International post-production house The Farm Group has found a new home in Allied London’s new cluster for creative, tech and digital industries, Enterprise City.
The firm will open a 25,000 sq ft facility at The ABC Buildings, whose sixties architecture and characteristics are being readapted to create a leading media hub in the heart of Manchester’s city-centre.
Complementing the existing ‘Old Granada’ television studios at St. John’s, which are being redeveloped and operated by ALL Studios, this cluster of studios and production facilities will create a new centre of excellence for media in the north.
While substantial renovation work is underway on The ABC Buildings, Farm Manchester has been housed in The Riverside facility, also operated by ALL Studios, just next door to The ABC Buildings.
“We set up All Studios in 2017 to revive the iconic television studios at St. John’s and since then we’ve seen a huge demand for city-centre media facilities and we’ve welcomed the likes of BBC, Netflix and Amazon to the site,” said Allied London chief executive Michael Ingall.
“The Farm Group’s move to The ABC Buildings – one of our key media hubs at Enterprise City – is of massive significance for the cluster and growing proof that the north will be an international destination for content production and talent.
“The media industry is expanding rapidly as online content companies like Netflix and Amazon continue to disrupt how we buy, stream and receive media content.
“Our vision for Enterprise City will support these evolving industries to continue to grow in both scale and importance.”
Farm Manchester is in full flow completing the post production on the next series of Ambulance for Dragonfly and about to start on series seven of Real Housewives of Cheshire for Monkey.
In its new home at The ABC Buildings the team will have access to offline, online, grade, VFX and audio facilities along with a 40-seat screening theatre.
One of the four audio suites will be able to handle any Dolby Atmos requirements. Plans for the future include a roof terrace above the facility, for the use of all Farm Manchester clients and other tenants in The ABC Buildings.
Paul Austin, MD of Farm Manchester, said: “The news about the Farm setting up in Manchester created a real buzz and we had many clients that wanted to work with us, before the big launch in October.
“Riverside is perfect for us as it allows us to work with some of these clients and start to build up work that can carry on and finish in the new building.
“We have been blown away by the volume and quality of responses we have had so far, and the level of talent that want to work for the Farm in Manchester.
“As well as established industry leading local names, we are pleased that a lot of the approaches have come from new talent wanting to become the next big name, which fits exactly with what we want in terms of supporting and incubating the next generation of creative talent in the North West.”