If you have never set foot in Egypt, the closest you are likely to get in Manchester is Transmission House on Tib Street, where Horizon of Khufu has been running since 2 April. It is a virtual reality experience that takes you back more than 4,500 years to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the resting place of Pharaoh Khufu, built during the Fourth Dynasty. The whole thing lasts 45 minutes, it is aimed at ages 10 and up, and anyone under 16 needs to be with an adult. The venue is wheelchair accessible, and the tech behind it is a good part of the draw: state-of-the-art VR headsets, full-room motion tracking, spatial audio and 360-degree visuals. It is created by Excurio and presented by Fever, and it was developed alongside Peter Der Manuelian, professor of Egyptology at Harvard University, and his team from the Giza Project at Harvard, so the detail is not just for show.
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The experience is spread across a 10,000 square foot space and is built around a few set pieces. You start on the Giza Plateau, with the Great Sphinx, a solar boat and the temples around it, before heading inside the Great Pyramid itself, where you can see the King's Chamber and the hidden corridors. There is a Pharaoh's funeral procession in honour of Khufu and an aerial flight over Giza to round it off. It is a lot to pack into 45 minutes, but the scale of the space gives it room to breathe.
On price, it is £23 for adults and £18 for reduced entry, which covers children aged 10 to 17, seniors aged 60 and over and students. If you are coming as a group of four or more, it drops to £19 a head, and there are tickets starting from £15. There is an add-on experience, Machu Picchu: Journey to the Lost City, for £17.40, and a couple of promotions worth knowing about: a Fall Kickoff Special with 20% off Horizon of Cheops and a Black Friday promo taking 25% off. There is no food or drink sold inside the venue, but there are cafes and restaurants nearby, and the space is air conditioned, which is handy if you are visiting on a warm day.
A few practical things are worth sorting before you go. Parking is available at the Manchester Northern Quarter car park, right next to Transmission House, so you do not have to wander far. Tickets are flexible, too: you can change the date and time of your session up to 48 hours before, subject to availability, and while there are no refunds, tickets can be transferred for free if your plans change. It is worth noting that this is part of a global tour that has already stopped in cities like Lisbon, Denver, Vienna, Quebec, Austin and Chicago, so the Manchester run is one chapter of a much wider tour. For anyone who has ever wanted to stand inside the Great Pyramid without the flight, it is a genuinely different way to spend an hour in the city.
Published Date
27 October 2026
