If you have had the extraordinary pleasure, headlining here must be among the most enjoyable employment experiences ever. Someone comes and picks you up from your fabulous lodgings, you enter a beautiful venue with soft lighting where thousands of people having a really great night out cheer you on mightily while you sip champagne and play records for several hours over a very nice rig indeed. And then Danny Whittle comes up and gives you up to twenty thousand euros. Who is this nice man? What is his job description? Well, he doesn’t quite know either.
danny whittle
Names are pretty irrelevant really,” he says, speaking to Ibiza-Voice.com in his office, part of the garden-filled club complex on Avenida 8 de Agosto.
“I actually came on board initially as Musical Director but the more I’ve been involved with the company and the group the more I’ve got involved in other areas so they’ve been thinking about calling me Brand Director and Content Director… I look at the week or the season with an overview.”
I started the Pacha Magazine for the first year and that’s going from strength to strength, it looks like we’ve got an issue of that going out in an issue of the [UK’s Sunday] Observer. That’s going to go out to 1.4 million homes one Sunday in May. That’s fantastic, and obviously more and more people are interested in advertising that magazine now. They’ve seen the quality of it for one year and it really isn’t just all about discos
But hold on. Wasn’t raving moulded by a collective “f*** you” to various manifestations of powers that be who enacted ridiculously broad legislation which in bloodless prose has labelled an actual sound criminal - the “succession of repetitive beats”.
What’s Pacha got to do with this? Less and less as it happens. They are perhaps the most prominent example worldwide of how an experience centred around a booming dance floor has moved from alternative lifestyle to just lifestyle. The counter culture has become the culture. Not that everybody in Ibiza approves of Pacha’s engorged status. Veteran promoters Zenith, who put on a party in Pacha for years before moving to new venue La Diosa, for one.
Roberto (Zenith): “I suggest to Pacha, don’t look for a big big scoop all time, like all the big djs. Now is not Pacha, is Subliminal, is Ministry. So I hope for them they take back a little bit their identity that was an example for all the clubs of the world. I think they need to take back a little bit their self. Because they have a lot, more than what they know. I think they are bigger than what they think they are. They are the best.”
A talking point? Certainly. An expensive but highly entertaining night out? Almost guaranteed. But did they really buy a beach for tax purposes?*
*No, so if that’s the only reason you’re reading you can stop here.
Mike Stuart: How was your NYE?
Danny Whittle: Really really good actually. We were considerably up on last year. It was one of our busiest New Year’s yet, if not the busiest. We were really happy with it. A big contingent of Italians came over and there were a few over from the UK and Germany. Good atmosphere, good music, no problems.
How was Bobby?
Normally he tends to warm up for David [Morales] or Frankie [Knuckles], so you very rarely get to hear him play a main slot but he did on New Year’s Eve and played it really well. Everybody was really happy. Andy Baxter opened, Bobby came on at 2.30, played till about 5 then Sara (Main) knowing the crowd how she does played till the end, 8.30 or something.
How was the Christmas and New Year period in general compared to last year?
I thought it was really good. Lots of people came in. There’s been a really good atmosphere in the club on every night we’ve been open. We’ve been doing the new thing in winter which is Fiasco on Thursday nights in Pachacha which has had a great response. It’s nice for us because for the first time ever we’ve opened Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so we’ve added a night to the schedule. If that’s looking to the future then we can make the season longer and therefore make the winter more entertaining and get more direct flights then that’s kind of the philosophy of the island really. We’ve reached breaking point in August and most of the summer. It’s fantastic stuff we’ve got here but we only seem to use it for four months.
What’s the main difference between Ibiza in winter and Ibiza in summer? Do you have preference?
