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The Grateful for Hospitality Podcast features candid conversations with founders, operators, and experts shaping the sector. Practical insights, honest stories and ideas to make you think.
When I landed, I started with Renaissance, and then I did Ministry of Sound in Pacha. Then I went to Space. We started the first twenty two hour party. The busier all the clubs are in Ibiza, the busier Ibiza is, which means we have longevity. If we're the only club on Ibiza working, we're walking an eye patch.
Danny:When I first got to Ibiza, my VIP was Mick Jaggett and u two and Madonna. Now it's old rapers with the credit card because they still love to see you.
Mason:I'm Mason, CEO at Grateful. I'm traveling overseas to sit down with Danny Whittle. Now this is a man that spent his years in the military, then moved over into hospitality, and he's now very, very prominent in Ibiza's Night scene. Head of brand for Pacha for thirteen years, now running Club Chinois in Ibiza. We're talking about the nightlife in Ibiza, the highs, the lows, what's going on in the different areas, and how that then links back to UK hospitality and where the learnings are that the different industries can take.
Mason:Tune in for an exciting episode or something a little bit more left field than what we usually talking about. So you moved here in '99, you said?
Danny:Yeah. And you what would you what did
Mason:you do before you were in you were in The Falklands? You you're a firefighter. Like, how did you did you get into
Danny:this Yeah, it's an interesting sort of journey. I joined the military pretty much straight from school. I had to wait to join, but I joined at like 17, and then I did six years in the military, In the Royal Navy, I was on aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, was my main draft. We did the Falklands in '82, like you said, and then all the bits and bobs evacuating people from Beirut in '83 when they drove the truck bomb in there, and then other great deployments in America, you know, as a young kid, it was was incredible. And then I left there, and I became a firefighter in Staffordshire Right.
Danny:For ten years Right. Where, you know, that, you know, it's the opposite to being in the military in a way. Because in the military, ultimately, it's set up for to to basically defend and kill people, you know, that and that's what the military is about. Whereas the fire brigade is all about saving people. It's the the other evil is an an evolution.
Danny:And I think that's why a lot of military guys do it because certainly ones who've been in conflict, I think there's a, you know, a protection from potential PTSD and things like that if you if you don't look backward. And and when you go into something like the police or the fire brigade, you tend to live in the moment and you look forward. Mhmm. So I think it's a great move for any military guy to maybe get into something like that. Yeah.
Danny:And then after about just over ten years as a firefighter, had these big problems with my eyes. They kept reoccurring, they they, you know, they said it was because of the smoke and fires, and I'm rubbing my eyes, and I kept getting these reoccurring corneal ulcers. And then I got into I had to leave, unfortunately. And the girl at the unemployment office was amazing because she said, I went in there, she goes, well, what do you wanna do? And I said, well, listen, I've just spent six years on an aircraft carrier and ten years fighting fires.
Danny:What do you think I wanna do? You know? I ain't gonna work in a shop. Know? I need some adrenaline.
Danny:I need something. And she went, you know what? Go away for six months. Gather your thoughts. We'll just pay you.
Danny:We'll send you a check. You don't even need to come and sign on. Yeah. We'll come back in six months and let's see how you feel. And literally a month later, a good friend of mine from, you know, who's in the hospitality industry, it was a big promotion called Renaissance.
Danny:Right. He offered me a job doing logistics. Mhmm. And I remember I said to him, I said, well, is there any adrenaline? He said, well, if you've got 20,000 people sitting outside a festival waiting for you to open them gates Yeah.
Danny:Then, yeah, there is a lot of adrenaline. I said, okay, let's do it. So yeah, so I did it, and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I loved being one of the few very professional people because of Military and Fire Brigade in what was the Wild West of very young electronic music events, you know, where it was still just coming almost not far from illegal raves.
Danny:Yeah. They'd only really just become sort of legal because it had to become legal. Yeah. So so I was applying my get out of bed and get stuff done attitude in a landscape in of people drinking and lying in bed all day and not really doing a great deal. Yeah.
Danny:Not that's not a blanket description, but the material But
Mason:I know what you mean. Like, if you're out all night and you're drinking and you're in the industry, then you're really get up early and do anything.
