Events in Madrid

Fabrik, the world's #17 club (DJ Mag 2024)
Mondo Disko since 1999, now at Sala But
Summer at Fabrik : Nexus, Carl Cox, CODE Summer
Afters normalized, you leave when the bakeries open

The venues

Fabrik towers over everything : a megaclub in Humanes de Madrid (20 km southwest), ranked #17 in the world by DJ Mag in 2024, 10,000 capacity, 5 rooms, a monster sound system and an hourly bus from Callao from midnight. It's the home of CODE, GOA and Nexus.

In the centre, Mondo Disko has run its techno-house session since 1999 (Thursday and Saturday, midnight to 6am), now at Sala But after leaving la Cocó, with its Mondo Open Air afternoons on the Terraza Jowke, a rare outdoor format here. Specka, in Malasaña since 1989, remains the temple of dark and hard techno, raw and old-school. LABtheCLUB fills the mid-size slot, and Sala Cocó hosts Hybrid's hard groove residency.

The festivals

The Madrid summer plays out mostly at Fabrik. Nexus Festival opens on 13 June (5th edition, hard, raw, industrial and hardcore, the biggest hard music festival in Spain), followed by Fabrik's 23rd anniversary on 27 June (12-hour marathon, Carl Cox headlining, 5 zones), then CODE Summer Festival on 11 July (an 18-hour-plus techno marathon, 6 zones, the underground fixture of the summer).

Alongside, Blackworks sets up its A Summer Story stage on 19 June at Ciudad del Rock.

Megaclub and afters

Madrid is Spain's land of the megaclub and the hard sound. While Barcelona bets on cool underground and sharp programming (Input, Nitsa), Madrid owns the unapologetic big format : Fabrik can line up Carl Cox and Nexus Festival in the same month without anyone blinking. The other marker is the hours. Madrid starts when Paris goes to bed : afters kick off at 8am, and some nights the last clubbers leave when the bakeries open.

It's the only city in Europe where the after is normalized to this degree. And unlike Barcelona and its electro tourists, the crowd at Fabrik and Mondo stays very local and very young, raised on hard techno and hardstyle as popular culture. Madrid dates surface in the list opposite week after week.