Amazing things to do in Madrid in September

L.E.V Matadero (from September 18 to 22)

The experimental and advanced sounds festival returns to Matadero: the sixth edition of L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual) brings the renowned playwright Romero Castellucci as well as artists such as plus44Kaligula, visual artist NAH, Keeley Forsyth, Hsin-Chien Huang or Jean-Michel Jarre, among others.

In Plaza Matadero, Peder Bjurman ‘s augmented reality experience will be installed in addition to four free spaces that reflect and work with light, sound, video games and social criticism.

📍 Plaza Legazpi, 8 (Arganzuela)

Autoplacer (from September 21st)

On Saturday, September 21, on the CA2M terrace, the bands Sin bragas, Megane Mercury, Elena del Frade, Fantasmage, Bicho Bola, Las Petunias, Adrián Bremner DJ, Basilisque, Igor, Corte!, ¡Miau! and Marcelo Criminal will play, from 12:00 to 21:00h and with free admission. In addition, as always, self-publishing projects and guests such as the store La Integral or the collective El Elemento DJ.

📍Avenida de la Constitución, 23 (Móstoles)

A trip to Segovia to commemorate the Proclamation of Isabella the Catholic.

December 13, 1474. Isabella, crossed the threshold of the door of the church of San Miguel de Segovia to leave, from there, crowned as Queen of Spain and renamed Isabella the Catholic. 550 years later, the city celebrates this event with activities for the whole family (most of them free) until December.

This 28th, for example, a curious activity is being held: “If your name is Isabel, history is calling you”. That is, a call to all the Isabels of Segovia (and the rest of Spain) for a peculiar concentration in tribute to Isabella the Catholic. Such has been the success that the call is already closed(enough Isabeles) but you can witness the peculiar procession at 17.00h. In addition, for several days (20, 27 and 28) El Velasquillo will walk through the streets of Segovia announcing events of the 550th anniversary. Oh, and if you want to get really into the role, at the Hotel Real Segovia you can rent a medieval costume as well as visit the exhibition about the costumes of this period.

You can take a look at all the activities here.

📍Various locations (Segovia)

Proyector (until September 22)

Proyector is more than a festival: it is a work of visibility and a gift to knowledge. That is, how to make accessible the most experimental and current proposals of contemporary audiovisual art for free. This cult of the moving image will be available for more than twenty spaces with new languages, more than 100 pieces of film, performance, video art, site-specific pieces. ..

📍Various places in the city

Puwerty 2024 (September 28 and 29)

We know little about the future eighth edition of Puwerty at La Casa Encendida. But we already have the dates in mind to reserve that weekend (September 28 and 29) to enjoy and learn from the youngest creators and artists in the country. This festival brings together, year after year, brilliant minds under 26 years old to continue to be the loudspeaker of new minds, new discourses.

📍 Ronda de Valencia, 2 (Lavapiés)

Madrid Salvaje (September 27th and 28th)

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A tremendous line-up for urban music lovers at Madrid Salvaje. Two days with Bejo, Abhir, Ben Yart, Fernando Costa, Ayax, Pimp Flaco, Kidd Keo, Sara Socas, Toteking…

📍IFEMA: Avenida del Partenón, 5 (Barajas district)

WAH Madrid (from September 14)

WAH Madrid has established itself as one of the most powerful shows that have passed through Madrid in recent years. The furor is real. WAH is an epic proposal of performances that goes through different musical styles, culminating in an apotheosis afterparty. Of course, this new season will undergo a radical change: “New show, new surprises… New WAH”. We’ll have to try it, won’t we?

📍IFEMA: Avenida del Partenón, 5 (Barajas district)

💸 Tickets from 36 €. Free admission for children under 12 years old on Saturdays and Sundays in morning sessions.

Last days of the Sorolla Museum (open all September).

September: last month we will be able to enjoy the Sorolla Museum before its remodeling. On October 1, the house museum of the painter will close its doors until 2026 to undergo a controversial comprehensive reform (the controversy has been raised by the possible felling of trees in the courtyard). With the slogan “Sorolla Museum: closing doors, expanding horizons”, the architectural firm Nieto Sobejano will refurbish but also expand the museum space with more than 2,000 square meters of new surface area.

📍Paseo del General Martínez Campos, 37 (Chamberí)

The markets are back (various dates)

When the heat starts to subside and it’s time to put on a jacket, Madrid’s flea markets will be there waiting for the public to return: Salesas Village – The Festival (the street market between Campoamor and Santa Teresa streets) to be held on September 14; the Mercado de las Ranas, along Huertas street; the Mercado Municipal de Productores de Planetario, on September 3 and 17; or the Mercado de Motores ( next edition in September, dates to be confirmed).