I love the summer because that is what brought me to Ibiza all those years ago, but I consider winter now to be our prize for the summer. The summer is work work and nothing but work and it can at some points become quite rude when you’re walking past people without really having the time to speak anything more than a ‘Hello’. The people who live and work in Ibiza understand that so nobody takes offence they know winter we all get to spend time together we get to socialise and Pacha’s somewhere you can actually walk around and not get carried around by the crowd for a few months. So even tho I love the summer and I love the dynamics I consider winter to be the prize for doing the summer.
What is your job title here at Pacha?
I actually came on board initially as Musical Director but the more I’ve been involved with the company and the group the more I’ve got involved in other areas so they’ve been thinking about calling me Brand Director and Content Director but the names become pretty irrelevant really because it’s very much planning the overall summer. I look at the week or the season with an overview. Now the music very much comes back to Mark Nettto, once we’ve decided roughly where we wanna go then Mark does his thing which is pulls the djs in, physically if you like, then we all work together on artwork or applying the artwork of the nights to a campaign or marketing for the island in the UK and here in Ibiza. We look at the decorations that each of the nights is going to use and planning that as well and discuss with the décor crew here as well who will then go about manufacturing it. We also deal very heavily with the franchises. I was basically behind opening Pacha London and on from there with Pacha Budapest and Pacha Munich and Switzerland, and more have opened since. I’ve done a lot of that I think because of my understanding of the music industry globally not just in Ibiza. I’ve tended to be more involved in that area because obviously I speak English and a lot of our international franchises speak English, not so many Spanish. I also started the Pacha recordings label, when I first got here. I’m Musical Director of the label as well and part owner.
I heard you made so much money you had to buy a beach for tax purposes – is that true? How is business, generally?
I think that was buy a bitch. They cost more money than a beach. Business is going really really well. We’ve invested a lot of money in the Hotel, and Sa Punta and different businesses. We’ve got a general deal and we’ve leased the place for so long. Them places are very much under the authority of the Costas and at the moment we’re closed because of a legal situation. I wish we could buy Sa Punta it would be a fantastic investment but what we did tho is heavily invest in the hotel to make what was an old 70s style ugly building and now it’s something that’s very retro and we don’t mind associating with Pacha. It’s become very successful and already people are booking it out for summer. We’re doing really really well, there’s no two ways about it. The company’s growing well, the franchises are working fantastically, the magazines went well and even tho we’re not rushing at things and trying to get a magazine out there that people’ll buy, we know we can make the magazines work in summer because we know he have to do so much marketing ourselves it’s pretty self-financing.
these next few questions are interesting.
What do you think of the comments from David de Filepe, the Amnesia director, that Pacha gets an easy ride because it’s in the jurisdiction of the Policia Local and not the Guardia Civil?
I kinda didn’t get the point. I didn’t even understand why he was even doing it. I don’t know what was s’posed to be gain by that. In my understanding we come under the jurisdiction of all the police, we come under the local police, the national police and the Guardia Civil. I see the police at Pacha all the time. We do everything we can to keep things within the law. I’d like to think that all the clubs do that. We wouldn’t think for one minute to do that kind of thing when we believe all the clubs in Ibiza are trying their best to keep things relatively within the law. Now I understand that some clubs may open slightly later sometimes, this may be the case, but generally we don’t, we do close. I just felt disappointed. We have a disco federation where I think things can be spoken about and I’m a firm believer people can invite each other out for dinner and speak about problems. So I kinda don’t know why he would need to go through the press really.
What does the Association of Discotecas do?
I’d be lying to you if I told you I knew what the disco federation was doing to be honest. When I see reports about what the disco federation what they’re talking about, I think they talk too much about the stuff they do on the island, and not enough about doing stuff jointly off the island to promote Ibiza as a destination. They seem more concerned with fighting over the people that are here than jointly trying to get more people to come here in the first place. And when you look at how much money we make as the five major clubs, it would be a very small percentage of that to take advertising pages in Italy, Germany, etc... to advertise Ibiza and the five clubs in general. I think that’s where the clubs should be paying more attention, is not arguing over the people on the island, but trying to ensure that more people come to the island.
