It has been a winter full of rumours and gossip for Pacha and its various side-projects, so we thought we might as well go and finally find out what's what for the forthcoming season. Here's what Pacha's brand director Danny Whittle told us...
So Danny, you're just back from Miami WMC. How was it? And what were your favourite parties?
Well there were obviously a lot of great parties! Our own Pacha party was was a bit more work for me, but still very enjoyable and we had a nice break in the middle when Jazzy Jeff played. You know, when you listen to so much electronic music for a full week then it's quite refreshing to hear something different and JJ played everything from Michael Jackson to Soul 2 Soul and Diana Ross and then also some house, so that was really entertaining! Marco Carola's event at the Shelborne was very good as was Pete Tong's party. But I think my personal highlight was Luciano's Poolside Party at the Shelborne, that was amazing. It was typical Miami: the weather was great, the crowd was absolutely smashing it and very friendly at the same time. I really think that's the party I enjoyed most this year.
Apart of that, we also visited some great places. Miami has some fab restaurants and we had a fantastic meal at China Grill. And in all those years i've been going to the WMC, this year's was the busiest i've ever seen it by a mile. This just shows you how big electronic music is now over in the States, it's gone insane!
Let's speak about Pacha Ibiza now. If we look at the weekly line up, your week starts with a bang with Tiësto replacing the Swedes. As a superstar DJ who got big with trance music, many punters at first almost couldn't believe he's coming to Pacha. Of course, nowadays Tiësto doesn't sound as trancey anymore, but still - how do you reckon the Pacha crowd will welcome Tijs?
I know how they will react, because last year Tiësto once played for us and the place went absolutely ballistic! He did a Friday together with Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold then. He only played about five tracks, but the crowd went totally nuts and the music was that kind of blend between trancey stuff and house, almost progressive, deep house to a degree. You know, just really fat sound and very sexy at the same time. Very Pacha I think, it worked perfectly! Even everyone in the VIP was dancing, on the tables and everywhere, and that's something that doesn't happen very often! I don't want to speak for Tijs, but I guess he's just looking for a change, a variation instead of playing at Privilege all the time. I mean as a DJ of such a format, he has the possibilities to change so he might as well try and do something different, something fresh. I've been chasing him for three years now, because I thought his sound went more that way and therefore thought he would be more available and not be so epic, but maybe wants to be a bit more chunky and a bit more intimate and clubby. So I suppose that's what happened here in the end and I'm sure Monday nights at Pacha are gonna be fantastic!
Tuesdays at Pacha will be almost all about Flower Power this summer. I remember that, years ago, there were maybe six for the whole season. This number went up last year already and this year, you've got 10 dates lined up and on a weekly basis during high season! Is this dedication to the ever-present hippie vibe in Ibiza?
Well we might actually squeeze in another one at the end of September to have a proper Flower Power closing party, so it might be 11 dates in the end! I've wanted to do more FP parties for years already, but Piti, the owner of the night, always wanted to keep it special. This year we could finally convince him to go for a bigger number of parties. We could make him realise that the audience here is changing every week. Of course there's people like us that are here all year round, but we don't really count. It's about all the thousands of tourists that arrive on the island every week during summer. So, even if you do that party on a weekly basis, you still get a completely new audience every week. And in the past there always have been people who never had the chance to go to a Flower Power night just because they were here on the wrong dates, so now it's fair for everyone. Last but not least, Tuesday is a notoriously difficult night in Ibiza and because we're doing something completely different then, I really think it suits our weekly line up perfectly well.
And is it true that Renaissance will be back at Pacha this year?
Yes, I can confirm that. Renaissance is celebrating its 20 years anniversary this summer and we're more than proud to showcase them on the Tuesdays we're not doing Flower Power. Renaissance is a fantastic brand and we're paying hommage to someone who managed to survive in our industry for two decades. They were always about quality and they were there from the very beginning. Renaissance were the first ones to release a compilation the way we know it and the days of Sasha and Digweed were just legendary! So Renaissance will be at Pacha on the 5th of June, 3rd and 10th of July and 4th and 18th of September. Watch out for the line ups.
