Mad Cool promoters prepare new central site
Organisers of Mad Cool Festival are busily finalising preparations on their brand new site for this year’s edition, in an effort to make the event more accessible for fans.
The festival’s management have secured use of a location south of Madrid city centre in the Villaverde District, which is at the centre of long-term plans for development as a cultural hub for the capital city. The three-day festival kicks off next Thursday, 6 July.
Mad Cool’s promoters have inked a pact with Madrid City Council to help transform the Villaverde site, which benefits from extensive public transport connections – a move which will also help meet the festival’s sustainability goals.
“Our main goal is to create a creative and environmentally friendly space of cultural development in Europe, to transform the area into a cultural hub for people who are environmentally conscious as well as lovers of art and music,” says Mad Cool director Javier Arnáiz. “The new site will increase tourism in the area whilst promoting the creation of new jobs in the area.
The proximity of the venue to the city centre is vital to strengthen the ties with the community and to ensure that everyone can enjoy the experience.
“This new location will be more accessible for festival goers, thanks to the extensive transportation network which also facilitates a more responsible and sustainable mobility. The venue capacity is 70,000 pax per day. We have built, everything from the ground, with great infrastructures that are totally prepared for any [inclement] weather, such as the absorption of rain.”
The relocation of the festival, closer to the centre of Madrid, has been embraced by fans, with general access tickets for the Saturday sold out while other passes can still be purchased via Mad Cool’s official channels. Organisers anticipate a large international audience for the event, alongside local residents and buyers from elsewhere in Spain.
In its new Villaverde home. Mad Cool will boast eight stages “with an incredible sound and space to enjoy the three days full of good vibes, music, sun… in the center of Madrid,” notes Arnáiz.
He continues, “Madrid is now one of the essential stops [for] national and international tours. Our line-up consists of 101 bands including huge names such as The Black Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lizzo, Mumford and Sons, Queens of the Stone Age, Ava Max, Sam Smith, The 1975, Nova Twins, Robbie Williams, Lil Nas X, Kaleo, Morgan, Franz Ferdinand, Tash Sultana, Paolo Nutini, Rina Sawayama, Jamie XX, Primal Scream, Machine Gun Kelly, among others.”
Having established itself as a summer destination for people in the music industry to meet and mingle, Arnáiz adds, “Our goal has always been to create an event and space capable of hosting major music stars, where the venue and its services would be one of the festival’s headliners, and where the audience – all the audience – would feel at home. People are really perceiving it this way, and the festival’s growth and establishment are happening very quickly. The proximity of the venue to the city centre is vital to strengthen the ties with the community and to ensure that everyone can enjoy the experience.”
Tickets for Mad Cool 2023 can be purchased here, with prices starting at €85 + booking fee.
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Mad Cool & The Spanish Wave announce IFF showcase
Mad Cool Festival and The Spanish Wave are teaming up to promote Spanish talent at this year’s International Festival Forum (IFF).
Three Spanish artists will perform at the Mad Cool Festival & The Spanish Wave Presents showcase at London’s Camden Assembly from 9pm on Wednesday 28 September. The line-up will be released in August.
The event will mark the culmination of a nationwide project to find the best emerging acts from Spain. With applications open from 2-30 August, the finalists will be selected by the festival and emerging talent showcase platform and export specialist, The Spanish Wave.
Spain is the guest country for IFF 2022
Spain is the guest country for IFF 2022, ILMC’s invitation-only event for music festivals and booking agents, which takes place in London between 27-29 September.
The latest round of guest speakers and conference topics for this year’s conference were unveiled last week.
More than 400 delegates from 26 countries have now signed up, with demand for IFF 2022 passes proving higher than ever.
IFF’s new delegate hub, the Holiday Inn in Camden, will be transformed into IFF Central for three days and host conference sessions, private parties and meetings, and speed dating for attendees.
Full information about this year’s event, including how to apply for a pass, is online at www.iff.rocks.
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Mad Cool reduces capacity by 20k, adds extra day
The organisers of Mad Cool festival in Madrid have reduced capacity, increased stage numbers and added an extra day to make the 2020 edition “more comfortable and pleasant”.
The fifth outing of Live Nation’s Mad Cool will have a capacity of 60,000, a 25% decrease from the year before. For the first time in 2020, the festival will run for four days, from Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 July.
Since launching in 2016, Mad Cool has grown rapidly from a starting capacity of 45,000 to 80,000 last year. The festival moved to its current home, which can accommodate 35,000 people per day, in 2018. This “massive growth” has led to some “incidents” in past editions, festival director Javier Arnáiz told IQ in a post-season reflection.
In another bid to tackle overcrowding, the festival will have an additional stage next year – bringing the total number to seven.
