🛍️ What's on in Madrid: December 12
Another Christmas market, Mëstiza live and another instagrammable immersive experience.
Madrid | Issue #125
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
It’s Friday again!
Christmas is just around the corner, and the city feels like one big Christmas movie set (minus the fake snow and with much better food). The lights are on, the mulled wine is flowing, and the list of things to do this weekend is, frankly, ridiculous.
From a solidarity market that actually makes holiday shopping meaningful, to a Formula 1 warm-up party, to immersive art, theatre, and more — the city is overflowing with plans.
If you’re staying in Madrid this weekend, congratulations: you’ve chosen the winning destination. And if you’re not, well, we won’t say you made a mistake but… you are.
Happy weekend!
1.🎅🏻 A Christmas market that actually makes the world better
Madrid loves a good Christmas market, but this weekend, there’s one with an actually meaningful twist. Teatro La Latina is hosting its first-ever Solidarity Market, a two-day event created in collaboration with the Fundación Vicente Ferrer, and it’s the kind of plan that makes you feel festive and morally superior (a rare combo in December).
The theatre offers fair-trade, handcrafted gifts from India and Nepal: textiles, ornaments, jewellery, stationery, home décor, all made by the women of Aame, a cooperative in rural Anantapur, and by small-scale Nepali artisans.
Every purchase goes directly to supporting families and women with disabilities in both countries. Think of it as the anti-Amazon Christmas.
It’s also a chance to discover the work Pentación is doing through its Pentación en acción initiative, which supports social and cultural causes year-round.
But mostly, it’s a beautiful way to pick up unique gifts while helping create economic independence for women who rarely get visibility.
🖥️ What: Mercadillo Solidario
📍 Where: Teatro La Latina, Plaza de la Cebada 2, Madrid
📅 When: Dec. 13-14, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
🎟 Tickets: Free
2. 🪩 Madrid starts its engines with Mëstiza: a one-night F1 party at Las Ventas
Need an excuse to start the weekend early? Here’s one with the subtlety of a V6 turbo: Las Ventas is hosting the official Warm Up Party for the 2026 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix and it’s happening only tonight.
With less than a year to go before the new MADRING circuit becomes Europe’s latest F1 obsession, Madrid is warming up the only way it knows how: with a massive, beautifully chaotic fiesta.
At the center of it all is Mëstiza, the genre-blending duo turning flamenco soul into club-ready electronic madness. In their songs, techno drops collide with quejíos, and palmas are layered over melodic house. The natural acoustics of Las Ventas will turn into a full-body vibration.
Before they take over the night, DJs ARGIA and Claudia León will set the tone with energy levels that would make a pit crew sweat.
This is a teaser for what will be one of Madrid’s biggest events next year. The Formula 1 Tag Heuer Spanish Grand Prix 2026 will hit the brand-new MADRING circuit from September 11–13, bringing a 5.4-km semi-urban track, 22 curves, and thousands of racing fans into the city. Tonight’s event is the unofficial prologue.
🖥️ What: Warm-up party with Mëstiza
📍 Where: Teatro Español, Calle del Príncipe 25, Madrid
📅 When: Friday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m.
🎟 Tickets: Check website
3.🎨 When the wind rewrites Don Quixote: Aeolia arrives at Instituto Cervantes
Madrid has a new artistic obsession, and it’s a wind-powered, AI-driven reimagining of Don Quijote that blurs the line between literature, technology, and human consciousness.
Aeolia, the monumental interactive sculpture by Solimán López, has just opened the new exhibition cycle Paisajes Intangibles at Instituto Cervantes, and it’s a pretty original cultural experience.
Installed inside Banca Cervantes, the institution’s newly created laboratory for experimental art and digital culture, Aeolia transforms air into words. Literally.
This large-scale sculpture acts as a text-generating wind turbine: visitors activate it, and the movement is converted into language through an AI system trained on Cervantes’ works, contemporary thinkers, and ecological, gender-focused, and philosophical literature.
The result? A living, breathing, evolving Quijote 2.0 that changes direction with every gust of wind and every participant.
Alongside the sculpture, the show features 10 additional works, including a breathtaking artist’s book where López has encoded his rewritten Quijote into synthetic DNA, a revolutionary archival technology capable of preserving information for millennia.
🖥️ What: Aeolia
📍 Where: Instituto Cervantes (Banca Cervantes), Calle de Alcalá 49, Madrid
📅 When: Through March 8
🎟 Tickets: Free entry
4.🎭 Napoleonic drama, absurdist humor: Los Duelistas takes the stage
If you’re in the mood for sharp satire wrapped in military uniforms, Los Duelistas is your perfect weekend pick. Emilio Gutiérrez Caba brings Joseph Conrad’s classic to the stage in a fresh, anti-war adaptation that exposes the sheer absurdity of conflict, and the even greater absurdity of human pride.
