Mad Cool 2023

[Drums Please Fab]

They must have got that land for a tenner. It’s a dystopian wasteland. A shitehole 

[Drums Please Fab]

4 hours ago, Dales said:

I was put off by the new location and expected issues. I hope things quickly improve for those of you who are there. guessing there is not much in the way of shade?

Just electrical power lines, of which there are many.

[Dales]

Sorry to hear it's so bad. I did expect it to have teething problems with the new location but it sounds like its real S*** Show. My partner says that the feedback on some of the sites she is a member of echo what's been said here 😟

[DDave]

Rina Sawayama cancelled.

 

 

[Drums Please Fab]

27 minutes ago, Dales said:

Sorry to hear it's so bad. I did expect it to have teething problems with the new location but it sounds like its real S*** Show. My partner says that the feedback on some of the sites she is a member of echo what's been said here 😟

Mate I loved the last two editions. A bit more mainstream than primavera, comms sh*t until the week of the festival, but all in all a great few days. You used to be able to plonk yourself in the middle of the festival and alternate between two main stages by just rotating 90 degrees. Today I watched Paolo Nutini, the 1975 (who complained they were only given an hour) and Sigur Ros back to back to back on a stage that was hidden away in a corner by a wall of truck containers, with an unstaffed bar and a paltry crowd. Unless you knew where you were going you wouldn't accidentally happen upon any random music. the stages are all hidden from each other. Ah im so disappointed.....I live in Spain and between Madcool and Primavera each year I could tick off basically everyone on tour by visiting these two nice cities. I won't be coming back to this. They shat the bed. Taxi driver who took us from airport this morning said most of his colleagues weren't bothering going out to it to collect.

This is horrid. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Drums Please Fab

[Drums Please Fab]

27 minutes ago, Dales said:

Sorry to hear it's so bad. I did expect it to have teething problems with the new location but it sounds like its real S*** Show. My partner says that the feedback on some of the sites she is a member of echo what's been said here 😟

which sites is she on. I want to read some rants.

[Drums Please Fab]

5 minutes ago, DDave said:

Rina Sawayama cancelled.

 

 

The Madrid is region stage I was at had roadies wheeling various bands gear through the crowd and out under barrier tape to get to lorries. Paolo Nutinis flight case were wheeled right by us as we sat on the grass. The layout is all over the shop.

[Drums Please Fab]

Oh and there is no f**king phone signal in there at all.

[Lionator]

The toilet bottleneck is a death trap. Straight from the 1989 South Yorkshire police workshop on event organisation. 

[Drums Please Fab]

10 minutes ago, Lionator said:

The toilet bottleneck is a death trap. Straight from the 1989 South Yorkshire police workshop on event organisation. 

I can’t believe in 2023 we are still at this sh*t.

 

I wandered up to primavera with no wristband and was inside in 5 minutes.

 

this is a f**king  farce. People queuing on uneven ground, routed through hedges and trees, standing in old flower beds and broken cobble stones. It’s a disused wasteland from years gone by . They stuck down Astro turf and thought it would do. It’s clearly below par. And the areas around the festival …..what a f**king non entity of a location 

[Drums Please Fab]

Lovely power lines. 

[Drums Please Fab]

The police seemed like passive bystanders . Almost laughing at the omnishambles of it all. 
 

No help offered. No sign posts. No one with a megaphone diverting people to buses. I left the festival and it was like 28 days later. Empty streets.

[Drums Please Fab]

Sorry for spamming up the thread tonight but I’m f**king so disheartened. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Drums Please Fab

[Lionator]

Ok I don’t think it was fyre festival II but it’s clearly not a good idea to do a big event without a dry run. Robbie and Sigur Ros were great.

[yosoyyoberdi]

Something positive was the sound. I thought it was one of the best I've seen for a festival.

[Nathan Explosion]

1 hour ago, Drums Please Fab said:

Sorry for spamming up the thread tonight but I’m f**king so disheartened. 

Fair enough mate, if it's worked out badly for you then I can appreciate it's frustrating.

To give a more positive perspective tho, we had a f**king wicked time. The queue to get in wasn't great, probably had to wait about 30-40 minutes with no shade. That was cos we didn't have wrist bands tho, one we had em just strolled right in.

Saw the offspring, Raye, lizzo & lil nas x, all of whom absolutely smashed it. And the crowd were loving all of em, great atmosphere. Also saw Robbie Williams due to Rina Sawayama pulling out (the only real disappointment), I'm not a fan but he was v entertaining. Although spent 20 minutes moaning about take that and saying how he was too cool for em, you'd think he'd be over it by now.

Can't speak to the metro situation but the shuttle buses were great. Less than half an hour to get us to Atocha where we're staying.

Only complaint - the entrance and exit from the toilets are a f**king nightmare. Great once you're in there, but feels genuinely unsafe getting in and out when it's busy.

Other than that, a damn good first day imho!

[birchtree29]

https://elpais.com/espana/madrid/2023-07-07/caos-a-la-salida-del-mad-cool-coches-que-no-llegan-y-precios-desorbitados-para-llegar-a-casa.html?outputType=amp

 

Just read this with Google Translate. It looks like the situation is even worse than 2018.

