Beyond The Music, Greater Manchester's global music and creative industry forum and new music showcase festival today reveals the first details of the format and scheduling for its 2026 edition, taking place across various spaces within MediaCity, Salford for the very first time on 6th, 7th, 8th & 9th October 2026.
At its core, the ethos of Beyond The Music is to raise, discuss and solve some of the biggest problems facing the creative industries right now. The three day forum will combine some of the greatest voices in music, tech, film, gaming and content with musicians, creators and political leaders in order to set new policies capable of protecting, preserving and expanding our industries for years to come.
Opening night: the 24 Hour Party People premiere
Beyond The Music 2026 will open on Tuesday 6th October with a very special 24th anniversary premiere of 24 Hour Party People ahead of the film's 4K rerelease in cinemas nationwide. The screening will be accompanied by an exclusive keynote conversation with Director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan, who played the role of Manchester music pioneer Tony Wilson in the iconic story of Manchester's Factory Records.
Set in 1976 Manchester, 24 Hour Party People is a blackly comic tale of music, sex, drugs, larger-than-life characters, and the birth of one of the most famous dance clubs in the world, The Haçienda. Told through the eyes of the one man who was in the centre of it all, Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan), 24 Hour Party People graphically documents the vibrancy that made Mad-chester the place to be.
24 Hour Party People was made as a celebration of the spirit and music of Manchester and Factory Records under the chaotic leadership of Tony Wilson. So, Beyond the Music is the perfect place to premiere the re-release of the film, just 24 years after we made it.
24 Hour Party People is the work that is closest to my heart. I haven't seen it for nearly 25 years. It captures the creative spirit of the town I am proud to have grown up in. I feel very sentimental about it all which Tony Wilson would have deplored. Like Anthony HW and all those working class musicians, when it came to tell the story, Michael Winterbottom and Frank Cottrell Boyce made something special. 'A vague plan wrapped in an impossible dream', but it worked.
The Summit Series
Unfolding across 7th, 8th and 9th October, the wider conference programme will consist of a series of summits, keynote conversations with leading artists and music industry figures, lectures and networking events, each geared toward cross-industry connection and solution. Amongst the Summit Series for 2026 will be The Art of Resistance: Creator Industry Activists Assemble combining a generation of changemaking creatives to discuss the urgent need for ethical new right-holder models and change within the system; while The Music Industry Is For Sale, But Who Is Buying? asks how the growing acquisitions of catalogues, IP and independent companies across the music industry is really benefitting, and what impact does it have on creators and their fans?
Elsewhere, Class Acts: Is The Music Industry Now Too Posh To Push The Envelope? will unpick what Sam Fender described as a "rigged system", breaking down the gentrification of the airwaves, the reality of the creative wealth gap, and the structural overhaul needed to make the music business a fair game once again. Stop The Votes: Challenging The Political Value of the Creative Industries asks why music, film, TV, gaming and other sectors are at the back of the queue when it comes to governmental support, investment, strategy or even attention. The session will break down recent pro-active regional music and entertainment investment, strategy and growth to decide the strategies that will make politicians finally sit up and take notice.
Economics and value are key themes throughout the conference, with THE LIVE SUMMIT: The Gig Economy: Recharging The Long-Term Live & Entertainment Ecosystem looking at a new long-term strategy for the whole ecosystem, including examining sport's strategies for ways to better monetise music and entertainment.
The All Content AI Summit
Closing the 2026 conference programme on Friday 9th October, Beyond The Music will present a catalytic, first of its kind All Content AI Summit; bringing practitioners, rights holders and policymakers from every corner of the music and creative industries together for the first time in order to align on a shared, rights-based position for AI and ways to protect art and its creation, whilst ensuring commerce can grow and flourish alongside modern technology, 'The Manchester Principles'. The session will be convened by newly appointed Labour MP for Makerfield and former Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and include some of the most important names in the modern creative industries.
The festival by night
By night, Beyond The Music will transform a variety of spaces across the MediaCity and MediaCity Studios campus into a hub of new music discovery. Carefully curated by Oli Wilson, co-founder and lead music programmer of Beyond The Music, the festival's pledge to find, book and nurture talents both new and established has quickly seen it defined as one of the UK's most diverse and immersive showcases; pledging a 50/50 gender split across its lineups and ensuring underrepresented and undersupported genres, scenes and individuals, particularly those from Greater Manchester, are offered equal opportunities to grow their fanbases and professional networks regardless of their level of experience within the music industry.
This year, Beyond The Music will join forces with a series of exceptional, industry-leading tastemakers to curate each of its festival stages. Announced so far, 2026 curators include: Audio North, BBC Introducing, FOCUS Wales, Heist or Hit, Melodic, RTB, Studio 88, SXSW London, Treehouse Manchester, OpenLab, The Line of Next Fit, Notion and Dot to Dot Festival.