Speaker 1:

Ibiza is just a marketing exercise.

Speaker 3:

That's why they promote here for the money. Everything is catered for- you can find very cheap clubs in San Antonio. You can have all the big super clubs, you can have free parties in the hills.

Speaker 4:

We don't want to make any money. We only want to dance.

Speaker 5:

Day out on the beach, you've got unspoiled countrysides. Everything is based up to the individual to go and get what they're looking for really.

Speaker 6:

Yes, it has a Hellenistic feeling, and yes there's a lot of drugs taken, and yes, there is a real big mash of sometimes aggressive people, space heads, what have you, but the whole thing, when it's put together in one big package is just an experience every time you go out. You never know what you're going to get.

Speaker 7:

The first time I came here, I had offers to work as a dancer or as entertainer, but then the money is just ridiculous. There's no way you could actually afford to live on the money you get working as a dancer or an entertainer.

Speaker 8:

I was the coordinator of the dancers, so I was like, no day off all season. I just finished two days ago, and it's like getting a cross off your back and walking straight again. You work like from 11 o'clock you start doing public relation in the centre, and then you go to the club at 2:30 and you stay there till about six o'clock.

Speaker 7:

Some people pay 12 pounds a night, 3 a night, it's about 12 pounds.

Speaker 5:

For any job available on the island, somebody else is going to be willing to do it for cheaper.

Speaker 7:

And they can start eight o'clock at night and finish nine o'clock the next morning. As an entertainer, that's what you'd be doing for 12 pounds.

Speaker 5:

Or even for free just to get into clubs, just to be seen.

Marvin:

It's been the most incredible year for me, for exposure, which anybody that wants to stay in this business needs. To tell you the truth, it's my dream come true.

Colin:

I'm lucky because, DJing, I get paid well in comparison to other workers here. I get paid really well. It can be so hard, and lots of people fall by the wayside.

Speaker 8:

Most of the time people here, they come to get a job, but just like you pass by one of the clubs, one of the bars, you said I need a job. Can I try? They let you try. If they don't like you, they kick you out with the same speed you arrived there. So, you don't have contracts, things like that. So, they treat you, really, a little bit like trash. But that's the fun of it, you change a lot of times your job. I think in the time I was here, I changed like 40 times, 40 different people would dance with me.

Speaker 7:

The horrible thing about dancers or entertainers or anything like that is, they're the first people to get cut if the clubs not making money. People can get flown out with a club to the island to work for the season. And if that club is not taking enough money, the first thing that they would is say, right, cut the dancers, cut the entertainers, cut the parade, cut the costumes. That's very sad that people go, because they're the townspeople.

Monsters, people like that, and it's hard work. And they spend hours making their costumes. And they're the ones that are the real freaks. Everyone looks at it and goes, wow, look at that. The other side of it is sort of on the worker's side of it, English worker side of it, where they can get away with being completely painted, and they'll get paid for being more than a [inaudible].

You don't see that in England. And the biggest part of the attraction, people will talk about that for weeks now, they'll go back and they'll talk about all these weird people that were dressed up where they went. And it will be more people back around next year. If you talk about how good management is because they've got all these strange people painted up, body aint and stuff, it makes people wasn't to go.

Dylan:

Basically, the things I've been doing consists of dressing up silly and annoying people.

Nadine:

You just get like literally a whole group of people standing all the way around you just watching, taking pictures, going, oh my god, what are you doing?

Dylan:

Literally anything, anything and everything you can think of, it comes to them. And, as long as it's everything you shouldn't be seeing in a club.

Nadine:

Just complete confusion.

Speaker 5:

For example, with the Ministry, for a couple of weeks, because the club was full on the Fridays anyway, they decided to stop flyering. So, all the flyerers lost their money for three weeks, I think it was. Suddenly, there was no money for anybody to be made.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, there are nine girls in a one bedroom studio flat in San An this year who were flown over here by a certain club promoter who said, yeah, we'll pay your accomodation.

Speaker 5:

At the height of the season in August, girls would throw themselves at you just because you've got a bed.

Nadine:

I don't know. I can just remember sort of going around the whole of San Antonio looking on the floor for money and stuff like that, because it's just been so skinny.

Speaker 5:

I've seen a lot of people crawling on the floor looking for drugs, not only money.

Nadine:

So, you do it literally 11 times they go, oh, we got to get high. But, two days later, you're laughing about it again.

Speaker 7:

It's a regular thing just to have sort of 25 cents in your pocket. But then you know the next day is pay day, so you'll be fine. And the thing is, if you've got no money, you can still go out. You can still go and sit on the beach with your mates, you can still go and get into a club.

