Underground Madrid
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A train to the past
Madrid´s underground system offers a lot of possibilities for events, from personalising your own carriage for transfer from the airport to renting old stations and even the beautiful old metro engine hall…. One of the agencies to explore this option is Box de Ideas. It celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of its clients by organising a journey through half a century of memories, from 2012 to 1962. Chamberí station opened in 1919 as part of Madrid´s first underground railway line; it now has a screening room where the station entrance stairs used to be.
The 60 guests met at Cuatro Caminos station and boarded a carriage decorated in 1960s style, personalised with images of the company from its creation to today. The guests were met by 1960s ticket inspectors who gave them a ticket for their journey to the past. The journey ended at Chamberí station, where the guests enjoyed a cocktail in the station, which had also been decorated in 1960s style.
The ghost station
The Activic agency has also exploited the dark charms of the underground for thriller activities. The ghost station is a terrifying game in the abandoned Chamberí station, which closed in 1966. Having been sealed up and interred, it has now been restored to how it was on the day it closed. This team-building exercise involves terrorists who have planted a bomb in the station. The group has to work as a team to defuse the bomb before it explodes.
1, 2, 3 Subway
The same agency is also responsible for “1, 2, 3 Subway”, in the same location. This time, the group is travelling peacefully when the train suddenly stops in a tunnel. One of the passengers gets a call and then tells the others they have 60 minutes to escape from the train. They can only do this by following the instructions from the mysterious telephone call.
The Devil´s Mine
But the underground is not Madrid´s only subterranean activity space… there are other unwelcoming places that are perfect for group terror and mystery games (20-300 people). Activic offers one very original option: they use a military bunker underneath the Geo-Mineral Museum´s mining faculty for Entombed, an activity where dark passages and sinister windowless rooms are transformed into 1,500m of terror.
The unsuspecting group is taken on what is supposed to be an undemanding tour. But, suddenly the lights go out and they have to work out how to get out, discovering strange and mysterious apparatuses in the bunker as they do so. Another option is the Devil´s Mine, a gymkhana in a coal mine 50 m underground, where the group shares centre stage with miners who died in 1960 in a gas leak.
Minis turn the Madrid Metro into a racetrack
One of the most spectacular recent versions of this was the Mini Metro Race, which used track, tunnels and platforms to create a high-speed circuit, turning the platform of Chamartín station into a racetrack. The event was organised by the Tango agency for Mini, astounding Metro passengers, who saw platforms converted into an exhibition of Mini competition models, the John Cooper Works.