Danny:I was the I was the military fireman guy who got out of bed and made shit happen. So I quickly got on in the industry to the point, I think within about four years, three years, I was doing my own events for 5,000 people or plus, you know. So yeah. Right. That that was the evolution.
Danny:But you know what? When you look at the evolution, I went from, if you like, the military trying to kill people, to the fire brigade to trying to save people, to the dance music trying to make people smile. Yeah. So there's this beautiful accidental evolution that I really think helped me a great deal to, you know, to move on in life and not look backwards.
Mason:Yeah. It's, yeah. And so you landed here, like what Ibiza like when you landed?
Danny:Well, I I don't
Mason:know, but, like, it's obviously changed so so much. Right?
Danny:Yeah. Yeah. Well well, I was I actually came over for Renaissance primarily to do a big event, I think about '95, '96 with Manu Mission, the, you know, the big event in in at the time in Coo Club. We did that, and it was it was very free and very open and and pretty dangerous, to be honest. I mean, you know, everybody can look back and go Get away
Mason:with, like, drugs or crime
Danny:or No. More like because the police didn't care. You could drive around drunk. You could do what you want. And at the end of the day, as much fun as that seemed, there were people dying.
Danny:You know? I mean, the the the they used to call the road from Ibiza Town to San Antonio was like the deadliest road in the world at one point. I mean, it had more it was more dangerous than the Snipers Road in Sarajevo or, you know, things like that. I mean, there were literally fifty, sixty people dying a year on that road. People crossing between the nightclubs, between amnesia and and coup, and people driving drunk and all the rest of it.
Danny:You know? And I get that sort of feeling. It's a little bit like Kopangan in Thailand. You know? It's like everybody could do what they want, but there's a price to pay.
Danny:So ultimately what they've done is they they've just made the island a lot safer, and the problem is when you make places safer, they have to tighten the laws. So everybody kind of now goes, oh, well, it's not like it used to be. Well, great. You know, live with it. You know?
Danny:It's it's it's an evolution where you can have as much fun on Ibiza today as you could then, but you can't drink and drive, you know, and you can't, you know, you can't do the things that get people killed. So there's definitely been a a change, but you you can't fight fight evolution. At the end of the day, everywhere's changed. London's changed. You know?
Danny:New everywhere's changed.
Mason:Yeah. And it sounds like, you know, a lot of people do say that, oh, like, it's not like it used to be, but it sounds like from your perspective, it's changed for the better.
Danny:It's it's definitely changed for the better, and most people the problem is that most people go, well, it's not like it used to be. Actually, what they mean is I'm old. Yeah. You know? It was much more fun when I was young, and of course it was fun when you you know?
Danny:But you when I look around the dance floors of the clubs the club that I work in and and the events that I do with the music summit and so on, the smiles are just as big. Yeah. It's just a different generation, and I think when you can accept that, when you can go, okay, it's not my generation anymore, but it's their generation, but look how much fun they're having, then it's still a great place. It's still a great fun place to be you know? Yeah.
Danny:And people talk about the phones you know?
Mason:Well, that's what I was gonna ask you, like, with the whole thing about phones and there's no phones, clubs opening, and things like that, like
Danny:In the end, it's a bit of bullshit, right? I'll tell you now. The reality of it is that if we'd had phones in the nineties, would we have used them? Probably. We would.
Danny:We just didn't have them. No. We had those clunky old Nokia things that they couldn't take a picture. Snap cameras or whatever. We didn't really use them.
Danny:It was just another hassle. Right? But if we had the tech that they have now, we probably would have used them. And actually, you watch how kids use their phones, this is the funny part. Right?
Danny:So when Davey Guetta comes on stage or a big DJ or there's a big drop or there's a big moment, the phones come out. Everybody's got the phone out because you wanna capture that moment. Then you got this guy at the back ironically on his phone filming them saying look at these dicks. Everybody's on their phone. Why don't they dance?
Danny:What he what they don't show you is three minutes later, they've all put their phones away again, and they're all dancing. They were just capturing a moment that they wanted to keep, but the guy at the back is on his phone filming them filming them. And also uploading it. And and uploading it to try and look like he's, you know, he's, you know, Hollow than thou. Exactly.
