Essential

I visited Manchester twice this summer. Once in early August and once again for Manchester Pride at the end of August 2009. On my first visit (a saturday night - from midnight to 5am) I didn't have a too good impression. Not only wasn't the music mine, basically only one room was packed with people, the lower two floors were quite empty, on was closed down from around 3am. The crowd upstairs was ok. That left me a bit disappointed about the "legendary" Essential. Then, during the Pride Weekend) I gave it another try, went on a friday night from 1am to 5am. This time i loved it. Still preferred the room downstairs. The crowd was in much better mood, too. And it was packed (well, I expected that... as it was Pride week). So I'd give "regular Essential" 2-3 stars, but "Pride Essential" definately gets all 5 stars from me. So the result is 4 stars....ish