Is it really this bad?

I love how this debate always brings out the musical snobs and dullards who like nothing better than looking down their nose at other people having a good time in places they feel are beneath them and listening to music they can't stand.

There is a simple solution to this people.... don't go to those places! If Ocean Beach or Avicii at Ushuaia isn't your thing then stay away from them and let the ones who enjoy it get on with it while you go to the parties you like and congratulate yourself on how cool you are.


I agree that "progress" (money) has ruined some of the magic but if the island is to survive then it has to move and evolve and along the way some of the people who used to enjoy it won't anymore. It's really that simple. If Ushuaia or DC10 or Amnesia isn't your "thing" any more... If it's been taken over by a new generation of people (with money or not) if the music doesn't do it for you like it used to... If it's too busy, too messy, too popular.... Guess what? Tough shit!

It probably means that you're older, have less in common with the people that are discovering it and unless you embrace the change of the venue/clientele/music policy? then you don't belong there no matter how much you try to cling on to how it was five, ten or twenty years ago.

There is no place for rudeness btw I agree with that wholeheartedly but the bottom line is if you don't like certain parties, venues or style of music then it's really easy to avoid. Much better to just avoid somewhere you don't like rather than pompously bitch about it and therefore become as bad as the people you claim to be so superior to?

Blimey it's all kicking off. :lol:

In case you were referring to me (which I sincerely hope you weren't)...I'm glad you're still enjoying and hope you continue to. However, this post is horribly ageist.

Discernment has nothing to do with age. I was also a young "snob" who knew what he liked. At 15 my opinions were as finely tuned as they are now (when rave gave way to naff hardcore I was cross :lol:) and none of this has to do with a felt superiority (or age - 35 ain't that old!).

For me, Ibiza was all about the convergence of people from all ages/backgrounds/races - and most importantly, economic backgrounds.

I also still feel the same about the place as I did in the 90s - I'd like to plan a trip back but the prices are harsh so I'm less able to...and the incentive isn't there because the lineups aren't as good as Croatia which is where all the sussed people seem to be.

So - I'll be back, for a two week jaunt at some point, most of which will be spent in Benhirras on a yoga retreat...(will of course be checking out all the usual haunts also).

I understand where the defensive posts are coming from - Ibiza is worth protecting - but a critique of how things are changing should also be permitted. Without it, the place is doomed.
 
After having my worst trip ever in July, I'm thinking of going back in September. :spank: I do feel very up for it as I type this - kinda hoping the physical ailments I had explain my lack of party spirit back then, and not the place or me getting too old! (Let's just say I won't be going on a weight lifting binge before this trip. :eek: And i'll remember to buy mosquito spray as soon as I get there.) September is the time I like, rather than July, anyway.
 
I'm really thinking about Croatia next year for Suncebeat festival.

July 22-29.
£125 a band.
Runs 10pm-6am for 7 nights.
Croatia is suppose to be lovely too.
A slightly older crowd than Ibiza I hear, in a sense you get away from the 17/18/19 year olds.
Not as commercial as Ibiza now.
Cheaper.
I can go out and not have to do any hard stuff when the drink is so cheap and you aren't paying high entry.
Still get great acts. Outdoors. Boat parties during day and music starts playing ~ 4ish.

I hear Novalja is a good spot but Suncebeat is in Garden Tisno. Anyone been to either and offer comparison?

Novalja has Hideout festival though it is early July and think 4 days long. Though if it is more lively without festival, it may be cool. More to do during the day? Who knows.
 
Makes me sad.

I'm not adverse to techno - I just miss the soul which rightly should go hand in hand with the sunshine. If I want a techno basement I can pop down the road.

Ibiza used to get it so right; a mix of excessive glamour, Eurotrash and hedonism with an inclusive atmosphere. The fact that lobster coloured Scousers could mix with a Sheikh, Claudia Schiffer, Tenaglia on his night off and a munted actor from Casualty was entirely the point.

It really is such a loss...and definitely not unaccountable. The disco mafia didn't give a f*** about their punters so I don't blame them for going elsewhere. I'd agree on the point that there's nowhere quite like Ibiza, but if you wanna party, this becomes a moot point.

This is a giggle - most of it was filmed at Godskitchen which represented the naff side of the island in '99 but still - looks fun from here! (and the terrace with Claudio Coccoluto's residency was ace that year if I remember...)

(fast forward to 18 mins for the moneypennys segment and whoosh!)

I was on the island in 1999. Got to see them filming Kevin n Perry on Benirass. Good times :D
 
I think watching this sums things up nicely, such a wide spectrum of people in one place, something you rarely see in clubs in Ibiza now:


I'd say the San An clubs back in the mid to late 90s then were very much British clientele but venture out and you'd see queens, hippies, shirts off ravers, dressed up girls and lads all in one place. Great times.
 
