Manchester airport is one of the three sponsors of Manchester twestival. It’s thanks to the generous support of the airport, bmi baby and kmp digitata that we can put on a fun social event and still ensure we raise as much money as possible for Concern.

Here are 10 facts you probably never knew about Manchester airport.

• Manchester airport has its very own cat - Olly – who came to live outside one of the buildings a few years ago and has never left. He now has his own Facebook page and was visited by a journalist from Kuwait recently who wrote a news article on his residence at the airport. He also became a she at the end of last year when during a visit to the vets, it transpired that she is actually an Olivia. There is a shift rota for airport workers who feed her and clean her bowls at the weekend.

• The “Tweeting Departure Board” on Twitter has been used over 2000 times since its inception in September 2009. Passengers only need to send a direct message to @manairport and they receive live flight data back every time the status of their flight changes.

• Manchester is the only airport in the UK that provides ‘plane spotters’ with a dedicated facility. It’s called the Aviation Viewing Park. There’s a few celebrity ‘regulars’ including Peter Kay and Denis Law. It’s also home to one of the only remaining Concordes in the world.

• Manchester Airport is one of the UK’s largest art sponsors, with £9 million pounds donated over the Airport’s history to organisations like the Manchester International Festival, Queer up North, Wigan Jazz and the Halle.

• Manchester Airport is the current holder of the ‘Loo of the Year’ awards – there’s 1015 toilet bowls, 464 urinals and 1021 sinks in total. Passengers get through 43,930,000 metres of toilet roll each year - if ‘unrolled’ this would stretch the equivalent distance of flying Manchester to New York (5,385 km) eight times.

• The redevelopment of Terminal 1 in 2009 gave the airport a retail frontage of around 550 linear metres, which is longer than the pedestrian zones of King Street and Market Street in Manchester City Centre.

• More than 1.5 million bottles of water and 40,000 bottles of champagne, 1.8 million books and over a million packs of cigarettes are bought by passengers every year in the Airport’s shops.

• Passengers also drink an average of one million pints of beer, eat 300,000 breakfasts and more than 3 million hot drinks every year.

• More than 19,000 people are directly employed on site every day.

• The airport has two parallel runways each 3,048 metres in length, three passenger terminals, a world freight terminal, 42 air bridges, 254 check-in desks, 940 information screens and its own rail station.

This is what it’s all about…. come and help us raise as much money as possible at Manchester twestival, for one fantastic cause.

So along with hundreds of other volunteers across the globe, we’re gearing up for this year’s Manchester Twestival; finding venues, seeking donations and of course, looking for sponsors who are willing to step up to the mark and support us in our efforts to raise money for a fantastic cause.

And we’ve been really lucky that three fantastic companies have agreed to sponsor our event.  So please take a bow….

bmibaby, the funky low cost airline that flies from four UK bases: Manchester, East Midlands, Birmingham, and Cardiff to 30 European destinations.

KMP Digitata, one of the North West’s leading based creative digital agencies that count some of the UKs most prestigious brands in their client list.

Manchester airport, needing little introduction.  Over 100 airlines offer direct flights from Manchester airport to over 210 destinations worldwide, connecting over 22 million passengers to more places than any other airport in the UK.  Pretty darn impressive.

We’ll be talking a little bit more about our sponsors over the next couple of weeks (and there are others who are helping out in different ways) but for now we’d like to say thank you for agreeing to help us organise Manchester’s very own Twestival.  Once again, there’s a very good reason why we’re doing this.

*photo used under Creative Commons courtesy of psd

Everyone involved in last year’s Manchester Twestival should be exceedingly proud of themselves.  We raised over £4000 for an incredible cause and had a great time doing it.  We want to help make this year’s global Twestival even more successful and contribute as much as possible towards the chosen charity, Concern Worldwide.

Be sure to keep Thursday, 25th March free and follow @MancTwester for the latest updates and ticket information (we sold out within five hours last year).

Finally, but most importantly, as every twestival around the world is organised solely by volunteers (who have day jobs, kids, dogs etc) the more people who get involved the better.  Specifically we’re looking for:

1. Help updating/maintaining the blog
2. PR support
3. Donations for our charity auction (some incredible donations last year)
4. Contributions to our goody bags
5. Help organising the event (including technical help with streaming, audio and visual)
6. Helping hands on the night itself.

If you think you can lend a hand please do get in touch via @MancTwester or email katie at prandsocial dot com.  We are also having a volunteers meetup on Thursday 18th February at 6pm in Rain Bar, just turn up and say hello!

MancTwester Local saw people turn out from all parts of Manchester’s digital community - academics, agencies, client side. The charity auction got pulses racing with a Wii, a case of Tsing Dao beer, a box of goodies from Durex and a NorthFace ice wall climbing experience. Marv was on the decks till late and a good time was had by all.

Big thanks to Sun Microsystems for sponsoring the event, McCann Manchester for organising it, Andy O’Brien for his compere skills and HouseBar9 for loaning us the bar. Over £1000 has been raised from the sponsorship, charity auction and ticket sales.

We hope that St Ann’s Hospice will be able to put the money to good use.

Lucky lucky MancTwester.
Brazen and NorthFace have just offered to give us tickets to an ice climbing session as an auction prize for Thursday night! Glad we’ve got a wide range of prizes now, something for everyone (we hope).

Thanks again guys!

McCann Manchester are helping to organise the Manchester Twestival this year and, to move things up a gear, are donating a Nintendo Wii for Thursday’s auction too.

Now we’ve got goody bags, football shirts, free cola, a comedian and now the chance to win a Nintendo Wii. If all of that isn’t worth a £5 punt, then just think of how the money raised could help the St Ann’s Hospice too.

Thank you to everyone so far

Looks like things are shaping up nicely for MancTwester Local on Sept 10th at House9 Bar. I reckon it will be a top night. This is what’s in store to help raise money for St Ann’s Hospice:

6.30 - 7.00            Arrive and drinks

7.00 - 8 30            Auction  (Prizes include - Dual Signed Hurst & Peters England 1966 Anniversary Shirt,                                    Nintendo Wii, sex toys, high quality alcohol and makeup)

8.30 – 9.00           Magic acts around the tables courtesy of Magic Man Clive

9.00 – 9.30           Tim Bradbury - Manchester comedian fresh from the Comedy Store.

9.30                      DJ Marv Speakman on the wheels of steel

Come along an dmake Manchester part of the global phenonema that is Twestival.

Remember to get your tickets before hand from here.

Woo hoo! Tim Bradbury, local comedian and Comedy Store star has kindly volunteered to do stand up for the Manchester Twestival local on Thursday 10th.

Check out his style here at the Comedy Store.

Things are really picking up for the Manchester Twestival now.
And some more great news, we’ve found someone to sponsor our goody bags and some fizz for the evening!

Ubuntu are donating loads of bottles of cola for everyone at the event. So if you haven’t already, book your tickets online now. Come on, it’s only as fiver!

Thanks Ubuntu