Why are clubs in Ibiza so expensive?
Some people make their living all year round. But in places like Ibiza that are tourist driven, it’s obvious that’s not the case. And when you go on holiday, when you go somewhere, there’s a price to pay. There has to be. Most of this island’s economy is based on three or four months in the summer and that’s it. Now, you can get cheap drinks in Ibiza, if you want cheap drinks there are plenty of places that sell them, but if they want to drink in Pacha then it’s going to cost them. It costs us. Just the price of the dj would make most general public faint because they wouldn’t believe for one minute that the dj was earning that kind of money.
How much is a dj?
You can pay anything between 10 and 20,000 euros for one night, and most clubs in Ibiza do every night. That’s just one person, and then when you look you’ve got 140 other staff members, then you’ve got your cleaners, and it all adds up. It’s very easy to walk in and go ‘Oh the drinks are so expensive’. But if you take that same drink, and drink it in London, it’ll cost you more. Because we all know that when you buy a drink in England, it’s one third. You buy a drink in Pacha, it’s very nearly a treble. You can see why someone would think a vodka limon is expensive, but when you break it down it isn’t. And if it bothers them that much there’s a little bar round the corner where they’re three euros.
i-g take note of the next two
How much does it cost to get a table in the VIP area?
Normally a table for four’s probably a thousand euros over the night, and that would include drinks and so on and so forth.
How would you go about booking one?
You would ring the club, who would put you through to Fred, who works here with Francesco, who takes care of the VIP.
What is Pacha doing at the WMC?
We’re doing Friday night, the 5th, before the conference opens, but we figured everybody was getting there on the Thursday and Friday anyway. We do the Opium Gardens on Friday the 5th with our usual headline djs, Pete Tong’s going to becoming along, people who represent here in the summer are going to be coming along to show their face. It’s our way of marketing what we’re going to be doing next summer really.
What else is happening before the summer?
In March Erick Morillo wants to come over and do something with us. I don’t want to say too much because I haven’t finalised it with Erick and I don’t want him screaming at me.
Thanks very much Danny for your time and co-operation
thanks to space ibiza for this interview. www.space-ibiza.com
danny whittle
Names are pretty irrelevant really,” he says, speaking to Ibiza-Voice.com in his office, part of the garden-filled club complex on Avenida 8 de Agosto.
“I actually came on board initially as Musical Director but the more I’ve been involved with the company and the group the more I’ve got involved in other areas so they’ve been thinking about calling me Brand Director and Content Director… I look at the week or the season with an overview.”
I started the Pacha Magazine for the first year and that’s going from strength to strength, it looks like we’ve got an issue of that going out in an issue of the [UK’s Sunday] Observer. That’s going to go out to 1.4 million homes one Sunday in May. That’s fantastic, and obviously more and more people are interested in advertising that magazine now. They’ve seen the quality of it for one year and it really isn’t just all about discos
But hold on. Wasn’t raving moulded by a collective “f*** you” to various manifestations of powers that be who enacted ridiculously broad legislation which in bloodless prose has labelled an actual sound criminal - the “succession of repetitive beats”.
What’s Pacha got to do with this? Less and less as it happens. They are perhaps the most prominent example worldwide of how an experience centred around a booming dance floor has moved from alternative lifestyle to just lifestyle. The counter culture has become the culture. Not that everybody in Ibiza approves of Pacha’s engorged status. Veteran promoters Zenith, who put on a party in Pacha for years before moving to new venue La Diosa, for one.
Roberto (Zenith): “I suggest to Pacha, don’t look for a big big scoop all time, like all the big djs. Now is not Pacha, is Subliminal, is Ministry. So I hope for them they take back a little bit their identity that was an example for all the clubs of the world. I think they need to take back a little bit their self. Because they have a lot, more than what they know. I think they are bigger than what they think they are. They are the best.”
