As our Wish Trees begin to fill with the secret desires of Manchester residents, we took a look at what we're wishing for... (they'll still come true, right?)

Image source, MIF

Image source, MIF

Image source, MIF

Image source, MIF

Image source, MIF

Now we feel embarrassed for asking for a pony.

Head down to Cathedral Gardens at any point over the festival, and add your wishes to the growing chorus.

Every wish will be taken to the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavík, with over a million wishes piling up since its inception in 1981. That's loads.

If you're not able to get down to Manchester tonight to tie your own wish to our brand new wishing trees - first of all shame on you, and second of all, do not fear!

We've managed to get a photo of the instructions - now all you have to do is follow them:

Image source, MIF

It's been so lovely to watch the residents and visitors of Manchester gather in the sunshine for our opening ceremony BELLS FOR PEACE.

A bask in the glorious weather, a chance to express yourself, and hopefully not being knocked over by the skateboarders. What's not to like?

Among them we found ex-locals John and Jill Calquhoun - they lived in Manchester 40 years ago, and still come back for all the delights of the festival:

Image source, MIF

Not just all over the city, all over the world - thanks, power of the internet! And thanks John and Jill for talking to us - we'll be catching up with audiences throughout the festival, so if you see us, come and say hello...

You've heard a little about our bell-making workshops now, where together we created just over 4,000 bells for this evening's festivities.

Take a look at how these bells got made...

Image source, MIF

The three brilliant women currently speaking are all artists involved with our festival - allow us to introduce them properly.

Amy Lawrence is an interdisciplinary artist and producer based in Manchester, as well as a Young Representative of the Manchester International Festival Board.

She also delivers Diverse Action, external, which champions representative live arts practise across the UK.

Grainne Flynn is an actor, director and and this year's young curator at the Contact Theatre.

As part of her role, this Manchester International Festival, she's brought Japanese Collective Chim↑Pom to Manchester, who have (brilliantly) chosen to build a temporary brewery right here - resulting in the show A Drunk Pandemic, external. We can't wait.

Image source, MIF

Olivia Lee is a performer and leader of KYSO - a youth organisation for young people not already engaged in performing arts.

She's one of the performers in this year's Skeptre show DYSTOPIA987, external, one of the final shows at this year's Festival. It's all sold out, sadly, but you can see Olivia as part of KYSO's performance at Festival Square, external.

Image source, MIF

We're delighted to bring brilliant artists from different disciplines together for BELLS FOR PEACE. Now, to the ringing!

Take a look at the full festival programme, external here.

We'll be bringing you plenty of lovely extra stuff right here, so sit back and enjoy our city-wide celebration!

Image source, MIF

Dan from the live team is on-site at Manchester's Cathedral Gardens, we're minutes out from the opening ceremony (which we're streaming live right here) and Cathedral Gardens is filled and positively buzzing - or should that be ringing?

Spirits are high, bells are jangling and they're absolutely beautiful objects, behold:

Image source, MIF

Image source, MIF

Image source, MIF

Right now there are bells ringing through the streets, coming out of bars and restaurants, and in the hands of children running around - a wall of sound filling our already very noisy (and wonderful) city.

Take a look at how the bells were engraved, here in Manchester, especially for this event:

Here we go!

We caught up with one of our Salford University crew members, Vittorio Miari, who's one of the many people who's been helping get BELLS FOR PEACE, external off the ground for tonight's opening festivities. Check out our quick interview with Vittorio below...

Crowds are starting to flock to the centre - we'll join them live in half an hour!

Image source, MIF

We're about one hour away from Yoko Ono's festival opening ceremony, BELLS FOR PEACE - you're in the right place for live coverage of the ceremony, during which we'll be sharing info and insight around the work, Yoko, and the people that made it happen.

In the meantime, we loved this preview, external in The Guardian. In Yoko's words:

Yoko's performance is free and open to all, beginning at 18:00 BST in Cathedral Gardens. Why not pop along early and make a wish at Yoko's latest incarnation of her long-term Wish Tree series, also found in the gardens.

Join us at 18:00 BST for live coverage of BELLS FOR PEACE, when we declare the Manchester International Festival officially open.

Curating tonight's BELLS FOR PEACE opening ceremony, legendary avant-garde artist Yoko Ono needs no introduction.

From her famous Bed-In For Peace, her revolutionary 1964 feminist Cut Piece, to her ever-growing Wishing Tree installation and exhibitions all over the world, we're so excited to bring her completely original take on life, politics and spirituality to our city.

But seriously though, have you seen her Twitter?

Famous for her surreal, sideways, succinct but oddly clarifying take on the world, it makes sense that the bite-sized message platform is perfect for her daily thoughts.

Scrolling through her Twitter feed, her characteristic blend of dreamy, surreal images interwoven with radical politics and spiritual warmth is genuinely unmatched. Honestly, we can't get enough.