Danny:Exactly that. And, you know, and I think ultimately, it's nowhere near as bad as you think. I mean, I've got a picture I'll show you after on my phone from when Hernan Catanayo played at our club recently. The dance floor is packed, not a single phone out, and everybody's looking at each other, not necessarily even at the DJs. So Yeah.
Danny:So that vibe is still there Yeah. For sure.
Mason:Yeah. And it's the whole thing about social media. You're taking a thirty second snapshot and then saying, oh, the whole Ibiza's like this or someone's likes always like this when you're just seeing thirty seconds or fifteen seconds of something.
Danny:Yeah. Absolutely. And then listen, the old concept be you know, behind the social media thing is it's just other people trying to grab a moment to get themselves, you know, noticed, but there's no context. You know what
Mason:I mean? There's there's no context to it. But it's a good thing though for clubs like Chinois or any other club on the island, but for any hospitality business for that matter anyway, because if you get it right, you're gonna have people coming in droves, aren't you? And it's it's a marketing super push.
Danny:Never ever ban phones. Never. I think the people who are doing it, they're doing it for effect. Yeah. They're doing it for their phones.
Mason:Thing to do.
Danny:And Yeah. But in a way, what they're doing is what they're fighting against is what they're doing. You know, some kid takes his phone out for thirty seconds and things like that. They're now going, oh, look at us. We ban phones.
Danny:Who cares? At the end of the day, you know, if people are in there having fun and they wanna take a moment of a picture or whatever, then so be it. I don't believe it drives the night because people don't think anybody's got a phone. You know? I went to a big event in Paris called Circle, and it was amazing, but what they did is you had to put your phone in a bag, right, and they lock it.
Danny:Yeah. Then you had to go to a place to like you could open it and use it and then lock it back up and go back into another place. Yeah. Yeah.
Mason:This one went to the the airfield, isn't it?
Danny:No. It was like a big round building in the middle of Paris. It was monolink and, you know, it was a great gig, but I don't think it made the gig any better. Yeah. Because people kept leaving, going to a place where they could look at the phone, send a message, call the
Mason:mate, whatever. And your life's on it now as well, isn't it? If you're with a group, then you want to know where people are going and and whatever. Yeah.
Danny:Then you get lost from your mate because you've gone the toilet. You've gone the other way, and then Then you're Now I gotta go over there and just accept where are you? And and I don't get it. I think it's a it's a over exaggerated reaction to something that it doesn't really matter
Mason:Yeah. Yeah. To be honest. So when you landed, obviously, then you started at Pacha, didn't you, as brand manager?
Danny:No. When I when I landed, I started with Renaissance, and then I did Ministry of Sound in Pacha Yeah. On Friday nights for the season, and then I went to space to do Sundays at space. We started the first twenty two hour party. So space used to close at seven.
Danny:Right. And we went in and said, listen. From seven, let's change the till rolls. Let's go fifty fifty. We're gonna keep it open till six in the morning.
Danny:And I convinced Pep and and Fritz at the time to let us do that. And they and and, you know, I'm happy that they had the the the balls to sort of take on that because their Sunday was huge in any way. And then what I did is put people like Cole Cox and Paul Okenfold and DJs like that on at midnight, so we had queues around the block. I mean it was insane. Then what happened is I then went and did Bondi Beach for the millennium in Sydney.
Danny:Yeah. 20,000 people on Bondi Beach. And then when I got back, I think it was 01/04/2000, when the old man, Ricardo and his son called me and said, why don't you come and just program Pacha seven nights a week? Come and live with you, we'll give you a villa, we'll look after you, and I'm like, okay. Yeah.
Danny:And I think, let's say, I got back to London. I was working for home at the time, the sort of their outdoor events, homelands, and the Bondi was mobile home. And I just went back and said, I'm leaving. I'm going you know, and they were like, oh, maybe you won't like it. I said, I think I will.
Danny:Yeah. Exactly. I will like it. Yeah. Yeah, within ten days, think by about the January 15, I'd moved Ibiza, I'd loaded up my Shogun and I'd got there.
Mason:Never looked back.
Danny:Never looked back. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And then that was it.