[Sasperella2]

Hmmm so this all sounds quite bad. With this in mind, whats a good time to aim to go in? I kinda wanted to see Spoon, but that would probably mean needing to be in a queue by 3pm, which in this heat seems like a bad idea. 

Perhaps a better option is getting to queue around 6, but maybe it'll be busier then? 

Advice very welcome! I'm not that fussed about seeing anyone else until QotSA. 

[Lionator]

19 minutes ago, birchtree29 said:

https://elpais.com/espana/madrid/2023-07-07/caos-a-la-salida-del-mad-cool-coches-que-no-llegan-y-precios-desorbitados-para-llegar-a-casa.html?outputType=amp

 

Just read this with Google Translate. It looks like the situation is even worse than 2018.

This article is overly dramatic, the metro and bus situations are fine and it was a lot easier to return to the city than it has been when I’ve been to NOS alive. Of course it’s going to be busy because there’s 70,000 people. 

 

11 minutes ago, Sasperella2 said:

Hmmm so this all sounds quite bad. With this in mind, whats a good time to aim to go in? I kinda wanted to see Spoon, but that would probably mean needing to be in a queue by 3pm, which in this heat seems like a bad idea. 

Perhaps a better option is getting to queue around 6, but maybe it'll be busier then? 

Advice very welcome! I'm not that fussed about seeing anyone else until QotSA. 

We arrived at 5.45 yesterday and were at stage 3 by 6.45, that was with wristband pick up and a very long line. If you have a wristband to pick up I’d recommend getting there 60/90 minutes before to make sure but otherwise it shouldn’t take you too long, especially with today being day 2 and the 3-dayers having their wristbands. 

[johnybegood]

I am going just on saturday, but my friends yesterday had no problems taking the shuttle bus to Atocha after the festival.

[Nicklord]

I have a friend there, they hated the bar situation so they didn't buy anything and the whole entrance procedure. Other than that they were super happy with the festival, sound, stages and bands

Edited July 7, 2023 by Nicklord

[prefab]

Positives first: the music I heard yesterday was really good, and Lil Nas X's show was a particularly pleasant surprise: a queer Afrofuturist fever dream that doubled as a modern dance performance. Robbie was on top form, although I'd already seen his set at the Isle of Wight Festival so this one didn't hold a lot of surprises. Somehow there was plenty of room close to the stage for Sigur Ros, so I was up front and absolutely pounded by waves of sound (and Jonsi's angelic voice)--such an immersive experience, I didn't even mind that they didn't play "Hoppipolla." Earlier in the day, King Princess and Girli (in one of the air-conditioned tents, which was such a relief at the point in the evening) put on great shows with lots of intimate crowd interactions (including Girli signing one fan's breasts). The only relative disappointment was the 1975; Matty seemed like he didn't want to be there, and you could have put together a much better set list with the singles they chose NOT to play (e.g. "The Sound", "Love It If We Made It", "Part of the Band", "Chocolate", etc.). 

 

But the logistics were horrible. Some were things they could easily fix if they wanted to, but they probably won't. (Get more staff for the bar; put more lights and signage in the toilets, then open up a second exit to avoid the awful bottlenecks). But some of the problems come from a kind of muddled and pig-headed thinking about opening and closing times. Why open the gates at 5:00 when you know you're making your patrons boil in the midday Madrid sun? Why not just open things up an hour or even 30 minutes earlier? And why not stagger the end times for the big closing acts? They could have easily had Lil Nas X or Franz Ferdinand wrap up at 1:30 and the other finish at 2:00. That would have avoided some of the crowd crush, which included a pretty dangerous crush to get through the doors of the Metro (my apologies to anyone whose toes I might have stepped on as we all desperately tried to lurch forward). Still excited for tonight though--I'll subject myself to another crowd crush situation if it means I get to see Rufus du Sol!

 

[Drums Please Fab]

1 hour ago, Sasperella2 said:

Hmmm so this all sounds quite bad. With this in mind, whats a good time to aim to go in? I kinda wanted to see Spoon, but that would probably mean needing to be in a queue by 3pm, which in this heat seems like a bad idea. 

Perhaps a better option is getting to queue around 6, but maybe it'll be busier then? 

Advice very welcome! I'm not that fussed about seeing anyone else until QotSA. 

Queue seems to be at its worst by about 7pm

[Drums Please Fab]

The problem is it has no soul.

Dont let the astro turf and blue sky trick you. Just over the fence from the astro turf is weeds and rubble.

It feels very confined. You can't see anything in the distance.

As in at any given moment yesterday I could only see the roofs of the main stage and second stage. I was surrounded by walls of fences, portaloos, merch stands etc. You dont have a panoramic view of the site. It's labyrinthine in and around the entrance. you seem to be stuck in a queue for something you're not trying to queue for everywhere you walk.

 

Stages are in cul de sacs as opposed to a wide open space. 

 

The stage I was at last night was flanked by a 30ft wall of truck containers on one side and the bar itself to the back. One little rat run in. The bar was 7 deep with punters.

The blokes with the backpacks of beer couldn't pull a pint to save their lives. More head than Mia Khalifa.

 

Id hate to see harry styles fan base (presumably more younger teenage girls) being made queue the way we did yesterday for his gig there next week. 

at one stage in the queue I had to hunch down for a few minutes as the queue was routed under tree branches. like branches 5ft. off the ground. It was all so bizarre.

[Drums Please Fab]