📍 Several locations.

New season at the Auditorio Nacional de Música and the celebration of the Ciclo de Grandes Intérpretes de piano.

Madrid is what it is and how it is, in part, thanks to places like the Auditorio Nacional de Música. Spaces in which art transcends, evolves, reaches exalted levels of quality and brings melodies closer to all kinds of audiences (you can see here all the shows scheduled for the upcoming dates).

In this new season, the celebration of the 30th edition of the Ciclo de Grandes Intérpretes de la Fundación Scherzo stands out, that is to say, the meeting of the most prestigious pianists of today in an exceptional event (it is the only one of the great piano cycles that still survives in the European continent).

To enjoy all the concerts, music lovers are offered a subscription for the entire event, comprising eleven performances, eleven dates from September 10 to June 7, 2025.

The series kicks off with Yulianna Avdeeva on September 10 (First Prize at the prestigious Chopin Competition 2010).

Principe de Vergara, 146 (Ciudad Jardin)

Concerts: from 16 €.

Scherzo Foundation Great Performers Season Ticket: from 230 €.

The best concerts of the month (different dates)

Madrid is music. The festival season seems to be slowly easing off, while concert halls begin to program that wonderful transition to autumn: a “back to school” of the kind we like: from musical show to recital. Take note of some of our favorites:

• Lime Cordiale (September 17th, El Sol)
• Lysistrata + It it Anita in MAZO (September 19)
• Niña Pastori (September 22)

Various locations

Soledad Sevilla. Rhythms, plots, variables (from September 25).

A monographic exhibition on the Valencian painter will be presented at the Reina Sofia at the end of the month. The author’s work will be presented through more than a hundred works from her beginnings (the first steps while studying at the Calculus Center of the University of Madrid) to the present day.

The great curiosity of the exhibition is that all of it returns to the central theme of Sevilla’s career, who says she has painted “the same picture all her life”. Thus, the curator, Isabel Tejeda, proposes this tour as a great connection between the works of Soledad Sevilla, works that have evolved in form, substance and method over these five decades.

Calle de Santa Isabel, 52 (Embajadores)

Seventy great masters of the Pérez Simón Collection (from September 20)

As a first curiosity: most of the works that will be shown in this exhibition will be shown for the first time in Madrid. As a second: this will be an appetizer of what will come to the Cultural Space of the Belgian Sawmill in permanent format. And with these two antecedents, we move on to comment on this tremendous exhibition that will open its doors at the end of September.

An ambitious gathering of masters such as Van Gogh, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Rubens, Murillo, Pisarro, Gauguin, Sorolla, Tamara de Lempicka, Alex Katz… that is, from the ‘Old Masters and early moderns’ to the greats of the ’19th century’ ending with ‘From the Vanguards and current art’. Of course, it is clear that the Pérez Simón collection had few women among its ranks.

Plaza de Cibeles, 1 (Retiro)

31 women. An exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim (from September 19).

In contrast to the previously mentioned and just a few minutes walk away, this month we will find the exhibition 31 women of the Mapfre Foundation. An exhibition that pays homage to what the precursor Peggy Guggenheim organized in 1943: an exhibition composed of works exclusively by women that she installed in her gallery, Art of This Century (New York).

For Peggy, the label of “muse” or “wife” was always a stigma, and this exhibition was her way of reversing it. The work on view at the Mapfre Foundation includes some of the works in the Guggenheim exhibition.

Paseo de Recoletos, 23 (Paseo del Arte)

Paul Durand-Ruel and the Last Flashes of Impressionism (from September 19)

Paul Durand-Ruel is credited with the not inconsiderable mission of having brought “to the world” the Impressionist style. This art-loving Parisian not only traded in the works of artists caught by his trained eye, but functioned as a patron of the arts, supporting various painters and even curating exhibitions. His strong ties with artists such as Henry Moret, Maxime Maufra, Gustave Loiseau, Georges D’Espagnat and Albert André, results in this exhibition at the Mapfre Foundation that brings together today part of his collection.

Paseo de Recoletos, 23 (Paseo del Arte)

Melonera Festivities (September 2 to 16)

With a lineup of artists still to be confirmed, we do know the dates of the Fiestas de la Melonera, the great festivities of the neighborhood of Arganzuela: it will be from September 2 to 16, with installation of fairground attractions, booths and open-air dances in the Matadero Gardens-Madrid Rio Park.

📍 Madrid Río Esplanade (Arganzuela)

Ten years of Open House Madrid (from September 26 to 29).

