Mad Cool Festival announces move to new Madrid location for 2023 edition

Mad Cool Festival has announced its move to a new location for the 2023 edition of the Madrid bash.

The event, which is set to take in performances by the likes of The 1975, Robbie Williams and Liam Gallagher, will take part at a new site in the city’s Villaverde District, as part of wider plans to transform the area into a cultural hub. It’s hoped that the new site will attract increased tourism to the area whilst driving the creation of new jobs to the area.

According to an official release, the new location will be easier to access for festival goers and will take in 185,000 square meters for its festival site – which takes in eight stages from Thursday July 6 to Saturday July 8.

Other acts set to appear at this year’s event include Black Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lizzo, Mumford and Sons, Queens of the Stone Age, Ava Max, Sam Smith, Nova Twins, Robbie Williams, Lil Nas X, Kaleo, Morgan, Franz Ferdinand, Tash Sultana, Paolo Nutini, Rina Sawayama, Jamie XX, Primal Scream and Machine Gun Kelly.

Since its inception in 2016, Mad Cool has become one of the biggest names on the European summer calendar, thanks to its consistently impressive blends of pop, rock and alternative names. Last year, it returned after a pandemic-enforced break with a lineup that included Metallica, Twenty One Pilots, The Killers, Muse and Kings of Leon. The event was nominated in the Best Festival in the World category at the NME Awards in 2020; last year, the festival’s booker, Cindy Castillo Núñez, spoke to that publication about the importance of gender equality at Mad Cool.

“Diversity in all ways enhances creativity and brings different perspectives to music,” she said. “This not only gives us not innovation, but richness,” she explains before going on to add that from a business point of view, “diversity brings inspiration, insight & growth to teams which makes a business more competitive.”

She is part of a 30-person full-time team at the festival that is 70% female, and went on to say: “any situation of equal representation behind the scenes will for sure always contribute directly or indirectly to inspire equal representation in all other areas of the music business.”