MadBear Madrid 2025
- TBA
- Madrid
There’s something about Madrid in early December—cool air, festive lights, and the unmistakable hum of a community gathering in Chueca. This year, from 4 to 10 December 2025, MadBear Madrid rolls back into the city for a full week that isn’t just party time—it’s a celebration of camaraderie, queer culture, and just being your unapologetic self.
Picture it: over 4,000 bears and admirers from all over Europe and beyond, flooding in for midnight-swept club nights, sauna hangs, bar crawls that start in the evening and bleed into dawn, dinners where you can relax without pretense, and themed parties that never quite let you catch your breath.
It’s not a program curated in bullet points—nights happen because they just do. There’s a cozy familiarity to it, even amid the crowd.
Old haunts like Ya'sta Club, beating at the center of it all, host nightly dance marathons—with themes like Furball, Beef Dip, Bearsurrection popping up again and again. Meanwhile, Sauna Octopus is where you go mid-day, when the heart of the party slows and you need to lean back, maybe chat, maybe just exist. Then when the evening rolls in, the “bar route” kicks off around 6 pm, weaving through Bears Bar, El 12, Thick, The Cage, LL Bar, Star Chueca, Firewood and more—little pockets of fun, all within a few steps, all ready for whatever energy you bring.
Beyond the rituals—the sauna, dinner, nighttime fiesta—there’s something quietly grounding here. You’re not just in a packed club, you’re sharing space with people who get it: the shapes and sizes, the inside jokes, the tongue-in-cheek pride in being a bear or admiring one. It’s messy, as these things should be. Not every moment is a miracle, but there’s an ease, a soft kind of roaring energy that only happens when you’re exactly where you belong.
This event lands on Spain’s Puente de la Constitución—a holiday weekend that brings locals out in force and gives the vibe an extra nudge. Madrid lights up a bit differently then, like a wink from the city inviting everyone in.
But don’t mistake it for an amorphous blur—Chueca still pulses with identity. Streets smell of tapas, clubs hum, theatre posters hang in windows, and there’s something kind of cinematic about it—like the legacy of the Movida Madrileña, where queer self-expression became loud and unashamed, early sparks of freedom that still flicker every night in bars and plazas.
If you wander outside of bear-centric hours, you could slide into more queer-friendly experiences: Madrid Pride, which lights up the summer (late June / early July) with massive energy, or the LesGaiCineMad film fest in November, reminding you how this city nurtures every shade of queerness, not just the party side.
But for the week of December 4–10, 2025, it’s all about bear culture in hyperdrive: sauna, bar crawl, themed disco-congas, gang of friends rolling into one another’s orbit in dingy clubs with mirrored walls or maybe more fetish-focused fun. You’re not there for “perfect experiences.” You go for the sweat, the laughter, the bear hugs, the strangers who become your flat-out highlight.
If you’re thinking of coming—do yourself a favor and book everything now. Hotels near Chueca fill faster than you’d expect. This weekend doesn’t just bring people in—it sets the city moving.
Picture it: over 4,000 bears and admirers from all over Europe and beyond, flooding in for midnight-swept club nights, sauna hangs, bar crawls that start in the evening and bleed into dawn, dinners where you can relax without pretense, and themed parties that never quite let you catch your breath.
It’s not a program curated in bullet points—nights happen because they just do. There’s a cozy familiarity to it, even amid the crowd.
Old haunts like Ya'sta Club, beating at the center of it all, host nightly dance marathons—with themes like Furball, Beef Dip, Bearsurrection popping up again and again. Meanwhile, Sauna Octopus is where you go mid-day, when the heart of the party slows and you need to lean back, maybe chat, maybe just exist. Then when the evening rolls in, the “bar route” kicks off around 6 pm, weaving through Bears Bar, El 12, Thick, The Cage, LL Bar, Star Chueca, Firewood and more—little pockets of fun, all within a few steps, all ready for whatever energy you bring.
Beyond the rituals—the sauna, dinner, nighttime fiesta—there’s something quietly grounding here. You’re not just in a packed club, you’re sharing space with people who get it: the shapes and sizes, the inside jokes, the tongue-in-cheek pride in being a bear or admiring one. It’s messy, as these things should be. Not every moment is a miracle, but there’s an ease, a soft kind of roaring energy that only happens when you’re exactly where you belong.
This event lands on Spain’s Puente de la Constitución—a holiday weekend that brings locals out in force and gives the vibe an extra nudge. Madrid lights up a bit differently then, like a wink from the city inviting everyone in.
But don’t mistake it for an amorphous blur—Chueca still pulses with identity. Streets smell of tapas, clubs hum, theatre posters hang in windows, and there’s something kind of cinematic about it—like the legacy of the Movida Madrileña, where queer self-expression became loud and unashamed, early sparks of freedom that still flicker every night in bars and plazas.
If you wander outside of bear-centric hours, you could slide into more queer-friendly experiences: Madrid Pride, which lights up the summer (late June / early July) with massive energy, or the LesGaiCineMad film fest in November, reminding you how this city nurtures every shade of queerness, not just the party side.
But for the week of December 4–10, 2025, it’s all about bear culture in hyperdrive: sauna, bar crawl, themed disco-congas, gang of friends rolling into one another’s orbit in dingy clubs with mirrored walls or maybe more fetish-focused fun. You’re not there for “perfect experiences.” You go for the sweat, the laughter, the bear hugs, the strangers who become your flat-out highlight.
If you’re thinking of coming—do yourself a favor and book everything now. Hotels near Chueca fill faster than you’d expect. This weekend doesn’t just bring people in—it sets the city moving.
Upcoming Mega Events Nearby