Four days full of impressive acrobatics, innovative crossovers, and interactive and tender moments: MAD Festival looks back on its third edition with satisfaction.

More than 14,000 visitors enjoyed circus and atmosphere to the fullest from Thursday, April 10 to Sunday, April 13 at Asiadok and Park Spoor Noord. MAD once again showcased a cross-section of contemporary circus in 2025: 25 productions featuring a total of 138 artists from 12 different nationalities on stage and behind the scenes. Relive the circus vibes in our aftermovie below.

The three-day MAD Convention, in collaboration with Ell Circo D’ell Fuego, welcomed 350 young and not-so-young acrobats from 8 different nationalities, offering a total of 140 workshops across more than twenty different circus disciplines.

Circus also thrives behind the scenes during MAD Festival: professionals from 15 nationalities came together to discuss all aspects of safety and joined artists in the MAD Circus Talks to talk about the different stages of the creative process.

What was there to see?

• MOVEDBYMATTER and Muziektheater Transparant with Mystica, a poetic ritual where hair hanger where supported by mesmerising choral singing - sometimes even literally 
• Cirque Exalté with Foutoir Céleste, an exuberant mix of BMX, juggling, dance and acrobatics and above all a celebration of life
• Alice Rende with Fora, where she proved herself both an excellent contortionist and escape artist 
• Compagnie Defracto, who surpirsed our audience with an opening act adapted specifically to our festival site and who then experimeted with the limits between juggling and cartoons in Monographie
• Camille Paycha, who used her interactive straps act 60 degrees of separation to underline the importance of reaching out
• Post uit Hessdalen with Ballroom, where juggler Stijn Grupping invites the audience into his transformed truck for a magical trip of bouncing balls 
• ADM, who in 1st KM transformed their truck into a moving platform together with their audience, for a collective adventure about leaving and coming home 
• MAD Generation: Nathan Glaister, Luise Hoffman, Tutti Korti, Sfenson and Ella Hummel, promising performers enjoying their spotlight
• 4Square Cirque, the most recent ESAC graduates who performed under our by now iconic Cirkelgewelf
• Som Noise, who ended their resicency with us with a try-out of hybr-ID, experimental aerial acrobatics in a labyrinth of cables and speakers
• Company Alud with the premiere of Maelstrom, a mixture of straps, dance and partner-acro to question the clichés on manliness and vulnerability
• Rode Boom, who invited the audience into the belly of Tembo, a life sized wooden elephant, for an impressive feat of mentalism
• Duo NU with Image, a game of balance and power in a landscape of ladders
• Jakobe Geens & Josse De Broeck with Organiek Mechaniek, a playfull language of movement experimenting with freedom, balance and a bicycle