The tenth edition of Open House Madrid is almost here: from September 26 to 29, the architecture festival will open the doors of a hundred buildings normally inaccessible to the general public. Under the slogan “A year of 10”, these open house days have designed a special program with outdoor routes, visits to the interior of architecture studios, buildings as well as exhibitions and the City Awards. This year, as a novelty, audio-guided tours will also be offered.

And to celebrate ten years, Open House proposes a list of ten “favorites” that will also be part of the festival circuit in this edition.

• Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, Arniches, Domínguez and Torroja
• Castelar Building, Rafael de la Hoz Arderius
• Círculo de Bellas Artes, Antonio Palacios
• White Towers, Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza, Architect of Reference 2017
• Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural, Fernando Higueras, Architect of Reference 2018
• CEDEX, Centro de Estudios Hidrográficos, Miguel Fisac, Architect of Reference 2019
• Gimnasio Maravillas, Alejandro de la Sota, Reference Architect 2020
• Barceló Cinema- Barceló Theater, Luis Gutiérrez Soto, Reference Architect 2021
• Pabellón de los Hexágonos, Corrales y Molezún, Architect of Reference 2022
• National Auditorium, José M. García de Paredes, Reference Architect 2023

📍 Various locations

Weegee, autopsy of the show (from September 19)

The photographs of Arthur H. Fellig, better known as Weegee, arrive in Madrid: the exhibition that will open at the Mapfre Foundation this September is a compilation of snapshots that Weegee published in different newspapers of the New York press between 1935 and 1945. Like Nightcrawler, this work shows how Weegee’s photographs mutated, transforming the events of the time into pure spectacle.

Another of Weegee’s creative periods will also be discussed, one in which he sought to mock and criticize Hollywood stars through photographs that bordered on caricature. With his snapshots he spoke of the ephemeral nature of fame, of the empty environment of the stars.

Paseo de Recoletos, 23 (Art Promenade)

Candlelight: the candlelight concerts

Imagine Dragons, Hans Zimmer’s soundtracks, Queen vs. Abba, Coldplay? the list is endless. Candlelight are the candlelight concerts that reinterpret the great classics (and modern) in special locations in the city of Madrid. In September, these intimate and close musical shows will take place at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, the Four Seasons Hotel, the Wellington or the Ateneo, among other locations. Check the full schedule here.

📍 Various locations.

💸 Tickets: from 15€.

Japan Weekend Madrid (September 21 and 22)

Japanese pop culture will invade IFEMA for two intense days. This year, the presence of the music group Aqours or the singer Centimillimental, the illustrator Sakizo, the voice actress Mariya Ise, the drag artist and cosplayer C-Pher and Ank Cosart… has been confirmed.

And all the activities you can imagine, such as AIkido exhibitions, martial arts, the International Cosplay League, concerts, karaoke contests… even a Junior Cosplay contest.

📍IFEMA: Avenida del Partenón, 5 (Barajas district)

The Legend of the Titanic ( from September 12)

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the Titanic, the colossal British ocean liner, struck an iceberg and began its descent to the bottom of the waters… A story that changed, without return, the safety measures for ships. A story that was also explored in countless books, essays, films and exhibitions. This September, Madrid Artes Digitales (MAD) celebrates an immersive experience in its facilities with the aim of showing everything that happened with this ship, its history and the history of its passengers, its luxurious interiors…

📍 Plaza de Legazpi, 8 (Arganzuela)

Hotel Tapa Tour (from September 19 to 29)

A tour from hotel restaurant to hotel restaurant looking for and tasting the best tapas of the city. Hotel Tapa Tour is a great gastronomic festival and an excuse to enter those hotels that populate Madrid, bringing the accommodations closer to the neighbors. You can check here the list of participating hotels. Each one will offer between 3 and 4 proposals of tapa plus pairing: Tapa Nacional + wine (D.O. Ribera del Duero) / Tapa Fusion + cava (D.O. Cava) / Croqueta de Autor + Martini Fiero Spritz / Tapa Dulce + St-Germain Spritz.

📍 Various locations

BONUS TRACK: Share a most original cocktail.

Goodbye, vacations! Hello, September and its routine (which many were already beginning to miss), but that does not mean that the desire to enjoy end here. This month everything starts and taking advantage of the weather, why not enjoy a drink in some of the best cocktail bars in Madrid?

Part of the charm of September has to do with the desire to make new friends, start new projects and catch up after the vacations, and for that you need a place to meet and order a cocktail!

We have prepared, together with Puerto de Indias, a list of some places in Madrid that are the perfect place to meet up with friends and discover signature cocktails, but also renewed classics such as melon mojito or strawberry sangria. Do you dare to try them?

📍 Various locations