photographing, looked as though not much creative thought had gone into them and they were just token gestures, while the twisted willow horse sculpture standing on its own seemed to have no purpose at all.

Compared to the last couple of years this year’s festival, for me at least, didn’t seem to be as good and I left with the thought that maybe the organizing team needs some fresh creative blood to come up with some new ideas for themes and general displays. Most of the displays however were excellent, especially the completely new ones, and with coffee and cake halfway through my trek I’d had quite an enjoyable few hours.