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After having my worst trip ever in July, I'm thinking of going back in September. :spank: I do feel very up for it as I type this - kinda hoping the physical ailments I had explain my lack of party spirit back then, and not the place or me getting too old! (Let's just say I won't be going on a weight lifting binge before this trip. :eek: And i'll remember to buy mosquito spray as soon as I get there.) September is the time I like, rather than July, anyway.

Have you booked ?
 
they don't get into ushuaïa.

and as for your comment regarding older crowd in croatia, not sure that's accurate.

Being sarcastic with the 14yr old comment.

And never been Croatia, just something I've heard. Ever been? Be interested to hear people's experiences.
 
I'm really thinking about Croatia next year for Suncebeat festival.

July 22-29.
£125 a band.
Runs 10pm-6am for 7 nights.
Croatia is suppose to be lovely too.
A slightly older crowd than Ibiza I hear, in a sense you get away from the 17/18/19 year olds.
Not as commercial as Ibiza now.
Cheaper.
I can go out and not have to do any hard stuff when the drink is so cheap and you aren't paying high entry.
Still get great acts. Outdoors. Boat parties during day and music starts playing ~ 4ish.

I hear Novalja is a good spot but Suncebeat is in Garden Tisno. Anyone been to either and offer comparison?

Novalja has Hideout festival though it is early July and think 4 days long. Though if it is more lively without festival, it may be cool. More to do during the day? Who knows.


I went to Soundwave festival 2 years ago at The Garden, Tisno.

I'm a Ibiza go'er like most people here. Went first in 98 to Portinax with the family and then came back myself the year after and every subsequent year until I finally got myself in a position to work a couple of Seasons in 06 & 07.

After my 2nd season I had had enough of San An and the west end etc etc plus I was in a worker frame of mind where you spend €30 a day max. Overpaying for water in clubs was the biggest p*** take of all. There is the argument that they want to keep boozy people out of clubs but why charge €10 for a 30cent bottle of water? The shine of Ibiza had worn off and I was ready to try somewhere else.

Annnyway... 6 years later... by now I had got a job, payed off a few debts and decided to go to Croatia. It was the word on everybody's lips so I booked a couple of tickets for my girlfriend and I!

We stayed in Betina which is on a little island just over the bridge from Tisno. We flew in from Gatwick and after a change at Zageb we were on our way to Betina.

We arrived in the night so I didn't have a clue where we are or what things looked like until the morning when I excitedly got up and went out for a walk.

I was stunned at the beauty. The clean air, the mountains and the crystal clear water!

After a bit of looking around and getting to know the place we started looking for a few pre-festival type bars to get us in the mood. Anything with a bit of dance music to gee us up. It quickly became apparent that there wasn't any!

Betina was so quiet you'll be lucky to find a pack of batteries there let alone pre-club bars! Tisno wasn't much different. There are bars there but none had anything to do with the festival or have any connection/knowledge of the dance scene.

So basically unless we were on the festival site there was no where else of interest to go (music wise).

We made the most of things and decided that it wasn't going to be the 'Ibiza style' holiday that we had though it was going to be and opted to go find some nice restaurants.

While we were there I had some of the best food I have ever had and we were paying hardly anything for it. It was amazing. The sea food was simply amazing.

The festival was cool, see some good bands but the whole thing felt a little wrong. It was like the invasion of the Brits. Outside of the festival nobody spoke much English and was from a completely different way of life.

Did they really know what they are letting themselves in for?

I went back to Ibiza/Formentera this summer and fell in love again. Ibiza is expensive and you have to work hard to get good food without paying crazy money for it but there is music f****** everywhere. No matter whether you are in a taxi with Sonica playing or on the beach at Bora or even in a small restaurant - there is the music that we know and love.

People in Ibiza love this music, everyone who goes to Ibiza loves this music. It is part of us and we all have a solid connection beyond the VIP bs.

Times change and the business people have to evolve to fund their lifestyles but there still remains something we all have in common.

It is going to be a long time before anything like 'Ibiza' could be re-created elsewhere. By that point the prices will probably be just as high anyway!
 
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Just to add to this - there were more younger people than older (I'm 32 my g/f is 38), most likely due to it being a festival and the cost.
 
:)
... there is music f****** everywhere.
No matter whether you are in a taxi with Sonica playing or on the beach at Bora or even in a small restaurant - there is the music that we know and love.

People in Ibiza love this music,
everyone who goes to Ibiza loves this music.
It is part of us and we all have a solid connection beyond the VIP bs ...
:cool:
 
I went to Soundwave festival 2 years ago at The Garden, Tisno.

I'm a Ibiza go'er like most people here. Went first in 98 to Portinax with the family and then came back myself the year after and every subsequent year until I finally got myself in a position to work a couple of Seasons in 06 & 07.