Speaker 5:

I think the whole of the island's economy is run by six clubs. It was big British promoters. There's a lot of money to be made. It's pretty quick to get in the club, six thousand people. It's a lot of money and nobody knows where it's going.

Speaker 7:

It's the clubs over here that really have the power, and the promoters that are really getting ripped off.

Nick Halkes:

I think it's key for big U.K. clubbing brands, such as Cream, and Ministry, and Gate Crasher, to have presence in Ibiza, because that is central to building these global dance brands.

Speaker 7:

Ministry saw this in the beginning, which is why they've done well out of it. Because they're such a big company back in England and all over the world, they understand that they can lose a fortune over here. So they can come here, they can spend so much money on billboards over here, advertising, magazine adverts.

Nick Halkes:

Ten years ago, the concept of the compilation album, the merchandise, the club, the magazine all under the same umbrella didn't exist.

Speaker 7:

And that's how you have to see it, is that people will then go back to Germany, or Switzerland, or Holland, or to America and they'll buy the Ministry album, they'll buy the Ministry T-shirt, Ministry bag, Ministry coat.

Nick Halkes:

So, it's a lifestyle thing, and you can buy into that lifestyle at all different levels.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, I mean God's Kitchen have come out here this year and they spent a fortune, but they can come back next year because they've got the money to spend. And the clubs that won't come back are the ones that came after the first year not banking on losing money. And they haven't come back since. Back to Base hasn't been back, Hard Times didn't come back, and they're brilliant clubs in their own right. But to come out here you've got to have a lot of money behind you. And Ibiza is just a marketing exercise.

A billboard is two and a half grand. It's a lot of money to spend just for a billboard for three months of the year, you know? And it could end up being in a road in the middle of nowhere where no one is even going to see it.

Nick Halkes:

If you don't have a presence there, it just feels like your missing an opportunity to sort of week in, week out spread the vibe to this nationwide kind of target market.

Miguel:

Maybe if anything is going to happen, they would come back. There would be two operators or be promoters changing and go somewhere cheaper that this. It's just the Ibiza toll. It's only the name. But they'll somewhere else, Cyprus or any other island cheaper than here where they can get cheap booze and a lot of people. So, once they left, they're probably going to still release Ibiza CD's.

Nick Halkes:

With so many of the target market for the people who are in the business of making dance records out in Ibiza every summer on holiday, everybody wants to have the big record that kind of captures the imagination of all these thousands and thousands of kids going out.

Speaker 5:

You go to the club, you're going to hear the same music, and you can buy the music the next day that's been printed in a CD three months before. It's very, very predictable.

Nick Halkes:

Ibiza starts to loom from probably round about February, March when you're hearing tracks, you're starting to think, I wonder could this be a big Ibiza record that we might release in September? And then, also, when the season is going through, there'll be records that will just explode in Ibiza, become really big records there, and then go on to be international hits.

Colin:

So many records that, if you're playing in a particular place like somewhere really popular like Bora Bora, or like at the Mission, if you're playing these records and they really stand out, then they will become big hits because people remember them.

You get this record. It reminds them of what a good time they had here. During the summer, all of the DJs, all the people who want to give out promos, they come here to give them out. There's always that chance that it will become a big hit.

Nick Halkes:

When the season is going through, there'll be records that will just explode in Ibiza, become really big records there, and then go on to the international hits. Obviously, if it's a really hot record and something that absolutely captures the imagination in Ibiza and becomes the anthem of life. You could be looking at four hundred thousand, five, six, seven hundred thousand singles if you've really got the right record and the timing right and all the rest of it. So, it is big business.

Speaker 15:

Bora Bora. Get your asses to Bora Bora.

Dylan:

Bora Bora is one of the best places in the world. It just like 12 o'clock in the afternoon, and going to four o'clock in the morning. And the best thing is, it's free. You don't have to pay a single penny.

Colin:

I had a great time there last year. Playing there this year has been fantastic as well.

Gee:

It's like it was the best moment in your life culminating over a whole summer, every day.

Speaker 7:

You're standing on a table in Bora Bora, and the music was playing, it was just like two thousand people dancing on the beach, and I was on this table, the wind is blowing your hair, and it was just so perfect. And you have moments like that, just make you think, this is why we're here. This is why we stayed here.

Nick Halkes:

It's the sort of place where, pretty much 24 hours, if you want action of some description you can find it. And, really, it's a case of how much can you take.

Speaker 7:

I think you should just go full on. Drink. Just drink as much as you can until you fall over. Take so many drinks until you pass out.