Isn't it nice? It IS nice!

Startling, bizarre and utterly unique, it's easy to see how over the past 50 years of work, she has earned her status as an icon. And as we all know, there is no greater confirmation of this than being lampooned on The Simpsons.

Especially when she takes the joke and runs with it:

Legend.

What has she created for Manchester, external? Join us right here at 18:00 BST, and let's find out.

Since around 1981, Yoko Ono's Wish Tree series, external has been manifesting itself in cities all over the world - trees native to the city are planted together, and the audience is invited to write their wishes on small tags and cover the trees with them. In Yoko's words:

The wishes from each installation are taken to the Imagine Peace Tower, external in Reykjavík, external, and buried at its base - incredibly, over a million wishes have been taken there since the project's inception. The project has been installed around the world, including at MOMA in 2010:

As part of Yoko's opening festivities, Manchester will become the latest city to play host to Wish Tree. Visitors today can find the work in Cathedral Gardens and make of a wish of their own, ahead of the BELLS FOR PEACE, external opening ceremony. Join us here live from 18:00 BST for coverage of the performance.

Our Manchester International Festival is genuinely unique, in that it's all about debuting staggeringly ambitious work that has never been performed before.

These are projects that take mad risks, that try to stage the unstageable, that bring synchronised loud-speaker based adventures into the centre of town (yes, really, it's called Utopolis, external and we can't wait to see it).

Image source, MIF

And it makes sense that this is all happening in Manchester, after all, taking risks and building stuff is what we do.

(Yes, fine, we're from Manchester, we're biased. But tough. Danger Mouse was born here, guys. We're untouchable.)

So, welcome to our city, either in person or via our live page - we're a town that invented vegetarianism, split the atom for the first time, external, opened Britain's first ever public library, external, we brought the world canals, external, the first railway line, external, and most importantly, Vimto. The point is, we've got this.

Over the next 18 days, we're excited to show you a lot more of our industrious, risk-taking, ever-raining city. Glass of delicious Vimto in hand.

Take a look at our genre-bending, art-form melting programme, external, and get inspired.

MIF Creative Lab

First out of the blocks on our coverage of every Creative Lab artist is Caitlin Akers. She's created an amazing Twitter bot (we are BIG fans of twitter bots here at MIF Live HQ). In her own words:

So how does it work?

The bot is a response to Rafeal Lozano-Hemmer's MIF19 installation 'Atmospheric Memory', which is inspired by computer pioneer Charles Babbage's theory that voices from the past still linger in the air. Here's an idea of the amazing tweets that this lovely bot is currently putting out:

We feel extremely seen right now.

Follow the MIF Memory bot here, external, and of course you can follow Caitlin on Twitter, external and Instagram, external too.

We'll be covering every single Creative Lab artist, external over the next 18 days, stay tuned!

Image source, MIF

Now, we know what you’re thinking.

18 days of theatre, music, events, food, drink and sunburn, bells from Yoko Ono, Maxine Peake bringing song-theatre fusion, gigs, shows, adventures, dogs in Festival Square - where do you even start?

From Janelle Monae to David Lynch, from one-on-one experiences to city-wide extravaganzas, we’re here to take you through it all, and turn that Yoko Ono into a Yoko OYES (get on board with this, or it’s going to be a long 3 weeks).

What you need is a list of steps. Everyone loves steps.

Step 1: What are you into?

(Except for Maxine Peake, which is a given.)

Whether you’ve been to MIF before, only ever come to Manchester for the gigs (and the superior pies), and/or never stepped foot in a theatre, we’ve got something for you. The very first thing to do is to take a look at our programme of events, external, and pick out some stuff that looks right up your street.

Step 2: I don’t have time for that! I’m a busy human being with a limited attention span! Can you do it for me?

Look, we really can’t know exactly what sort of thing you’re going to be into, we’re not your Mum, but fine, we’re happy to get you started:

For DANCE fans, go here, external, here, external and here, external.

THEATRE nerds, take a look at this, external, this, external and this, external

GIG legends, blam, external, blam, external, blam, external

And feeling experimental? Of course you are - you want this, external, this, external and this, external.

Now we’ve whet your whistle, GO EXPLORE.

Step 3: What aren’t you into? Give that a go too.

The thing is, the entire ethos of MIF is that it bashes together art forms in new, exciting and very never-done-before ways.

This year’s shows merge music with adventures around the city, external, blur theatre and projection mapping, external, bring spoken-word to street dance, external and live gigs to classic films, external. We’re here to give you what you want. And then push it. So back to the programme with you, external, and DO IT PROPERLY this time.

Step 4: Sort out your socials

We’re going to be updating this delicious page with news, exclusive interviews, clips, reviews, recommendations and puns based on respected artists' names. But if you want the good stuff as it happens, follow MIF on Twitter, external, on Insta, external, as well as us, your festival guides (Tash, external and Dan, external, this is Tash, since you asked). We’ll be heavily in the mix throughout, so please find us in Festival Square, external, and if possible, bring us a vegetable.