After my 2nd season I had had enough of San An and the west end etc etc plus I was in a worker frame of mind where you spend €30 a day max. Overpaying for water in clubs was the biggest p*** take of all. There is the argument that they want to keep boozy people out of clubs but why charge €10 for a 30cent bottle of water? The shine of Ibiza had worn off and I was ready to try somewhere else.

Annnyway... 6 years later... by now I had got a job, payed off a few debts and decided to go to Croatia. It was the word on everybody's lips so I booked a couple of tickets for my girlfriend and I!

We stayed in Betina which is on a little island just over the bridge from Tisno. We flew in from Gatwick and after a change at Zageb we were on our way to Betina.

We arrived in the night so I didn't have a clue where we are or what things looked like until the morning when I excitedly got up and went out for a walk.

I was stunned at the beauty. The clean air, the mountains and the crystal clear water!

After a bit of looking around and getting to know the place we started looking for a few pre-festival type bars to get us in the mood. Anything with a bit of dance music to gee us up. It quickly became apparent that there wasn't any!

Betina was so quiet you'll be lucky to find a pack of batteries there let alone pre-club bars! Tisno wasn't much different. There are bars there but none had anything to do with the festival or have any connection/knowledge of the dance scene.

So basically unless we were on the festival site there was no where else of interest to go (music wise).

We made the most of things and decided that it wasn't going to be the 'Ibiza style' holiday that we had though it was going to be and opted to go find some nice restaurants.

While we were there I had some of the best food I have ever had and we were paying hardly anything for it. It was amazing. The sea food was simply amazing.

The festival was cool, see some good bands but the whole thing felt a little wrong. It was like the invasion of the Brits. Outside of the festival nobody spoke much English and was from a completely different way of life.

Did they really know what they are letting themselves in for?

I went back to Ibiza/Formentera this summer and fell in love again. Ibiza is expensive and you have to work hard to get good food without paying crazy money for it but there is music f****** everywhere. No matter whether you are in a taxi with Sonica playing or on the beach at Bora or even in a small restaurant - there is the music that we know and love.

People in Ibiza love this music, everyone who goes to Ibiza loves this music. It is part of us and we all have a solid connection beyond the VIP bs.

Times change and the business people have to evolve to fund their lifestyles but there still remains something we all have in common.

It is going to be a long time before anything like 'Ibiza' could be re-created elsewhere. By that point the prices will probably be just as high anyway!

Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, the day time stuff was what I was a bit concerned about with regards to Garden Tisno, because I had read up a bit and Novalja (Zcre beach in particular) seems to have beach side bars and clubs itself, with music apparently starting from 4pm in the day and picking up ~6pm, and boat parties.

The thing is, Tisno seems to hold more festivals, and Suncebeats seems to be the longest. I think Novalja has Hideout festival which looks decent and that's at the very beginning but only ~4 days. So then for the rest of the holiday you are left with just the normal resort.

Here's part of a review of Zcre Beach:

Zrce Beach! Well this place is wild! There are 5 big clubs and 3 which seemed to be the main ones when we were there. Euphoria is a starting place, with vodka and jaeger for 10kn (£1) which some people started at to knock back the cheap drinks. The main clubs Papaya, Aquarius and Noa kick off from about 3/4pm when the music starts pumping and everyone dances around the knee deep pools. The beach its-self although stony was lovely and had crystal clear water. I didn’t see all the rubbish etc that people have described, it was very clean to me. We partied from 3/4pm until sunset at about 8:30pm most days then headed back to get changed. We then went back out around midnight after some pre-drinks and hit the beach 1/2am until 5/6. Papaya, Aquarius and Noa seemed the best but depending on the DJ’s at the time and which festivals are on the music genre’s were all pretty different. Drink prices weren’t too bad, a round of vodka and mixers for 4 people in Euphoria for 4 people was 96kn (£10) and before the festival Papaya round was about 140kn (£14.50) but quickly went up to 200kn (£20.50) a round during festival time. This is pretty standard English prices but luckily you save money elsewhere with food etc.
 
There are a LOT less English than our other standard summer haunts, mainly Italians and people from Slovenia, Slovakia and Germany. There were loads of lovely Scandinavians who were always extremely polite and lovely to chat to. Plenty of Aussies, Canadians and tonnes of Irish!

I generally go away to get away from other Irish haha:lol:
 
Every DJ i know who has played at barbarellas (tisno) says its their favourite club on earth. Giving serious thought to paying a visit next summer. Always interesting reading the comparisons with Ibz - i actually think they are now totally different markets pitched at v diff crowds. How many people in ibiza listen to disco and real house? ZERO. How many people in cro listen to pete tong or Radio 1? ZERO. I don't think ibz really need to worry about that kind of competition because culturally amd sonically it is another world
 
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