Concert & event photography
Season 2026
41 venues accredited
A singer under crossing beams at The Ironworks, Manchester

Photographed live, filed by morning

Ravi Sandhu

Halden Wire · Marta Sena · The Ivory Bloc

Sonder Bay · Tuesday Cassette · Vault Sessions · Northlight Weekender · Bramble Fields

and a hundred and ten other nights a year, every one of them on file

Concert and event photography out of Manchester - arenas, cellars, fields and conference halls, wherever the run goes next.

Based Manchester
Nights a year 110
Selects filed Within 4 hours
Next open Late September

Run of show

Nights on file

Every date in order, with the venue, the city and the frames it gave up. Click a night to open its file.

By the count

A season, in figures

Numbers a press office asks for before it asks anything else.

0
Nights shot this year
0
Venues accredited
0
Hours to first selects
0
Frames licensed to press

How a night runs

Advance to wire

Five stages, and only the last one is negotiable.

01 -7 days

Advance

Running order, pit rules, who holds the pass and what the press office actually needs by morning. Half the job is decided before I leave the flat.

02 -3 hrs

Load-in

On site early to walk the room, read the plot with the lighting designer if there is one, and find the two positions nobody else will bother with.

03 Songs 1-3

First three

The pit window. Two bodies, no flash, one wide and one long, and no second pass at anything. This is where the set is won.

04 The set

The room

Out of the pit and into the crowd, because the picture that sells the next tour is usually facing the other way.

05 +4 hrs

Wire

Cull, level, caption to your spec, upload. Selects land while the crew is still loading out; the full edit is with you by ten.

Behind the camera

I shoot the room as well as the stage

I started in the back room of a Salford pub in 2013, shooting bands nobody had heard of on a borrowed body, and I have not really changed the method since: get there early, work out where the light is going to be, and be standing in it when it arrives. The byline says Kiro; the name on the pass says Ravi Sandhu.

Thirteen years later that is arenas and festivals as well as cellars, plus the conference halls and awards nights that keep the diary honest between tours. What has not changed is the deadline. Press offices do not want a gallery next week, they want six usable frames before the story goes cold, so I cull on the walk back to the car and file from a flight case in a corridor.

I shoot the room as well as the stage. The band already know what they look like; what they cannot see from up there is two thousand people doing the same thing at the same moment.

Ravi Sandhu shooting from the photo pit at a mid-size venue
  • Based Ancoats, Manchester
  • Shooting since 2013
  • Nights a year Around 110
  • Travels UK, Ireland and Europe

On the wall

Who runs the frames

Publications, promoters and press offices whose deadlines I work to.

Loudline Live reviews The Northern Review Culture desk Sonic Quarterly Photo essays Field & Stage Festival season Marrow Live Promoter Pennine Music Trust Venues & awards Verge Records Label press Northlight Weekender Festival Bramble Fields Festival Northern Tech Assembly Conference

On the record

The people who book me

We announced the tour at seven in the morning and Ravi's set was already in the folder, captioned, at half five. That has happened every single time.

— Dilys Roach, Press officer, Verge Records

He shot our whole weekend and never once got in the way of a set, a steward or a punter. The crowd pictures did more for next year's sales than the lineup poster.

— Tomas Elleker, Marketing lead, Northlight Weekender

Seated theatre show, string section, no pit and an audience close enough to hear a shutter. He came back with forty-seven frames and nobody knew he was there.

— Ffion Marsh, Producer, Marrow Live

Conference photography is usually a folder of people at lecterns. We got the room, the corridors and eleven speaker portraits, all published the same day.

— Adaeze Kolawole, Communications, Northern Tech Assembly

Where I'll be

Next on the sheet

Dates I am already accredited for, and the gaps between them. If you need a room covered that is not on here, there is usually a way.

  1. 12 Sep 2026

    Halden Wire, autumn run opens

    The Ironworks, Manchester Show

    First of eleven dates. Pit for the first three, then the room.

    By invitation
  2. 26 Sep 2026

    Sonder Bay, record launch

    The Lantern, Manchester Launch

    Two hundred capacity and one par can. My favourite kind of night.

    By invitation
  3. 09 Oct 2026

    Northern Tech Assembly, autumn day

    Halden Exchange, Manchester Conference

    Keynote, four panels and speaker portraits, filed through the day.

    By invitation
  4. 24 Oct 2026

    Open in the diary

    Anywhere reachable by ten, UK & EU Show

    A Saturday with nothing on it. Send me a running order.

  5. 14 Nov 2026

    Marta Sena, European leg

    Six rooms, five countries, Amsterdam to Lisbon Tour

    Away for ten days. Manchester dates that fortnight go to a trusted second.

    By invitation
  6. 18 Jul 2026

    Bramble Fields, main stage

    Bramble Fields, Derbyshire Festival

    Seventy-four frames, filed the same night. The set is in the run.

    Past

Got a date that needs covering?

Send me the venue, the running order and what your press office needs by morning. I will tell you inside a day whether I can be there, and exactly what lands in your folder when I am.