A talking point? Certainly. An expensive but highly entertaining night out? Almost guaranteed. But did they really buy a beach for tax purposes?*
*No, so if that’s the only reason you’re reading you can stop here.
Mike Stuart: How was your NYE?
Danny Whittle: Really really good actually. We were considerably up on last year. It was one of our busiest New Year’s yet, if not the busiest. We were really happy with it. A big contingent of Italians came over and there were a few over from the UK and Germany. Good atmosphere, good music, no problems.
How was Bobby?
Normally he tends to warm up for David [Morales] or Frankie [Knuckles], so you very rarely get to hear him play a main slot but he did on New Year’s Eve and played it really well. Everybody was really happy. Andy Baxter opened, Bobby came on at 2.30, played till about 5 then Sara (Main) knowing the crowd how she does played till the end, 8.30 or something.
How was the Christmas and New Year period in general compared to last year?
I thought it was really good. Lots of people came in. There’s been a really good atmosphere in the club on every night we’ve been open. We’ve been doing the new thing in winter which is Fiasco on Thursday nights in Pachacha which has had a great response. It’s nice for us because for the first time ever we’ve opened Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so we’ve added a night to the schedule. If that’s looking to the future then we can make the season longer and therefore make the winter more entertaining and get more direct flights then that’s kind of the philosophy of the island really. We’ve reached breaking point in August and most of the summer. It’s fantastic stuff we’ve got here but we only seem to use it for four months.
What’s the main difference between Ibiza in winter and Ibiza in summer? Do you have preference?
I love the summer because that is what brought me to Ibiza all those years ago, but I consider winter now to be our prize for the summer. The summer is work work and nothing but work and it can at some points become quite rude when you’re walking past people without really having the time to speak anything more than a ‘Hello’. The people who live and work in Ibiza understand that so nobody takes offence they know winter we all get to spend time together we get to socialise and Pacha’s somewhere you can actually walk around and not get carried around by the crowd for a few months. So even tho I love the summer and I love the dynamics I consider winter to be the prize for doing the summer.
What is your job title here at Pacha?
I actually came on board initially as Musical Director but the more I’ve been involved with the company and the group the more I’ve got involved in other areas so they’ve been thinking about calling me Brand Director and Content Director but the names become pretty irrelevant really because it’s very much planning the overall summer. I look at the week or the season with an overview. Now the music very much comes back to Mark Nettto, once we’ve decided roughly where we wanna go then Mark does his thing which is pulls the djs in, physically if you like, then we all work together on artwork or applying the artwork of the nights to a campaign or marketing for the island in the UK and here in Ibiza. We look at the decorations that each of the nights is going to use and planning that as well and discuss with the décor crew here as well who will then go about manufacturing it. We also deal very heavily with the franchises. I was basically behind opening Pacha London and on from there with Pacha Budapest and Pacha Munich and Switzerland, and more have opened since. I’ve done a lot of that I think because of my understanding of the music industry globally not just in Ibiza. I’ve tended to be more involved in that area because obviously I speak English and a lot of our international franchises speak English, not so many Spanish. I also started the Pacha recordings label, when I first got here. I’m Musical Director of the label as well and part owner.
I heard you made so much money you had to buy a beach for tax purposes – is that true? How is business, generally?
I think that was buy a bitch. They cost more money than a beach. Business is going really really well. We’ve invested a lot of money in the Hotel, and Sa Punta and different businesses. We’ve got a general deal and we’ve leased the place for so long. Them places are very much under the authority of the Costas and at the moment we’re closed because of a legal situation. I wish we could buy Sa Punta it would be a fantastic investment but what we did tho is heavily invest in the hotel to make what was an old 70s style ugly building and now it’s something that’s very retro and we don’t mind associating with Pacha. It’s become very successful and already people are booking it out for summer. We’re doing really really well, there’s no two ways about it. The company’s growing well, the franchises are working fantastically, the magazines went well and even tho we’re not rushing at things and trying to get a magazine out there that people’ll buy, we know we can make the magazines work in summer because we know he have to do so much marketing ourselves it’s pretty self-financing.
these next few questions are interesting.
