Back in the 80s and 90s Ibiza was a very defined place. Party all night, sleep all day, it was that simple. Space opened in the early 90s and broke the rules with a 6am start but this was more of a ‘carry-on” rather than a daytime venue.
By the early 2000’s daytime had started to become a thing. The Liverpool club Garlands had captured a voracious market for dancing in the daytime with their legendary Kanya parties in San Antonio before an ill fated move to Playa den Bossa put the brakes on but the seed had been sown.
Ibiza Rocks’ iconic concerts with some of Europe’s biggest bands had pushed evening starting times even earlier (mainly due to noise controls) and Carl Cox’s takeover at Space started at 8pm. Something that was unheard of a decade earlier.
Ushuaia opened in 2010 and copied the Ibiza Rocks model with daytime and evening events and then the beach clubs came to the fore.
O Beach, Nikki Beach, Nassau, Blue Marlin, Beachouse, Amante, Clap House, Beso Beach, El Silencio, Elements to name but a few that are now open for business. There’s something to wet everybody’s whistle from dancing semi naked with flying dinosaurs to delicious sushi on leopard skin beds and everything in between. The explosion of Ibiza’s daytime venues has been both unstoppable and remarkable.
Then we have Ibizas super clubs led by 2025’s opening of UNVRS, the self styled world’s first ‘hyper club’ and who can argue. Let’s add Hï, Pacha, Amnesia and DC10 into the mix and also throw in Chinois, Es Paradis and Eden with the biggest names in EDM music every night.
I’m not even going to go into Ibiza’s amazing culinary scene which is genuinely world class.
The options are limitless. Mind blowing if, like the majority of people, you only come to Ibiza for 3 or 4 nights.
So in an overpopulated marketplace something’s gotta give so what about Ibiza’s famous bar scene? It was the backbone of the hedonistic White Isle society through the ages but is now finding it tough, positioned between the growing number of daytime venues and the night clubs.
I’m not including the bars that are destination venues, such as the sunset bars which are a phenomenon all to themselves. Who doesn’t come to Ibiza and have sundowners in an iconic surrounding like Mambo, Cafe del Mar, Kumharas, Mint Lounge, Sunset Ashram, Hostal la Torre and all the rest. These aren’t bars anymore, they are experiences with food and sometimes a hefty minimum spend.
The humble bar where you walk in and have a beer or a gin and tonic and shoot the breeze are the ones getting squeezed. Their market is diminishing as there isn’t enough hours in the day. It’s all about daytime parties where you dress to impress in secure surroundings, food, sunset cocktails, super clubs with world famous DJ’s. In other words Instagrammable moments.
Whereas once it was cheap hotels, sleeping on the beach all day, a pre-party, sitting on stools watching the club parades, a mini bar crawl then clubbing into the small hours, now it’s a 4 or 5 star hotel and a pre-planned schedule for 18 hours a day with very little room for spontaneity.
The beauty of Ibiza is that it’s an ever changing environment that constantly reinvents itself. That’s why it’s at the top of its game but also why some traditional businesses have been overtaken. What’s the next big thing going to be?
MAN IN SAN AN by Martin Makepeace 