Feeling armed? We open today. Let’s go.

Image source, MIF

An opening night headline act that almost needs no introduction, the inimitable Janelle Monáe, external is in Manchester tonight, bringing the noise to #MIF19. In case you've not been paying attention, here's the deal:

Janelle is an eight-time (!) Grammy-nominated artist whose body of work spans R&B, hip-hop, soul funk, new wave, electronica and every possible stop in between. Although she happily skips between and entirely around genres, an amazing sci-fi afro-futurist vibe permeates her albums and videos, creating a vibrant and wholly original sound and aesthetic. We absolutely stan.

Janelle works with ambitious narrative concepts, both in terms of her cutting-edge concept albums but also her very persona, often experimenting with an android-like persona that appears over and over again in her music.

Her live performances are legendary, but don't take my word for it: she absolutely blew the roof off the West Holts stage at Glastonbury just last week, going from polished stage show to literally diving into the mud towards the end, to the delight of the crowd. Dirty Computer, indeed. Check out the footage here:

Janelle plays a unique one-off the Castlefield Bowl tonight, and we could not be more excited. If you were lucky enough to grab a ticket, we'll see you down there, and look out for photos and footage tomorrow!

Image source, MIF

Last MIF, we took over Manchester City centre with What Is The City But The People, external, a glorious catwalk of 150 amazing residents, representing the breadth and scope of the people of Manchester. We wanted to celebrate diversity, individuality, bringing out the stories of the the people who make our city fantastic.

This year, BELLS FOR PEACE, created by the legendary icon Yoko Ono, wants to bring harmony, togetherness and beauty to our city centre, inviting the people of Manchester to head to Cathedral Gardens, external to ring out bells - those specially made for the event itself, as well as any audience members can bring along.

Image source, MIF

Kicking off at 18:00 BST, the crowds will be led through the event, which will feature the music of over 4,000 bells, ancient and modern, with plenty of surprises along the way.

The good news is that, whether you're able to grab a bell and make your way, or are stuck waiting for your microwave to ping 100 miles away - we're streaming the entire event right here from 18:00.

We're so excited to welcome the world to our city, and watch hundreds of people join together in the name of inclusion, music and peace. See you here, 18:00 BST.

Well gosh, it's day one, and we're feeling caffeinated, excited and absolutely raring to go.

As your live guide to this year's festival, this page will be kicking off each day with a rundown of what's on, where you should go and - if you're not here - how you can join in online.

So, the biggest event of Day One is our opening ceremony - BELLS FOR PEACE, external. Created by avant garde legend Yoko Ono, the city will fill Cathedral Gardens in a glorious participatory performance, with over 4,000 bells from all over the world joining in song, surprises along the way and a message of hope, peace and togetherness.

The event is free to all, and will be streamed live here from 6pm - so no matter where you are, you can enjoy it.

The first in our programme of shows also open today, Tree , externaland Invisible Cities, external, the first exploring issues of race, brotherhood and heritage and the latter mixing theatre, choreography, music and projection mapping to create a tale of other worlds.

More shows open every day, so make sure you check in to see what's coming up.

And finally, in terms of gigs, it doesn't get much bigger than Janelle Monáe. The eight time Grammy nominated artist is going to be blowing the roof off the Castlefield Bowl tonight, and if her Glastonbury performance is anything to go by, it's going to be absolutely sensational.

We'll be back throughout today with more trailers, unseen footage, news, photos and guidance, but make sure you check back in at 6pm, when we'll be going live with Yoko Ono's BELLS FOR PEACE.

Welcome to Manchester, and welcome to MIF 2019, external - we are officially open for business!

Image source, MIF

Hot on the heels of 2017’s now-legendary #Creative50, external, MIF19 welcomes another group of exciting cross-discipline artists to take part in this year’s edition of our artist development programme: the MIF Creative Lab.

This year, twenty artists make up our Creative Lab, and have been working intensely over the last few months to learn, collaborate and produce new exciting works in response to the Manchester International Festival’s commissions and themes. The cohort are all Manchester-based practitioners, whose collective work spans an enormous range of disciplines - from music, theatre, dance through to experimental design, sculpture, spoken word and poetry. Together they've been on an exciting residential programme of workshops, talks and demonstrations from world-class creative practitioners, and are now deep into production on their own projects, energised and inspired by the exciting digital skills they've been able to immerse in over the last few months.

Starting tomorrow, MIF Live will be showcasing every artist and their work during the festival, giving you a chance to hear more about these exciting practitioners in their own words, as well as checking out all their incredible work.

You can find out more about the programme and our exciting artists on this page, external, and of course keep it locked to MIF Live for close-ups on all of their work throughout the festival run.