What do you think of the comments from David de Filepe, the Amnesia director, that Pacha gets an easy ride because it’s in the jurisdiction of the Policia Local and not the Guardia Civil?
I kinda didn’t get the point. I didn’t even understand why he was even doing it. I don’t know what was s’posed to be gain by that. In my understanding we come under the jurisdiction of all the police, we come under the local police, the national police and the Guardia Civil. I see the police at Pacha all the time. We do everything we can to keep things within the law. I’d like to think that all the clubs do that. We wouldn’t think for one minute to do that kind of thing when we believe all the clubs in Ibiza are trying their best to keep things relatively within the law. Now I understand that some clubs may open slightly later sometimes, this may be the case, but generally we don’t, we do close. I just felt disappointed. We have a disco federation where I think things can be spoken about and I’m a firm believer people can invite each other out for dinner and speak about problems. So I kinda don’t know why he would need to go through the press really.
What does the Association of Discotecas do?
I’d be lying to you if I told you I knew what the disco federation was doing to be honest. When I see reports about what the disco federation what they’re talking about, I think they talk too much about the stuff they do on the island, and not enough about doing stuff jointly off the island to promote Ibiza as a destination. They seem more concerned with fighting over the people that are here than jointly trying to get more people to come here in the first place. And when you look at how much money we make as the five major clubs, it would be a very small percentage of that to take advertising pages in Italy, Germany, etc... to advertise Ibiza and the five clubs in general. I think that’s where the clubs should be paying more attention, is not arguing over the people on the island, but trying to ensure that more people come to the island.
Why are clubs in Ibiza so expensive?
Some people make their living all year round. But in places like Ibiza that are tourist driven, it’s obvious that’s not the case. And when you go on holiday, when you go somewhere, there’s a price to pay. There has to be. Most of this island’s economy is based on three or four months in the summer and that’s it. Now, you can get cheap drinks in Ibiza, if you want cheap drinks there are plenty of places that sell them, but if they want to drink in Pacha then it’s going to cost them. It costs us. Just the price of the dj would make most general public faint because they wouldn’t believe for one minute that the dj was earning that kind of money.
How much is a dj?
You can pay anything between 10 and 20,000 euros for one night, and most clubs in Ibiza do every night. That’s just one person, and then when you look you’ve got 140 other staff members, then you’ve got your cleaners, and it all adds up. It’s very easy to walk in and go ‘Oh the drinks are so expensive’. But if you take that same drink, and drink it in London, it’ll cost you more. Because we all know that when you buy a drink in England, it’s one third. You buy a drink in Pacha, it’s very nearly a treble. You can see why someone would think a vodka limon is expensive, but when you break it down it isn’t. And if it bothers them that much there’s a little bar round the corner where they’re three euros.
i-g take note of the next two
How much does it cost to get a table in the VIP area?
Normally a table for four’s probably a thousand euros over the night, and that would include drinks and so on and so forth.
How would you go about booking one?
You would ring the club, who would put you through to Fred, who works here with Francesco, who takes care of the VIP.
What is Pacha doing at the WMC?
We’re doing Friday night, the 5th, before the conference opens, but we figured everybody was getting there on the Thursday and Friday anyway. We do the Opium Gardens on Friday the 5th with our usual headline djs, Pete Tong’s going to becoming along, people who represent here in the summer are going to be coming along to show their face. It’s our way of marketing what we’re going to be doing next summer really.
What else is happening before the summer?
In March Erick Morillo wants to come over and do something with us. I don’t want to say too much because I haven’t finalised it with Erick and I don’t want him screaming at me.
Thanks very much Danny for your time and co-operation
thanks to space ibiza for this interview. www.space-ibiza.com