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Unchartered Territory

At the end of September, Warehouse Project opens its doors at its new Trafford Park home for its seventh season. We’re almost as giddy with anticipation as they are...

“We’re excited, but we are absolutely shitting ourselves as well,” Warehouse Project’s Kirsty admits to DJ Mag with an air of earnest enthusiasm over a telephone line from Manchester. “A very similar feeling to before Boddingtons back in 2006 — kind of flying by the seat of our pants.”
It might feel like a lot of water has passed under ‘The Project’ bridge since setting up in Manchester’s famous old Strangeways Brewery seven years ago, but that doesn’t mean the next step in its evolution has been taken lightly, even for a crew of promoters as weathered and experienced in the game as WHP. Deciding that life at its previous, much-coveted home, Store Street car park, had run its natural course, the obvious next stage was to set sights on something bigger; a 12-week series of events crossing further into festival territory while still fulfilling the large-scale tunnel party concept that defines its name.
“It’s felt totally brand new again,” explains Kirsty. “We are kind of in uncharted territory — WHP has always kind of sat between a festival and a club and we’ve tried to make it feel like a more special event; something that people will look at months in advance, book tickets and look forward to rather than deciding the week before they fancy a night out.”
 
No longer burdened with the responsibility of transforming the space back into a car pack come the end of the season, added focus has fallen onto ensuring each event achieves optimum levels of production and sound, with line-ups programmed to maximum capacity within this massive post-industrial ex-depot.
“The scale of the new space offers a very different experience from Store Street,” Kirsty says. “WHP can now do justice to some of the big production shows that we’ve previously had to shoe-horn into a small stage, but the venue will still retain that very raw and underground vibe that WHP is known for.”
 
Offering three rooms — including an intimate, shrunken version of Store St’s main archway and an enormous ex-storage facility as a main room — WHP12 launches on Friday 28th September with Rinse (Katy B, Skream, Boy Better Know, Zinc, Kode9, Plastician etc). Continuing as it means to go on with a range of international talent, including Nicolas Jaar, Seth Troxler, Maya Jane Coles /Heidi b2b, Maceo Plex, Julio Bashmore and Four Tet (and that’s just the following night!), throughout October it’ll be curated by WHP (5th/20th), SBTRKT (6th), Bugged Out! (12th), Ape (13th), Bloc Party (19th) and TEED (26th) to complete a line-up that needs to be seen to be believed... thewarehouseproject.com

WAREHOUSE PROJECT
WHERE? Trafford Park Rd, Manchester
WHEN? Friday 28th September - Tuesday 1st Jan
HIGHLIGHTS? Seth Troxler, Jamie Jones, Julio Bashmore, Maceo Plex, Maya Jane Coles, SBTRKT, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED), Ricardo Villalobos, Derrick Carter, Boys Noize, Simian Mobile Disco, Paul Kalkbrenner, Matias Aguayo, Cassy, Raresh, Kode9, Flying Lotus, Jamie xx, Martyn...
HOW MUCH? £22.50
WEB? thewarehouseproject.com