Danny:I was sort of music and brand director of passion. I remember my first sort of meeting with the old man since joining, you know, was sort of the day after I got there, and I went in his office and they said he said, well, what are you gonna do for me? You know, what are gonna do? And I said, well, I'm gonna take your brand into the next millennium. And he said, what brand?
Danny:I said, Ricardo, you have a lifestyle brand. This isn't just a nightclub. This a lifestyle brand, know? And I think within about five years, we had 22 franchises. We had we're including New York, London, Marrakesh, Shamal Sheikh, so on.
Danny:It's one of
Mason:the ski resorts as well, isn't it?
Danny:Yeah. Yeah. In in what was it called? In Austria? Salbach or something.
Danny:It was something like that. It's an Austrian one.
Mason:Yeah. Yeah. It's underneath a hotel. Yeah. Exactly.
Mason:Yeah.
Danny:I keep thinking Innsbruck, but it's not Innsbruck because it's another place. Yeah. Anyway, he's a good guy actually. He used to do a lot of big shows on the mountain like Beyonce and stuff like that. Oh, man.
Danny:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll come to me in a minute. Yeah.
Danny:I'm old brained ticking over. Yeah. And we started the magazine with Ben Turner as the editor, and Jordy was our designer. First first edition, we had Jay Jagger on the front cover and just instantly blew up. The magazine went from being like a pocketbook to being like a, you know, catalog within about two or three years.
Danny:Everybody wanted to advertise in it. And it's funny because the old man would say, why we got amnesia and space and all these guys advertising our magazine? I was like, the magazine has to be independent. Yeah. Otherwise, people just think it's a flyer booklet.
Danny:Know, we have to talk about each other. We have to make each other busy. The busier all the clubs are in Ibiza, the busier Ibiza is, which means we have longevity. If we're the only club on Ibiza working, we're we're not walking a knife edge, you know. We need everywhere to be busy.
Danny:We need the island to be busy. Yeah. Rising tide and Yeah. Yeah. That that was very much my philosophy with you know with Ibiza.
Danny:We did a big show in Pacha London, it was really funny because the five big clubs had never worked together before. And because of IMS, the international music summit that I do, the town hall came to or the council came to me said listen, we're doing the Will Travel Market in London. Would you do something with all the clubs? Can you bring them together? I said well I'll try.
Danny:It's like herding cats. I mean, all these owners, when they're in a room together, they love each other. When they're away from each other, they hate each other. They're like, man, better than you. Anyway, I got them to agree to do a party called Ibiza United.
Danny:And so I said to them, well we're gonna make when we do the posters, we're gonna list it alphabetically, know? And of course Ricardo, why is amnesia at the top? I'm like, well it begins with an a, you know? And then I got Marty and the other guys, well why are we doing it in Pacha London? I was like, you got an amnesia London?
Danny:You know? So there's all this like you know toing and froing, we did it in the end, and it was amazing success. Everybody took their big DJ, you know, Cole Cox played, and all these big DJs from each of the clubs. We and we funded it by creating a magazine called Ibiza United, and all the clubs got their providers to advertise in it. Right.
Danny:And that funded the event as well as the magazine. Yeah. Then we could give the magazine away at the World Travel Market, and we could also fund the event, so nobody nobody lost any money doing it. So but it was when we finished it, I came back to the island and I said don't ever ask me to do that. I'm not doing it again.
Danny:Yeah. The VIP table was very interesting at that night with all the owners sitting there champagne, Oh, aren't we amazing? Aren't we great? And then they walk out the room, they're all like Oh god. Like, oh, women.
Danny:Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. Yeah. I bet it was good, though, because, like, there's loads
Mason:of people that would have never been to Ibiza that would have gone there, and, you know, it's it's unmeasurable impact that it would have for the island. Right?
Danny:No. Absolutely. And the magazines, I think we did 60,000 copies of the magazine at the world I think the Exile Centre, is it called, in London, the big exhibition place. The magazines are two days gone, you know, and it was like a three day event I think. We didn't even have any left for day three.
Danny:People were so interested in Ibiza, know, and it's evolved so much. Like when I started here, there was none of the big brands here, as in fashion, cars, whatever. They just weren't here. And because it was a seasonal thing, know, it's like, but now they see it's a billboard. So now you've got your Louis Vuitton's and your Prada's and all these big brands, they have to be in Ibiza now.