“The five-year mark signifies a massive challenge for a festival that always wants to be better and learn from its mistakes”
More space will be also dedicated to rest and relaxation, with a “larger and more varied” food offering.
“We are satisfied to have arrived to where we are with a committed team, top-class artists and, above all, a dedicated audience,” say organisers in a statement. “However, the five-year mark also signifies a massive challenge for a festival that always wants to be better and learn from its mistakes.”
Last year was “tough” for Mad Cool and other festivals across Europe, according to Arnáiz. Sales were lower than usual, which was due to a “lack of headliners” and the strength of previous billings.
“We have to continually work to improve the experience of our audience”, Arnáiz told IQ.
Line-up and ticket information for Mad Cool 2020 will be available in due course.
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EU festivals rank as fastest growing worldwide
European festivals including Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), Glastonbury Festival, Boomtown and Mad Cool are among the fastest-growing events in recent years, according to new research by StubHub.
The research shows the capacity increases of 50 festivals worldwide, ranking the fastest-growing in terms of percentage growth. Out of the music festivals examined, leading electronic festival and business conference ADE came out as the most rapidly growing event overall.
The multi-venue festival, which this year takes place from 16 to 20 October, has grown to more than 230 times its original size, from just 300 in 1995 to 70,000 in latest editions. Last year, ADE welcomed a record-breaking 400,000 visitors across five days.
Increasing capacity from 1,500 to 135,000 (210,000 including all staff), Glastonbury Festival has the strongest growth of any participating event in terms of raw numbers. New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival also showed impressive growth, up to 60,000 capacity from its original 350 in 1970.
Adding more than 11,000 fans per year, Madrid’s Mad Cool festival has expanded rapidly in its four years of activity
Adding more than 11,000 fans per year, Madrid’s Mad Cool festival has expanded rapidly in its four years of activity. The festival, which this year was headlined by Bon Iver and the Cure, has increased capacity by almost 80% since its inaugural edition, from 45,000 to 80,000.
Founded in 2009, the UK’s Boomtown Fair has undergone the biggest growth of the past decade. The event, which started out with just one stage and 1,000 guests, has increased capacity by 65,000 people in its lifetime.
India’s Magnetic Fields festival, founded in 2013, recorded the second fastest growth of the decade, expanding 500% to a capacity of 3,000.
European festivals made up 13 of the top 20 fastest growing events on the list. US festival South by Southwest, Electric Daisy Carnival (Las Vegas) and Ultra Music Festival in Miami also showed strong growth.
Lake of Stars festival in Malawi – the only African festival to appear in the research –also makes it into the top 20, although remaining relatively small. The boutique festival now accommodates 5,000 attendees, up from 700 in its first year.
A full list of results can be found here.
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25th Arthur Awards: all the winners
The 25th anniversary of the Arthur Awards, the international live music industry’s answer to the Oscars, took place at London’s Sheraton Grand Park Lane last night.
The awards – which have a voting pool of over 6,000 of the world’s leading concert business professionals – took place in front of a 350-strong sell-out crowd at the magical ILMC Gala Hou-dinner.
Glastonbury’s Ben Challis hosted the special anniversary ceremony, which saw a line up of guest presenters including WME Entertainment partner Michele Bernstein and WME agent Kara James.
X-ray Touring partner Steve Strange, Artist Group International president Marsha Vlasic and NEC Group chairman Phil Mead were among the list of guest presenters.
“It was wonderful to see the great and good of the international live business rubbing shoulders to recognise their peers”
“The 25th Arthur Awards were an amazing celebration of the talent we have in our industry, which brings joy to so many millions around the world,” says ILMC head Greg Parmley.
“With thousands of votes cast and counted, it was wonderful to see the great and good of the international live business rubbing shoulders to recognise their peers.”
The full list of winners are below:
Venue (First Venue To Come Into Your Head)
Royal Albert Hall, UK
Promoter (The Promoters’ Promoter)
Folkert Koopmans, FKP Scorpio
Festival (Liggers’ Favourite Festival)
British Summer Time Hyde Park, UK
Agent (Second Least Offensive Agent)
Lucy Dickins, ITB
Production Services (Services Above and Beyond)
PRG
Professional Services (Most Professional Professional)
Selina Emeny, Live Nation
New Gig on the Block (New Event)
Mad Cool Festival, Spain
Assistant (The People’s Assistant)
Claire Bewers, Coda Agency
Ticketing (The Golden Ticket)
CTS Eventim
New Business Talent (Tomorrow’s New Boss)
Kevin Jergensen, ICM Partners
Best in Show (Family Show)
Cirque du Soleil
The Bottle Award
Bryan Grant, Britannia Row
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