Manchester's finest urban music festival is still A Carefully Planned. Held over two days each October across Northern Quarter venues and a proper DIY effort rather than corporately funded, it showcases bands that might never get the corporate success its bigger and better funded contemporaries put on for that exact reason. It's a vehicle for discovering new bands, opening up to genres that you wouldn't ordinarily go and watch and in its most inspired moments an introduction to bands that will become your favourites.
