In the 18th Century, Manchester was part of the industrial north. Its main export - and, incidentally, the thing that would keep the city going - was cotton. When the cotton industry started booming, the need for a more permanent place for trades to take place got all the more necessary. That was when the building that now houses the Royal Exchange Theatre came to be. With the decline of the industrial north centuries later, a group of artists took over the building and made it into the theater it is today.
