Access All Ages: Creative Community Hub at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

The Access All Ages Creative Community Hub at The Bridgewater Hall builds on the success of our landmark Access All Ages event in May 2024, which brought together over 500 people from across Greater Manchester in a powerful celebration of intergenerational connection, creativity and community. That moment demonstrated both the appetite for and the impact of bringing generations together at scale. The Hub now translates that energy into a consistent, place-based model, delivered monthly, creating a regular and trusted space for connection in the heart of the city.

The hub is a vibrant, inclusive environment where people of all ages come together through music, creativity and shared experience. Rooted in the principles of intergenerational connection and creative health, it creates meaningful opportunities for individuals to build relationships, express themselves and support their wellbeing through participation in the arts.

Each session brings together a rich and diverse mix of participants, including local toddler groups, care home residents and members of the public. This intentional intergenerational design creates a dynamic and reciprocal environment where everyone has something to offer whether through music, movement, storytelling or conversation. Participants are not only engaging creatively, but building confidence, forming relationships and developing a stronger sense of belonging within their community.

At its core, the hub operates as a replicable model for prevention, positioning creativity and connection as essential forms of social infrastructure. By embedding regular, open and welcoming sessions within a major cultural venue, the programme creates a consistent point of access for communities who may otherwise remain disconnected. It demonstrates how cultural spaces can play a critical role in addressing loneliness, supporting mental health and strengthening the social fabric of local communities by meeting people where they are.

A key example of this in practice has been the Manchester Metropolitan University Nutrition takeover, which transformed the hub into a live, interactive public health environment. This focused specifically on nutrition, healthy eating habits, and increasing awareness around sugar and fibre intake.

Rather than delivering information in a traditional or clinical format, students worked alongside participants to translate key health messages through music, creativity and shared activity. Using songwriting, discussion, and creative exercises, complex ideas around diet and health were made accessible, engaging and relevant to people of all ages.

What made this approach particularly powerful was its grounding in real community interaction. Conversations around food became a bridge between generations, with participants sharing personal experiences, cultural traditions and everyday habits. This led to the co-creation of intergenerational recipes and resources, reflecting both nutritional guidance and lived experience, making the learning practical, meaningful and rooted in real life.

This model demonstrates a highly effective approach to prevention and public health. By meeting people where they are, in a trusted and familiar space, and embedding learning within creative and social experiences, the hub supports behaviour change in a way that feels inclusive rather than instructional. It shifts health from being something delivered to communities, to something shaped with them.

In this way, the hub acts not only as a space for connection, but as a conduit for accessible, community-led health education, where creativity becomes a tool for understanding, engagement and long-term impact.

This work has been made possible through the generous support of the I Love Manchester Charity, enabling the development of a sustainable and scalable approach to intergenerational community building.

Aligned with national priorities around prevention, creative health, healthy ageing and community-based care, the Bridgewater Hall hub demonstrates what is possible when we intentionally design spaces that bring generations together. It reflects a growing recognition across health, cultural and policy sectors that connection, creativity and community are not secondary outcomes, but fundamental to long-term health and wellbeing.

Participants consistently report increased confidence, improved mood, and a greater sense of connection and belonging. The impact extends beyond the sessions themselves, supporting longer-term relationships and contributing to wider community resilience.

Emily Abbott, Programme Director, Intergenerational Music Making, shares:

“Spaces like the Bridgewater Hall hub show what’s possible when we intentionally bring generations together. Through music and shared creativity, we’re not only supporting wellbeing, but creating meaningful connections that strengthen communities and help people feel seen, valued and part of something bigger.”

"Sessions like this reaffirm why I retrained as a public health nutritionist. Incorporating music into public health nutrition allowed students to see how small, thoughtful actions can lead to meaningful engagement — and how health promotion can be inclusive, participatory, and lasting with very small simple powerful memorable messages. Messages were brought to life , helping them stay with people long after the session ends. I think we all had a Food, Glorious Food Ear Worm for days." Ann Marie Hunt

The hub forms part of the wider work of Intergenerational Music Making (IMM), which is dedicated to using music and creativity to connect communities, reduce isolation and support wellbeing across the life course.

We welcome referrals, introductions and partnership enquiries from schools, early years settings, care homes, community organisations, universities, cultural institutions, local authorities and health or social prescribing partners. Whether you are looking to refer individuals or groups, collaborate on research or delivery, or explore how this model could be developed in your area, we would love to hear from you.

To find out more, refer a group, or explore partnership opportunities, please contact:

info@imm-music.com

or visit: https://www.imm-music.com/communityconnection

“Before coming here, I spent a lot of time on my own. Now I feel connected again I’ve met people, shared stories, and I actually look forward to something each week.”

Hub participant