The Rest of the weekly programme doesn't seem to have that many changes as such, but I'm sure you'll be able to tease us with some insider info about those nights as well?
Well if we start with Subliminal on Wednesday, Morillo this year has 6 dates with Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano, they moved over exclusively to Erick. He's also got 8 dates with Chuckie and he's got 3 dates with Danny Tenaglia and one of them will be a complete be yourself-takeover, where Danny plays all night long, no Erick at all. This will be on August 29th. Then we got people like AN21, Max Vangelli and Alesso coming in as well, so this will be a nice addition to Wednesdays. And Erick just always delivers!
Then what shall I say on Thursdays? It's gonna be huge again with David's F*** Me I'm Famous night. He's got FatBoySlim playing as well for example and I'm sure we'll have some live people coming in later, so there's definitely more news to come there...
The Fridays are All Gone Pure Pacha and will be hosting some great guests like Seth Troxler, Jamie Jones and Maya Jane Coles brought by Pete Tong, so quite underground on some dates. We're kicking off with Calvin Harris on May 25th, so that should be really good. And we're also finalising plans with Laurent Garnier to come and play one date this summer.
Defected on Saturdays are doing two more dates than usually, Bob Sinclar is coming in 6 or 7 times this year, so that's looking really strong.
And then Luciano's Cadenza night on Sunday will be going on until the 7th of October, so he's doing the full 20 dates this year. And again, he's got some great line ups coming in, some old school stuff as well. Kenny Larkin's on board with him now, so I'm really excited about that. All in all, I think we have a really strong and diverse line up ready for this summer.
A While ago, you revealed in our clubbing forums that Pacha Ibiza will see quite some changes in the next two years. Can you tell us more about that now?
For this year, there are two major changes. Firstly, both the stage and the DJ booth in the main room. We've installed a new hydraulic stage on the same place the old static stage used to be (right on the stairs as you come into the main room), so if we need a stage, we have it ready within a few minutes and if not, we have more space on the dancefloor as the whole thing can be put completely underground. Then we've built a hydraulic DJ booth as well on the other side of the room. So the DJ can either play on the ground level, like Luci likes to play, or you can go 3 meters up or anywhere in between. And you can actually go up during the night. So if you start the night low down, as the night gets bigger, you can actually take the booth higher. The booth's also surrounded by LED-screens, so that's gonna be a real difference for people and I think we're probably the first ones to actually have a hydraulic DJ booth. The other DJ booth you all know is still there and we've just made it very flexible. So it can still be used as a DJ booth, it can be used as a VIP area and it can also be another stage, if people want to sing from there. Basically we've made the club very flexible and I think that's the secret to any good nightclub. So we now really can change the club's layout from one night to another which is great. Tiësto's probably going to play from the new DJ booth, 2 meters above with the LED's full on while Luciano will probably use the same booth, but down on the ground with no LED's, but all his mates in the booth.
The second thing we've changed is the Funky Room. But don't fear dear Funky Room lovers, it's still there, but again, we've just done it up and made it very flexible. There's a new sound system in it and where the wall used to be, which seperated the room from the main room, this is now opened up, but it's got triple glazed glass panels which can be opened up. So again, we can play with it. Say on really busy night like a David Guetta night when we need the space, we can open it up completely and it's then part of the main room, while on another night, we can close it down and use it as the original Funky Room. There will be more changes next year, but we just didn't get the permissions in time to do all of it this year. But for this coming summer, the main room at Pacha as well as the Funky Room both look nicer than ever.
Last, but not least, you're also part of the Ibiza123Festival organising committee. What's the latest news on that?
We're doing a big press release and a party down at the site on Tuesday, 3rd of April and and that's when everybody will get the full announcement and all the information. There's a lot of things been added to the line up, some really big names. The lineup is just insane when you realise who will play there. So there will be the full three day passes for 150€ and one day passes for 65€. And if you think about it, for most of the artists, you would pay just about that just to see one of them! So to pay 65€ for a full day ticket to see more than just one big name is just really cheap as chips! We're really excited for the festival, firstly because of the line up and secondly because of that great sunset location, can't wait!
Thanks Danny, we're looking forward to a great Pacha summer!