Javier Sahuquillo’s version takes Conrad’s early-19th-century tale — a Europe trembling under the Napoleonic wars — and flips it into a deliberately anti-historic vision.
Forget grand strategy or military glory: here, war is the backdrop to a 20-year personal feud between two Napoleonic hussars who, despite fighting for the same army, remain locked in an increasingly ridiculous duel that follows them all the way to Waterloo.
What emerges is a darkly funny portrait of how stubbornness, ego, and masculine pride can escalate into decades-long destruction — a theme as relevant today as it was in the 1800s. Ridley Scott certainly thought so when he adapted the story for his 1977 film debut, turning it into a cult classic starring David Carradine and Harvey Keitel.
On stage, the story becomes both a comedy and a warning: wars may be vast and political, but sometimes it all starts with two men who refuse to back down.
🖥️ What: Los Duelistas
📍 Where: Centro Cultural de la Villa, Plaza de Colón 4, Madrid
📅 When: Through Jan. 18
🎟 Tickets start at €20
5. 🌈 Step into a world of color, light, and play at IKONO Madrid
If you’re looking to escape the usual museum vibe and do something radically different this weekend, IKONO Madrid is one of the most playful cultural experiences in the city right now. It’s an immersive, interactive art experience where you look at art, walk into it, play with it, and become part of it.
Located just a few steps from the Reina Sofía Museum in the heart of Madrid, IKONO is spread over roughly 600 m² across three floors, with about a dozen visually stunning spaces designed to spark your imagination and curiosity.
There are neon-lit rooms and surreal landscapes, colorful installations that feel like a cross between an art gallery and a dreamlike playground. Each area invites you to touch, pose, interact, and capture unforgettable photos.
It’s perfect for families, friends, date nights, or anyone who wants to unplug from screens and reconnect with creativity in a multi-sensory space that rewards exploration and good vibes.
🖥️ What: IKONO Madrid Immersive Experience
📍 Where: IKONO Madrid, Calle de Sánchez Bustillo 7, Madrid
📅 When: Open daily
🎟 Tickets: €15
📺 What to watch if you’re staying in this weekend…
🖥️ What: Nina| Film | 2024
📍Where to watch: HBO (available tomorrow)
❓What’s it about: Nina was 16 years old when she left her small town without explaining herself to anyone, pursuing her dream of becoming an actress. 30 years later, Nina returns to the village for the first time with only one objective: to die killing.
🤩 Why you should watch: Because Andrea Jaurrieta’s Nina is a razor-sharp feminist revenge thriller that flips the genre on its head with unsettling elegance. Its atmosphere is hypnotic, its lead performance ferocious, and Jaurrieta turns trauma, desire, and power into something both cinematic and deeply human. It’s one of the most daring Spanish films of the year.
💬 English Subtitles: Yes.
💃🏻 Something to try this weekend…
🔩From nuts and bolts to wine and plates: Ferretería Restaurante
What’s it about: Ferretería Restaurante is a lively contemporary restaurant and bar housed in what used to be Madrid’s oldest hardware store, with design touches that preserve its historic charm while serving modern Spanish fare.
Why you should go: It’s one of the most talked-about spots in the Barrio de las Letras, perfect for everything from casual tapas and drinks in the relaxed Leña-Bar to a cozy dinner in the vaulted, brick-lined dining rooms below.
Bottom line: A Madrid favorite that feels both rooted in local history and current at the same time. It’s ideal for food, ambiance, and that “I love Madrid” moment.
Address: Calle Atocha 57, Madrid
☕️ Coffee, vinyl, and a 1960s time capsule: Faraday
What’s it about: Faraday is many things at once, and somehow all of them make perfect sense. It’s a specialty coffee shop with locally roasted beans, a record store curated with real taste, and a boutique filled with objects, books, antiques, and accessories. All of it wrapped in an interior that feels like stepping into a neatly preserved 1960s living room.
Why you should go: Because this is not a place you rush through. You go to sit, listen, browse, and slow down. You might discover a vinyl that changes your mood for the rest of the day, drink an excellent coffee, or stumble into one of their DJ sessions (Magnetic Sessions), which turn weekends into something quietly special. It’s your little oasis in the middle of Madrid.
Bottom line: Faraday is less a café and more a state of mind, part listening room, part coffee sanctuary, part cultural hideout.
📍 Address: Calle San Lucas 9, Madrid
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