Manchester Animation Festival

Firstly, check out our programme! Get an idea of what you’re interested in, what days you wish to attend, and from there you can view our Pass & Ticketing options.

There are various ways to experience MAF!

The Festival Pass allows you to pre-book tickets to events, screenings and talks (excluding workshops and ANF) across the entire festival! With this pass, you can book 3 events per day in advance. Using this pass, you can also queue outside events for any spare seats on the day.

A Festival Day Pass provides the same access as the above, but for a specific day rather than the entire festival.

An ANF Pass provides access to all Animation Nation Forum events and allows you to book meetings at ANF Connect.

An ANF+ Pass combines the Festival Pass with the ANF Pass. It includes access to every event at the festival excluding workshops. If you wish to go all-in, this is the pass you want!

Our Film Bundle provides 5 tickets for the price of 4, specifically for shorts and features screenings. It’s great for those who just want to take in some fantastic films over the week!

The YAY Bundle is specific to Sunday (8 Nov) and includes access to the YAY Awards Ceremony, 2 Talks & 50% discount for any Sunday screenings. It’s the ideal choice for those attending as part of the Young Animator of the Year Awards.

That’s perfectly fine! The vast majority of screenings and talks*, excluding the ANF programme, are available for standalone purchases. So long as these screenings have availability, you’ll be able to purchase tickets. A digital ticket will be sent to your email address of choice after the transaction.

*This year a handful of screenings will be exclusive to passholders, as will be stated in the event’s description. 

Once you’ve decided which pass you want, you’ll be taken to a checkout page. Before processing the transaction, you’ll be asked to sign up or log in.

If you’re signing up for the first time, enter your email address and continue to the next page. Click ‘forgot password’ and through this process, you can create yourself a password. Once you’re signed in you can return to the checkout and finish the transaction.

Pre-booking allows you to book tickets for the events you wish to prioritise! Passholders can prebook a maximum of 3 events per day to ensure that non-passholders also have a fair chance at accessing some of the bigger events. It also makes sure that we don’t have empty cinemas as a result of people booking in everything and not attending.

Not necessarily – ticket holders need to be in their seats 5 minutes before the event/screening begins! If the event is sold out but has availability in the auditorium5 minutes before the event begins, we allow passholders to take any remaining seats.

If you arrive past this point – ticket or not – your ticket may no longer be valid and cannot be refunded. Please visit our Terms & Conditions for more details.

If you’re unable to attend an event, we ask that you cancel your pre-booked ticket in your account to avoid empty seats. Alternatively, email boxoffice@manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk and we’ll cancel the ticket for you

We provide physical passes and lanyards for most pass types, with exception to the Film Bundle and YAY Bundle. You can collect passes from the Box Office point at HOME Cinema from Sunday 8th November onwards.

Physical passes contain a unique QR code which has all of your bookings tied to that code. Simply flash your pass at the events you’ve booked, and we’ll scan you in on entry. The process is exactly the same of any events you may queue for on the day – if there are available seats we’ll scan you in.

We recommend passholders (excluding those with a YAY Bundle) to aim their bookings for the Monday-Thursday period of the festival. Sunday is aimed at more of a general public audience and families, who may only want to attend one or two events. Passholder ticket allocations for Sunday will be much more limited, so we highly advise that you arrange your trip around our Monday-Thursday programming.

There’s a few potential reasons for this. Firstly, if you’re a passholder, make sure you are logged in before trying to reserve tickets. If the event still says it is sold out, that means it has reached capacity. 

Alternatively, the event might be part of the Animation Nation Forum, taking place on Wednesday 11 November. These events are only available for certain pass types – ANF Pass & ANF + Festival Pass.

If you’re unable to book standalone tickets, the event is either sold-out or it is exclusive to passholders. This year we have a handful of showings that are available to passholders only (as will be outlined in the event’s description). 

For further clarity on pass types, please visit our Tickets & Passes page.

If you have an ANF+ Pass, Festival Pass, Day Pass or MAF Online Pass, then yes!

The online programme will run 13-30 November and will consist of screenings, events and more. Short films are geo-blocked to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to international rights, talks are accessible internationally. Check out our Audience FAQs for more info on that.

Workshops are standalone ticketing only. To book onto a workshop, simply click the ‘buy tickets’ link on the workshop’s page. Workshop attendees must be aged over 18 for any workshops running Monday-Thursday.  Family day workshops and activities will state the appropriate age range in their event description.

This year we’ve created a dedicated ticket bucket for wheelchair users at our HOME Cinema venue. If you’re unable to book one of these tickets, it’s likely due to it reaching capacity for the specific event. Details regarding HOME’s accessibility features can be found here.

If you require a companion seat or ticket, please email boxoffice@manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk with suitable proof (e.g. CEA Card or equivalent) and we will issue a code through which you can book the seat.