Speaker 5:

I've seen quite a lot of people lose it. And went to them swear not to come back ever again. People who were very enthusiastic at first, and three weeks later, and how many drugs later, just lose themselves completely. People don't even remember their names, don't know where they are, what they're doing. Like they've been up for four days, and yeah. That's too bad.

Well, in Ibiza you still have a core bunch of people, most of them are Spanish and Ibiza residents. They live there all year round. And they put up parties in the hills just for themselves and their friends, just to keep the spirit of the island alive, really.

Speaker 15:

There's another side to Ibiza that a few programmes haven't portrayed which we want to get across. It's not all about puking up in gutters, shagging in gutters, doing whatever you want in gutters. There's a lot of dance parties up in the north that a lot of Spanish go to.

Sasha:

[inaudible].

Speaker 5:

The north of the island, that's where all the free parties are, and it's where people go really to have that Ibiza experience people would still talk about 20 years on.

Speaker 8:

You get secret maps, or it goes mouth to mouth to say where the party is going to be.

Speaker 15:

Some of these parties go on for about three days, and you can only find them by word of mouth.

Speaker 18:

I've played at one, which I'll never forget. It was one of the best things I've ever done. It was amazing. And if you've interviewed Mark before, it was one of his parties, actually.

Mark:

It's like the system on Bora Bora, you can transport it everywhere. So, and it's like Bora Bora also. It's going with the year.

Speaker 15:

It's do what you like, be what you like.

Speaker 6:

I knew it was gonna be an ambient party, but I wasn't really sure what to expect. Come out to this open area just with the lighthouse in the backdrop and the Sepia light is stunningly beautiful, and get into the kind of groove baby, the movements. And the music kind of developed me, or I was really off my face and just went mental for the hell of it, which is what I did.

It's good to do something a little different as well. Just really chill out with the people. And they're kind of earthy and real. I got sick and tired of that Paso Divino, spacey kind of snobbery in the club. You've got to look right. You've got to be wearing your black or wearing your glitter, and it's all to be seen and in the seen kind of crowd, the want to be's.

Speaker 8:

The full moon parties are nice, because it's not like the regular parties in the clubs. It's outside with a beautiful full moon just in front of you giving you energy to keep on for the next month again, because it's pretty tough to work here all summertime.

Speaker 5:

It wasn't this VIP having a brilliant time and the punters being treated like shit. Like everybody was on the same, and open air, no pretension. What a proper party should be. The best things on the island are not for sale, but you really need to make the effort to look for them, because they are not going to be advertised in the magazine, they are not going to be promoted.

Sasha:

[inaudible].

Speaker 4:

And the people give what they have, what they want to give. Sometimes it's really hard, because it's three days party and the people don't have so much money, and they spend money to stay in the party, you know?

Speaker 6:

One of the nice things about it, it wasn't about money. There was no entrance. You brought your own brews, your own alcohol, or whatever your pleasure was, and it was just a question of yeah, you could buy Mars Bars and sandwiches and that was just about it. It was just like a good group of people getting together to spread their particular word. It went down fine.

Speaker 18:

The other great aspect of it, the fact that it's not a promoter trying to bang his name around to only sell for thousands of pounds in the future, or for his habit. I tend to find the clubs are more drug induced or drug motivated than the free parties.

Speaker 4:

If you have some people taking drugs, but they take much less drugs than in one disco tech, and they would go really mad, you know?

Speaker 6:

It was nice to just to be able to chat with normal people without being coaxed out of their box. And that's one of the downsides of any party atmosphere, but certainly one of the downsides to this island, I find, being a clean living individual, honestly, I am mom.

Speaker 4:

I think the best is to get permit to make a fist develop, to make legal pot. This is the thing, you know?

Sasha:

[inaudible].

Speaker 4:

We don't want to disturb anybody, and we don't want to make any money. We only want to dance.

Speaker 8:

Party is over. Next year again, unfortunately. Come back next year. I got to be here for sure.

Colin:

It was sad because, at the same time, I knew that it probably wasn't going to be like this now until next summer. At the same time, I do need to rest. I'm completely shattered.

Nadine:

It's just been such a good season. Probably the best summer of my life, and it's a bit gutting. I don't know, I'm ready to go home though, I think. Get some sleep.

Speaker 15:

Tired irreflected. Apart from that, ready to get a tan.

Dylan:

Finally.

Speaker 6:

It was an extreme experience. And next year, maybe I'll do two months.

Gee:

You're talking, all these workers say I feel like crap, I'm tired, I feel like shit, it's not about. We all made money. We had a good jobs, and we managed to go through the whole summer, I don't think it's the best time to ask any night worker how he feels after the whole summer.