Sometimes the city can get a bit much. We love Manchester and everything that comes with it (yes, that includes the monumental amount of rainfall and Piccadilly Gardens), but there are moments when we want to hide away from the constant beeping, brickwork and busyness that make up so much of living within the confines of a city.
Dwelling in a city unquestionably makes us yearn for the outdoors more than ever. The sheer volume of our weekend escapes to the Peak District proves it – but recently, we had a brainwave. What if we could bring the outdoors in?
So, that’s exactly what we did. With the help of Passenger, we put on an event designed to function as an inner-city escape from, well… the city. Somewhere that you could pass through, hunker down and get some respite from the overstimulating sensations that soak our city’s streets. We settled on the name ‘Local Escape’ and built from there. Which sounds simple, but in fact, was anything but…
Headaches and the sort of email correspondence that crashes your Gmail aside, six months later we were standing in the venue, looking at how our planning had come together and praying that the tent we’d suspended from the ceiling didn’t fall down.
We opened the doors to Local Escape on Saturday morning, didn’t close them until Sunday afternoon, and everything that happened in between was a bit of a blur – to be honest. But in the best kind of way.
Over the course of the weekend, we hosted everything from group hikes and cyanotypes to map-making workshops and barbecues. We crammed as much in as we possibly could – which might seem counterintuitive to our original ‘roll through and relax’ ideology, but seeing the buzz on people’s faces as they returned from the hike, or as they sunk their teeth into a perfectly grilled hotdog, assured us that we’d made the right choice.
Kicking off the activities, we had a workshop from Field Blends, where we learnt how to make our own spice blends. You could make salty, lemony marinade rubs, smoky barbecue seasonings, or, with enough spoonfuls of chilli flakes, something that simply made your mouth feel like a bomb had gone off in it.
Then we got our fingers dirty with a wild clay workshop, where we repurposed clay found in the roads of the Peak District town of Todmorden into miniature jars and pencil pots. Shortly afterwards, a guided group hike set off for Todmorden itself – not to covertly harvest more clay, but to drink in the sights of the highest beach in England at Gaddings Dam.
Following that, we had a cyanotype workshop, which we overheard people saying was the most exciting science lesson they’d ever experienced. Then there was a screen-printing workshop, where we printed limited-edition co-branded tees that flew out almost as quickly as the hotdogs did off the barbecue that evening.
When we reopened the next day, we shook off our hangovers by crafting Nalgene bottle holders, led by the one and only Nots. Then we saw out the rest of the day kicking back, making maps and decompressing from everything that had gone on.
To say we crammed everything in would be an understatement. Did we achieve the type of relaxation that we’d originally set out to do? Not quite. But the tiredness accrued from being creative, having fun and chatting with like-minded people is infinitely better than the fatigue we usually feel from the city.
As mentioned, the weekend went by in an absolute blur. And while we loved taking part in as many workshops as we feasibly could, some of our favourite memories came from the moments when we were sitting back with a beer in hand, watching people use the space as we’d originally intended.
Across the weekend, individuals from all walks of life drifted in off the street – whether to take part in a workshop, peruse the Passenger product, or just do exactly the same as we were: kick back, catch their breath and collect their thoughts before heading back out into the deep unknown.
Much like the tent that didn’t fall from the ceiling, we hung in there. Local Escape proved to be an overwhelming success, and we’d like to personally thank everyone who came down and experienced it with us.
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