Hauntological atmospheres of the UK high street: Consuming Manchester's Halloween in the City

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel perspective on the production and consumption of high street atmospheres amidst the prevailing narratives of its impending decline and death. We explore how high street atmospheres are continually repositioned across past, present and future elements, experiences and narratives that are in constant tension with one another. We argue that these emergent tensions create a unique potential for atmospheric production that has a spectral, post-nostalgic element to the high street experience. Drawing on walking methods, semi-structured interviews with atmosphere curators and high street users and documentary analysis, this paper uses the case of Manchester Business Improvement District's Halloween in the City event to examine these tensions in the high street. In so doing, it introduces the concept of hauntological atmospheres to deconstruct and showcase how the legacies of the past still exert a powerful affective influence in the design, staging and performance of present atmospheres and experiences of the high street.