What did it take to build a 20-year institution in Manchester?
The Warehouse Project did not start from a position of comfort. Sam Kandel and Richard McGinnis launched it in 2006 in a railway arch on Store Street, betting that Manchester had an appetite for the kind of relentless, focused electronic music programming that the city's clubs were not delivering. The gamble paid off in a way few anticipated. Two decades later, the WHP is one of the most copied formats in British clubbing: a seasonal, venue-specific model that treats the room as the product.
The move to Mayfield Depot was the second bet, and arguably the bigger one. The cavernous former railway depot gave the project a space commensurate with its ambition, and the booking policy followed: Floating Points, Four Tet, Peggy Gou, veterans of the original UK rave scene, and a continuous influx of the most credible names in underground electronic music, year after year.
What is the 'Twenty Years In Manchester' documentary?
For the anniversary, the WHP commissioned a documentary from director Leigh Powis, shot on Kodak Ektachrome film. The choice of medium is deliberate: Ektachrome carries a warmth and grain that digital cannot replicate, and shooting a 20-year story in a format associated with an older era of image-making sends a clear signal about how the project views its own history. The film, titled 'Twenty Years In Manchester', was available on Apple Music from 26 May for early access subscribers, with a global release on 29 May 2026.
The Apple Music partnership goes beyond the film. It includes a catalogue of Spatial Audio DJ mixes and, most significantly, a 20-year archive of sets that have never been released before. If you were in those rooms, this is the documentation. If you were not, it is the closest you will get.
"Twenty years of sets that never left the room, now leaving the room."
What does Season 20 look like, and when does it open?
Season 20 opens on 18 September 2026. The first shows are KI/KI, Interplanetary Criminal, and Overmono, a selection that points to where the project is right now: technically rigorous, physically demanding, not looking backward even as it celebrates.
Before the season begins, an outdoor photography exhibition in July 2026 at The Avenue Spinningfields, Manchester, will document twenty years of the project through images. It is free, public, and deliberately placed outside the club context, which is the right call: the WHP's impact is not only felt at 3 a.m. inside the Depot.
