Ku/Privilege/UNVRS Ibiza – The Real Story – Part 1

Part 1 – The Ku Ibiza Years 1979-1993

Before Will Smith, dressed in scruffy pants on the roof, announced the opening of UNVRS Ibiza – the worlds first ‘hyper-club’, the outpouring of emotion for Ku/Privilege nightclub on social media whipped up by content creators and influencers had gone into overdrive. If you haven’t seen them then I strongly recommend you do.

Phoney AI American voiceovers, saccharine sweet statements pronouncing names incorrectly and the faux sincerities are something to behold – the ‘don’t believe what you see on social media’ trope had never been more true. In truth the worlds largest club (as previously verified by Guinness Records) is about to be taken into a whole different era by a company with a proven world class track record but before we get into that (part 3) let’s put some meat on the bone and get some context/history to the story.

Ku Club was iconic. One of life’s curiosities is how the world’s largest club became to be on a small Mediterranean island. It’s a story that catches the imagination and was in a big way responsible for putting Ibiza at the centre of the hedonistic world of 80s clubbing, so let’s start at the beginning.

The ‘club San Rafael’ morphed into Ku Ibiza (named after an Hawaiian God) in the late 70s when Spanish profesional Footballer Jose Santamaría teamed up with legendary promoter Brasilio Oliveira to exploit this open aired space by putting on edgy parties attracting the Bourgeois European crowd.

While Amnesia across the road was defining the Balearic beat that is still prevalent today, Ku focussed on the beautiful people with a polysexual ambience that drew in those that wanted to express themselves and more importantly have fun.

The old Ku photos from the 80s are spellbinding – look at these Facebook Pics for example – gorgeous well dressed people, transvestites, models, local bigwigs, pop stars, footballers, nobodies, hippies all coming together in a white hot cauldron of excess that defined the 80s.

Ku typified 80s excess, fashion and style but was largely unknown outside of the in-crowd where it was like drawing bees to the honeypot.

Then Ku went mainstream. In May 1987 an event took place that put the club and the island on the world map. To celebrate Olympic Games being awarded to Barcelona, local promotor Pino Sagliacchi fused together the 2 brands by staging ‘biza 92’ at Ku. So to celebrate Barcelona 92 an event took place in May 1987 called Ibiza 92 at Ku. Are you still with me?

Over 2 nights world renowned bands performed for an over excited crowd but more importantly it was filmed and televised all over the globe such was the power of the names involved. Duran Duran, Belinda Carlisle , Breathe, Robert Palmer , Spandau Ballet, Prefab Sprout, Natalie Cole plus a rare public appearance by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

This was the height of the British pop takeover of the world so the names opened doors. In charge of the filming was a young, ambitious producer by the name of Janet Street Porter who was herself defining 80s youth culture in Margaret Thatchers new capitalist Britain.

If the first night was good then the 2nd night was breathtakingly iconic and would take the Ku Club into most British and European living rooms.

Queen’s Freddie Mercury still riding on a crest of a wave from Live Aid 2 years previously teamed up with world famous opera soprano Montserrat Caballe to perform and record the video for ‘Barcelona’ which would go on to become the anthem for the Olympic Games of 1992 and remains part of the Spanish psyche to the present day.

Today’s era is full of crossovers and collaborations but in the 80s it was a preposterous proposal to put these 2 together but it worked perfectly. The rich voice of Mercury and the haunting melody of Caballe blended perfectly together as they they stood together in evening dress surrounded by flowers and candles at the biggest club in the world. The song was a worldwide hit and when the video was played, Ku Club Ibiza in all its glorious and pompous beauty was beamed directly to to TVs all over the planet with presenters all to happy to fill in the blanks. Ku Club had gone mainstream.

But what goes up must come down and only 4 years later as the western world skirmished in the Iraqi desert the worlds biggest club was an empty hangar with little or no promotion and a shadow of its former self. The 80s bubble had burst and Ku was caught in the proverbial crossfire. Victim of its size as tourist numbers depleted. It’s hard to create an atmosphere with a thousand people in a club that holds 10 times that amount.

Then sailing in at sunset (well actually driving in an old transit van) came 2 brothers from Manchester who unknowingly were a about to rescue the worlds biggest club and put it on the map in a global way that Ibiza had never seen before, even in those so called 80s glory years

To be continued.

Part 2 – The Privilege Ibiza Years 1994-2019: Manumission madness to Closure

Part 3 – UNVRS Ibiza 2025: a whole new ball game