Offie Mag

Between 13–15 March, Keep Walking Live: Manchester is positioning itself as more than a brand collaboration between the esteemed radio station NTS and the Scotch whisky brand Johnnie Walker.

Every ticket across the programme is capped at £5, several events are free, and 100% of net ticket proceeds will go to Manchester music charity Brighter Sound to support local artist development. The line-up spans DJ EZ, Anz, KOKOROKO, Venna, Nubya Garcia, Space Afrika, Oriki and more, across SOUP, New Century, Eastern Bloc and Impiety Hour.

On Saturday, there are free DJ workshops at the NTS Manchester studio, led by Finn and Abena, which feed directly into an intergenerational showcase at Eastern Bloc later that day. It’s a simple idea, but a useful one: skill-sharing in the afternoon, public performance in the evening, all rooted in physical spaces that have actually shaped Manchester music culture.

It’s an example of a brand’s marketing spend having a tangible impact on sustaining grassroots music. In the current climate, that matters. Music Venue Trust said its Emergency Response Service handled more than 200 individual venue crisis cases in 2024, while it also warned in late 2024 that over 350 grassroots music venues were at immediate risk of closure.

The wider context is just as bleak. YMCA England & Wales says local authority expenditure on youth services in England has fallen 73% since 2010–11, a real-terms cut of £1.2 billion. UK Youth, citing the same 2025 YMCA report, says that a collapse in spending has helped drive the closure of more than half of local authority-run youth centres and a major loss of youth work infrastructure.

So while this is not a fix-all, it is one possible model on one weekend this month: affordable shows, free workshops, and money flowing back into local infrastructure rather than just into Meta ads and other visual metrics.

Tickets and full programme via NTS.