Santiago Bernabéu Stadium

I went to see Taylor Swift perform, so my opinion and experience with the stadium as a whole is limited. However, I enjoyed the venue overall.

The stadium is located in the Chamartín district, and has a lot of restaurants/tapas bars located near the stadium. It also is centrally located and is easy to navigate to regardless of what mode of transportation you would prefer to use. I did not use the bus system, but I did see 3 or 4 bus stops nearby. I also saw plenty of taxis and rideshares nearby after the concert. I used the metro system-which I love the ease of! There is a metro stop (Line 10-Santiago Bernabéu) right next to the stadium, so it was very easy to navigate to even if you know little to no Spanish.

There were lots of entrance/exit points, and getting into the stadium was pretty straightforward. Due to a flight delay I arrived to the stadium later in day, so I did not have to wait too long to get in. They do not have a clear bag policy, however they will search all bags and use a metal detector wand (I was told this is standard practice for the stadium, not anything special for the concert.) They only allowed clear soft plastic water bottles under .5L, but they had to be empty of any liquids.

I don't know if it is always this way, but the stadium was NOT open during the concert. It was a hotter than average for a May day (around 95°F/ 35°C) and it was made worse from the lack of airflow, even though the sun's rays were dampened by the enclosure. This was awful and caused several concert goers around me to need medical attention. You can see part of the roof enclosure in my picture.

I did not explore the stadium once I walked through the doors; I went straight to the floor. I don't know if it was Taylor Swift's organizers or the stadium's, but there weren't clear instructions for the VIP floor section. Since I was late from my flight, I did not get to use my vip early entrance, and there were no visible signs indicating where to go if you purchased VIP; this did cause me to lose out on my VIP package and my VIP floor seat 🥲. Again, I don't know who was in charge of signs for that, but they definitely missed the mark on that.

The trouble with signage didn't end with things pertaining to the concert, otherwise I wouldn't gripe about it. I cannot understand spoken Spanish well due to trouble hearing, but I can read well enough to understand decently. Due to the understandable and expected language barrier I could not ask for more information and was relying on reading to navigate. However, there were no signs directing towards restrooms or concessions that I could find, so their whereabouts will forever be a mystery to me. The floor had a small concession stand where we could buy drinks and a small snack, but I am sure this was special for the concert and not a part of the normal day to day of the stadium.

Overall, I was pleased with the stadium, my only complaint other than the heat was the lack of clear, easily visible signage. I believe they are currently working on updating the stadium, so maybe this will be fixed in the near future.

The stadium has a rich history and is a source of pride in Madrid. They do offer tours of the stadium, which I would love to take if I get the opportunity to visit Madrid again. I bet watching a fútbol game would be amazing here!