Great Northern Warehouse, Deansgate

It is very easy to be skeptical whenever global brands set up shop in a city for a weekend.

It can go wrong. The worst case scenario is a clueless monster corporation parking up in a town that has little in the way of a functioning scene and putting on an artist no local promoter could ever afford – “Colgate Presents Rihanna Live In High Wycombe In Association with McVities” and that kind of thing. Fortunately, rather than outsourcing talent purely for the purpose of showing it off in the North, House of Vans’ takeover of the Great Northern Warehouse in Deansgate was a cleverly done job.

  • © Jody Hartley

The left hand side of the venue acted as a temporary gallery space showcasing the work of three artists who had been selected collaboratively by Vans and Size?. Celebrated revivalist street artist TJ Dolan, part-time cafe assistant Lottie Pencheon and gruesome illustrator Lewis Loughman all had their distinctive work on show. The exhibition showed the various takes these creatives had on the shoes. In particular, the comic-book inspired humour of Loughman and the daydreamy imagery of Salford graduate Pencheon were perfect choices for the project.

  • © Jody Hartley

Especially for local talent, this was a massive platform to be exposed through as some 900 ticket-holders filed into the space for the Friday night of entertainment. The Facebook event was full of desperate party-goers offering money for one of the free RSVP spots and when it was full, the warehouse itself gave way to a phenomenal atmosphere. Some locally-bred soul was on offer through Jenna and the G’s – a band whose charismatic front woman and energised D’n’B breaks are primed for radio domination. More of those main-room sounds came from sets by Maribou State and Roy Davis Jr & Shadow Child but House Of Vans Manchester exercised yet more knowledge of the city they were inhabiting with a typically explosive set from local favourite Madam X.

  • © Jody Hartley

As pop-ups go, the House Of Vans series does a classy job. Manchester can now join a list of cities including Seoul, Berlin and Shanghai where they have turned up and transformed otherwise normal spaces into hotbeds of youthful creativity. They even went as far as roping in local coffee demigods Takk to devise a cocktail called ‘Off The Wall’ with iced brew coffee, gin and lime. You wouldn’t find that at “Dell Presents Disclosure in Whitby”.