Magic Mirror, Selfie Pod & Photography Hire at Manchester Hall

36 Bridge Street, Manchester, M3 3BT, Manchester, Greater Manchester, M3 3BT

✓ We’ve worked at this venue before

Manchester Hall on Bridge Street was completed in 1929 as the headquarters of the Freemasons of East Lancashire, to a neo-classical design by Percy Scott Worthington that won him the RIBA Royal Gold Medal the following year. Grade II listed and restored in partnership with English Heritage, it now runs eleven function rooms. Goulburn Dining is the ballroom — 192 dining or 350 standing beneath a domed, gold-corniced ceiling with a giant chandelier, antique mirrored walls, its own exclusive bar and a parquet dance floor. John Rylands is the fifth-floor rooftop, the building's largest space at 500 standing, with skyline views and convertible coverage that takes the weather out of the question. Goulburn Lodge keeps its original black-and-white Masonic chequerboard floor with the All-Seeing Eye worked into the ceiling, and The Museum displays regalia in glass cases set into its walls. The building is licensed for civil ceremonies throughout.

We know this building. We've worked Manchester Hall for two corporate evenings on consecutive nights, so we already know the Bridge Street load-in, how differently the ballroom and the rooftop behave, and what it takes to strike one night's setup and be glowing again by the next.

In Goulburn Dining the mirror sits against the mirrored panelling and belongs there, with the red carpet along a wall so the queue never crosses the parquet. At 350 standing for a gala night, two units beat one — the mirror by the dance floor and a pod near the bar — so the room never has everyone queueing in the same corner. Each needs no more than a 10ft by 8ft footprint and one ordinary socket.

John Rylands is a different job: 500 people, the skyline behind them, and the pod wins up there — five foot square, quick, catching people between the drinks and the view. For a wedding, the day never leaves the building — ceremony in one room, dinner and dancing under the chandelier — and we set up once during the turnaround.

The audio guest book works as well at a gala as a wedding: a vintage telephone on a side table in The Museum or the Gallery, collecting what people actually thought instead of another feedback form nobody fills in. Aerial film here is a planning job rather than a permissions problem — Bridge Street sits well outside both flight restriction zones — and Worthington's 1929 facade against the modern city is a shot almost nobody has.

We've put together a free event pack for couples and event organisers at Manchester Hall, downloadable below. It sizes every option to the rooms here, lays out the prices in full, and carries MANCHESTERHALL5 — a venue-exclusive code that takes 5% off anything in it.

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Last reviewed August 2026 · Venue details and pricing verified current.

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