Mad Cool Festival have announced a new transport plan in place for 2026, with extended services and special options introduced to help visitors travel to and from the site.
READ MORE: Mad Cool 2024: eight memorable moments from previous festivals
This year’s edition of the festival will kick off later this week and run between July 8 and 11 at the Iberdrola Music Villaverde site. This will be the 10th anniversary of the festival, and will see huge performances from Pulp, Foo Fighters, Florence & The Machine, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, as well as many more.
As well as confirming the line-up for this year, organisers have also revealed the new site map and a series of key updates for the event – including a reduced number of stages, expanded screens, and more shaded areas for fans.
To make things easier for visitors, they have also introduced a new transport plan as well, meaning that people have more options to travel to and from the festival site.
In coordination with Madrid City Council, the Government Delegation, Madrid Municipal Police, the Guardia Civil and the National Police, there will be extended hours for public transport, and an increased service.
These included Madrid Metro Line 3 extending its service until 2am on Thursday morning and until 3am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, exclusively for festival-goer departures. It will depart from Villaverde Alto station (the only station where passengers can board), before stopping at Legazpi, Embajadores and Sol stations.
The Cercanías Line C4 service will be extended from 12:30am to 2am on Thursday morning and from 1:30am to 3:30am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings from Villaverde Alto.
To return from the site, Cercanías Line C4 will operate special services (running from Villaverde Alto to Atocha, with no intermediate stops) that are free of charge for users. To improve passenger flow during night-time access to Metro Line 3 and Cercanías Line C4 at Villaverde Alto, different access lanes will be set up too.
Other changes include a free shuttle bus service from the festival to Madrid city centre, which will depart between 12:30am to 2am on Thursday morning, and 1:30am to 3:30am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Buses to get to the site include Line 22: Legazpi – Villaverde Alto, Line 79: Legazpi – Villaverde Alto, Line T41: Villaverde Alto – Polígono Industrial de La Resina, and Line N14: Cibeles – Villaverde Alto.
Only one taxi rank will be available – located at a specific point on Calle San Eustaquio, between Calle San Norberto and Calle Resina de Villaverde – and for pre-booked private hire vehicle services, passengers are encouraged to use Calle Valle de Tobalina at the corner with Calle San Ezequiel as their meeting point.
Pedestrian safety measures include fencing, signage and information support put in place, and a number of stewards around to guide and assist attendees during their journeys. Visit here for more information.
As well as the aforementioned artists, the 2026 line-up also includes This year’s milestone event is set to bring together the biggest names in music, including Twenty One Pilots, Lorde, CMAT, Wolf Alice, Jennie, Moby, The Last Dinner Party, Kings Of Leon, The War On Drugs, Halsey, Teddy Swims, Pixies, The Black Crowes and David Byrne.
Also on the stacked bill are Liens Très Dengereux, Yulie, Ksal, and Color, following them winning the Mad Cool DJ Talent presented by Vibra Mahou.
You can check out the performance times for the 2026 edition here, find any remaining tickets here, and check out what to look out for during the biggest sets with NME’s Mad Cool headliner bingo here.
The 2025 festival saw performances from Olivia Rodrigo, Noah Kahan, Nine Inch Nails, Iggy Pop, Alanis Morrisette, Weezer, Thirty Second to Mars, Gracie Abrams, St. Vincent, Justice, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, The Wombats, Jet, Glass Animals and many more.
Revisit all of NME’s coverage from the 2025 festival with our round-ups of the best moments from day one, day two and day three.
NME is the official media partner of Mad Cool
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