Twenty years in, The Warehouse Project is not coasting. The Manchester series has finalised its 2026 programme and wrapped a set of anniversary projects around it, and the through-line is the thing WHP has always traded on: putting big names in a concrete room and letting the building do the rest.

What is actually new in WHP26?

Three headline shows close out the booking. Overmono take over the whole venue on 30 October, and the room-by-room bill is the real story: a James Blake b2b Joy Orbison set, Helena Hauff b2b DJ Bone, plus Moodymann, Blawan and Aurora Halal, with Blackhaine, Space Afrika and Rainy Miller filling the Archive space. That is a curation, not a guest slot.

Solomun returns on 25 September for his first Manchester headline in five years, pitched as his only remaining UK date of the year after two London shows sold out fast. Tiësto lands on 11 December for the first time in the city in 13 years. They join KI/KI, Interplanetary Criminal, Duke Dumont and Hannah Laing on a season that runs from 18 September into January at Depot Mayfield.

Why build a whole archive around an anniversary?

Because the institution is now old enough to have one. Co-founders Sam Kendal and Rich McGinnis have commissioned a six-minute film from director Leigh Powis, shot over three nights on Kodak Ektachrome stock, leaning on local regulars and staff rather than talking-head DJs. Around it sits a podcast on the venue's history, a print magazine due in autumn, WHP26 mixes in spatial audio, and a vault of never-before-released sets spanning the full 20 years.

"Reaching 20 years is a huge moment for us. We have some truly incredible parties and line-ups in the pipeline.", Sam Kendal, co-founder

Does the milestone change what WHP is?

Not really, and that is the point. The series opened in 2006 with Public Enemy at Boddington's Brewery and has spent two decades moving sites while keeping the same proposition. The 2026 booking, an Overmono all-nighter next to a Tiësto night next to Solomun, is the clearest statement yet that WHP wants the festival headliners and the credible underground in the same season, under one roof.