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Mad Cool announces 2018 dates and venue, London show

After two years at the Caja Mágica, Spain’s Mad Cool Festival is to move to a new site for its third outing, increasing capacity to 35,000 per day.

Mad Cool 2018 will take place from 12 to 14 July at ‘Mad Cool Space’, a 100,000sqm, 80,000-capacity site at Valdebebas, a new development located adjacent to the Ifema convention centre north of Madrid. In addition to increasing capacity, the Valdebebas site gives the festival space for seven stages, up from its current five.

Expanding is a “natural response to the evolution and growth of the festival” and marks the evolution of Madrid “into a city of reference for large-format live music events”, reads a statement from the event.

Speaking at IFF in September, Mad Cool’s Cindy Castillo described the festival’s former home, in the car park of the Caja Mágica complex in Madrid, as necessitated by local authority hostility to live music. “In Madrid, every venue has been shut down by the right-wing government,” she said, “so we had to look for a weird place to hold the festival.

“This increase in capacity is a natural response to the evolution and growth of the festival”

“There’s a big pavilion and Mad Cool takes place in the parking lot, but you’d never guess it was a parking lot: We have palm trees, green grass, everything you can imagine – but if you go there on Monday morning it’s all grey concrete…”

Mad Cool, promoted by Live Nation Spain, was launched in 2016 amid a boom in new festivals in Madrid, which has traditionally underperformed compared to other cities in Spain. This year’s event, headlined by Green Day, Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon, was marred by tragedy after acrobat Pedro Aunión Monroy fell to his death ahead of Green Day’s set.

To mark the move to a new venue, Mad Cool is hosting a free show at London’s Koko (1,410-cap.) on 7 November. The first London Sessions concert will feature performances by Monarchy and Haux, with tickets available free from the Mad Cool website.

 


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