Shakira arrived in Spain this Monday, ready to open her sprawling Madrid residency on Friday, transforming 30 hectares in the Spanish capital into a temporary Latin city built for music, books, fashion, food, and a nightly carnival.
Surrounded by adoring fans and beaming with happiness, La Loba emerged from immigration at the Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport to a festive welcome led by Colombian musicians playing traditional drum-driven songs from the legendary Carnaval de Barranquilla, a celebration rooted in her hometown.
She came ready to celebrate the Latin culture and her community: "Latinos have in our DNA the antidote to the silent epidemic of the digital age and the loneliness it brings," the Colombian superstar said to the media waiting for her at the airport.
"It was my dream to create a place where we could recognize ourselves in one another, a place where people could explore our Latin culture, surrounded by art, film, and food," Shakira added regarding the Spanish-speaking peoples of the Americas and Spain.
.@Shakira llega a Madrid con el Carnaval de Barranquilla. #Shakira #Madrid pic.twitter.com/4ksnfShS2g
— Paky ✨ (@PakyShak2) September 14, 2026
The first day of Es Latina will begin hours before the Colombian superstar is due onstage at 8:30 p.m. Fans with concert tickets could enter Macondo Park beginning at noon, giving them the day to explore its stages and eight cultural pavilions before moving into the purpose-built Estadio Shakira.
Stadium access begins at 8 p.m., while the entire complex is scheduled to close around 1 a.m. Macondo Park is available only to people holding a Shakira ticket for that particular date. Separate passes for the cultural attractions are not being sold, according to the published event schedule.
This is not a traditional concert residency. It is the final chapter of the record-breaking Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour, staged inside a temporary 55,000-capacity stadium created for Shakira at the Iberdrola Music complex in Villaverde.
More than 600,000 people are expected across the 12 performances, making it what Shakira has called the largest artist residency in European history.
"The numbers overwhelm me," she wrote in an essay for El País. But she explained that the project was designed to communicate something larger than its commercial scale.
"This started with pain," Shakira wrote, referring to the fear and discrimination affecting Latino communities. "But I chose to respond with a celebration."
By January, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour had grossed $421.6 million and attracted more than 3.3 million people across its reported performances. The total surpassed the $409.5 million generated by Luis Miguel's 2023-2024 tour, establishing Shakira's production as the highest-grossing tour by a Hispanic artist, according to Sony Music.
The tour began in Rio de Janeiro in February 2025 and traveled through Latin America and North America before arriving in Madrid for its only European residency. Its milestones included 12 sold-out concerts at Mexico City's Estadio GNP Seguros, drawing approximately 780,000 fans, and massive free performances in Mexico City's Zócalo and on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach.
The Madrid residency opened Sept. 18 and continues Sept. 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27. Shakira will return Oct. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11, when the world tour is scheduled to end.
At the center of the experience is Macondo Park, named after the fictional town created by Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
"Macondo is not a town: it is a mirror," Shakira said in materials released by Penguin Random House.
The park's eight areas explore music, literature, fashion, gastronomy, cinema, art, children's culture and Shakira's career. Palm trees, colorful pathways, shaded areas and multiple performance spaces connect the pavilions to the stadium.
More than 100 artists and collaborators are participating during the four-week residency. The music lineup includes Amaia, Nathy Peluso, Guitarricadelafuente, Gale, Louta, Maro, Lia Kali, Aria Vega, Yerai Cortés, J Noa, Ángeles Toledano, Izatkm, Nico, Yapi and Santos Bravos, who are scheduled to perform during the opening weekend.
Live Nation Spain President Pino Sagliocco called the project "something that celebrates the life and culture of all Latinos."
"Macondo is a celebration of life and freedom," Sagliocco told La Vanguardia.
The literary pavilion features a bookstore, an interactive listening experience inspired by García Márquez and 12 conversations involving 24 women writers. Participants include Rosa Montero, Julia Navarro, Lydia Cacho, Cristina Morató and Elísabet Benavent.
A scholarship organized with Shakira's Fundación Pies Descalzos will give one recipient a place in a two-year online novel-writing program valued at €2,999.
Fashion has its own space at El Taller, where emerging designers and established brands will present exhibitions and runway shows. The residency will also introduce Shakira's Isima hair-care brand in Spain.
At El Mercado, chef Rafa Zafra has selected a menu built around Latin American flavors, including arepas and tequeños, with gluten-free choices available. Macondito offers activities for children and is expected to welcome school groups on weekdays without concerts.
Each concert day will conclude with a carnival inspired by Shakira's hometown of Barranquilla. The celebration brings together influences from Colombia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Cádiz and the Canary Islands.
"The carnival is Africa, America and Europe dancing together," Shakira wrote.
The opening also marks her first Spanish tour performance since July 7, 2018, when she appeared at Barcelona's Palau Sant Jordi during the El Dorado World Tour. Those concerts came before her 2022 separation from Gerard Piqué and her subsequent move from Barcelona to Miami with their sons, Milan and Sasha.
When she left Spain in 2023, Shakira thanked the country's fans and promised, "For you all, it's just a see you later."
Her return follows a major legal victory in her dispute with Spanish tax authorities. In May, Spain's High Court acquitted her in a case concerning her tax residence in 2011, overturned a €55 million fine and ordered the Treasury to reimburse her more than €60 million, including interest.
The decision was separate from her 2023 settlement involving the tax years 2012 through 2014. In that case, Shakira accepted the charges and paid a fine exceeding €7.3 million to avoid trial. Another investigation involving her 2018 taxes was shelved in 2024.
Now, after eight years away from Spanish concert stages, Shakira has returned to close the most successful tour of her career inside a stadium carrying her name.
The project will exist for only four weekends. After the final performance on Oct. 11, Estadio Shakira and the city constructed around it will be dismantled. Until then, Madrid is hosting something more ambitious than a residency: an entire temporary world built around Shakira's music and Latin identity.
