This Saturday, outside the Metropolitano stadium in Madrid, there was a bit of everything: faithful fans who know every comma of every Bad Bunny song and curious onlookers who promise to learn them soon. Between the two, a wide range of grays and a great Latin music party that, led by the Puerto Rican artist, has landed this week in the capital to stay for the next 10 days, until June 15.
The fever for the singer has been such that it has even forced the invention of a new location for the concert: the F, the outside, the precarious youth, those who did the math and realized that, with a salary averaging around 1,300 euros for their generation (according to the National Institute of Statistics in 2025) and rents that easily go above 800 euros (according to the website Idealista), it was not possible to pay the more than 100 euros that the tickets cost. But many of those who did not get a ticket even selling a kidney on Ticketmaster were not willing to miss the most important social event since FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, the fear of missing the event everyone is talking about, of not being where you have to be.
While inside the Riyadh Air Metropolitano 50,000 people were looking for their seats around 7:00 p.m. as if entering the temple of reggaeton, outside, hundreds of young people were setting up their own parallel concert in the venue’s parking lot, in the Madrid neighborhood of San Blas. Free, with more sweat and warmer beer, but the same eagerness accumulated since Thursday, when the artist arrived in the city and the Rosewood Villa Magna hotel became an improvised camp, a place for collective anxiety. Some took shifts from early morning hoping to cross paths even for a few seconds with Bad Bunny. Others decided to sleep Friday night around the Metropolitano. Every sacrifice is little in this religion.
But even in the hell of FOMO there are social classes. The division is clear: those who decided to settle on the terrace of Rita’s, near gate 16, paying six euros for a beer with side views of the stadium, and those in the parking lot, the working-class stand of reggaeton, who arrive with bags from the Día supermarket and a portable horn, ready to “hang out outside like the poor,” as Daniel Dobleu, a 33-year-old Colombian, wrote in his friends’ WhatsApp group. Precisely in Madrid, a city where one in seven inhabitants was born across the ocean. Not for nothing is it the city where Bad Bunny performs the most dates of the Debí tirar más fotos tour: 10 consecutive concerts.
“We ran out of tickets, but it made us anxious to stay home watching Instagram stories,” says Dobleu with a laugh, who was handing out plastic cups so no one lacked something to hydrate with. “We saw what happened in Barcelona and thought of doing the same.” As the hours passed, the Latin party emerged: couples dancing close between badly parked cars, girls putting on makeup with the phone’s front camera, and entire groups singing while looking at the sky, as if Bad Bunny could peek from above to bless them. It’s not the first time this happens. Taylor Swift already had hundreds of fans singing from the surroundings at the Bernabéu as if it were Lourdes and they were pop pilgrims. But Bad Bunny has his own liturgy, one based on dance, shouting, and sweat in the middle of the stifling heat.
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On the other side of reality, Elena Fuste, 26, waits with the tickets she bought exactly a year ago, the same day they went on sale. She bought two thinking of reselling one, but along the way she met Juan Díez, 35. One thing led to another and now they plan every last detail of their outfits together, inspired by the song Ojitos lindos. They already have several tiktoks ready for the night because part of the experience is to tell it.
Around them, dozens of attendees wear Adidas t-shirts from the special Madrid collection, flags from different Latin American countries, straw hats like those from Bad Bunny’s album, and fans with the artist’s face. At 33 degrees, every shade is a treasure. They all have at least four hours of waiting under the scorching sun. Among them, Nuria Agustín, 27, and her friend Alma Cátala, 25, assure they know all the songs and have come with only one idea: to perrear.
While those inside go through security checks, those outside open coolers. The former show digital tickets as if showing a passport to paradise; the latter rely on experience and deploy JBL speakers, ice bags, and sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil like at an urban pilgrimage.
But the party will not end when the concert finishes. The Fitz nightclub will host the official after-party each night with surprise performances, while the La Gran Cucaracha party will temporarily leave its Wednesdays at Bar del Internacional to land at Florida Park with salsa afternoons, DJs, and live bands. At Sala Sol there will be a party called Cuando Perreabas; the Shoko nightclub will organize Casa Puerto Rico in tribute to the singer; while Uñas Chung Lee will have several Bad Bunny-themed nights and the 365 venue has been completely decorated with Caribbean colors, music, and cuisine. It’s not that Bad Bunny has gone to Madrid: Madrid has gone to Bad Bunny. Welcome to the city where perreo equalizes everyone.
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