Danny:Yeah. I remember Jade calling me actually once, Jade Jagger from Saint Tropez. Yeah. And she said, and this must have been about 2005, and she goes, oh my god, Danny. The entire Port Of Saint Tropez is just emptied of super yachts, and they're all heading to Ibiza.
Danny:And that was the first time where I realized that it was going in that direction completely. It was losing the hippie even though it still got the hippie thing, but it but it was In pockets. It was going up market. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, one time we had the guys from Vegas came over from the Mandalay Bay and the other big and they said, can we rent your VIP for August in Pacha, the whole VIP? And we were like, no.
Danny:We can sell it four times over. Why would we sell it to you? And you know, no, but we wanna try some no. We're like, no. No.
Danny:You book your tables that you wanna have, but we can sell it. So Yeah. We ain't giving it to you. And I'd gone to LA that the sorry, to Vegas the day before. The the year before, sorry.
Danny:And all the posts to the billboards were Celine Dion and Alton John and, you know, all that typical Vegas stuff. Yeah. And then two years later, I went back. Tiesto, Armen van Buren, Paul Okenfold. You know, what they've done is they tapped into a youth market because they're the next set of gamblers.
Danny:Yeah. But they came to Ibiza, saw the Ibiza model, and took it So back to you know you're doing something right when Vegas pays attention and Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And copies you.
Danny:Yeah.
Mason:Yeah. Yeah. All because of
Danny:me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, not me. Definitely Ibiza because of Ibiza,
Mason:you know? Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. So obviously, you're you're
Danny:a Pacha for how long? Fourteen years. Right. Like, what
Mason:what was it like when you started versus, like, when you left? Because I appreciate the island's come on so long, the brand's come on so so so far. Yeah. Like, did Leo exist then? Because that's like a sub brand of Pacha.
Mason:Like, what what were the sort of changes that you went through to say that brands the
Danny:next level? When I first got there, it was only Pacha. Right. Only Pacha. And the club Was was
Mason:it just was it just Ibiza and a select few others?
Danny:Or Yeah. I think we had six other franchises like Madrid and Porto in Portugal.
Mason:Yeah.
Danny:Argentina, Citrus. That was kind of it really. We may have had one in Leon or something like that. But then we as as it all so and the club was busy two nights a week. Right.
Danny:The other five, the club was off empty. There wasn't that level of tourism. There wasn't that attention. Other clubs had their own busy nights that didn't tie in with ours. Or sort of every club on Ibiza at that time had one or two busy nights Mhmm.
Danny:Because people just moved around. You know? So Yeah. Monday was was coup with money mission, and and Friday was minister of sound at Pacha, and Sunday was space. And and then what what I did is I when I got to Pacha, I got rid of out outside promoters.
Danny:I got rid of because what I wanted to do was as the brand grew, I wanted the brand to have direct contacts with the artists and the managers and the agents, not via a middleman, which would have been Ministry of Sound or Renaissance or whatever made in Italy, so on. So it was important for me to get rid of them and go direct and make the artist the know the focus of the night. Now the artists love that, because primarily it give them artistic license to bring in the guests they want to play with personally, not the promoter. It also give them more money because I didn't have to pay the promoter, so that I could give them a bigger fee. It also made the agent and the manager happy because they would get a better fee because their artist was.
Danny:Yeah. So it worked for everybody. So when I brought in Paul Okenfel to do his own residency, Eric Morello to do his residency, Swedish House, Mafia and Luciano, you know, suddenly the nights developed in Pacha where it was all about the content, and content is king in any f and b business. If you've got good content, you're gonna be full. Yeah.
Danny:No matter what. You can have a skip with Cole Cox in it, it'll be full. You know? You know, but what you'd obviously try and do is is get all the components right. Your hospitality is right, your security is right, your decor is right, your production's right, and then you have the content.
Danny:And if that's right, happy days, right? So that was our evolution. And then I think year three, we bought the El Hotel across the road from Pacha. Yep. That used to be an apartment block.
Mason:Right. That's been redone again, hasn't it?
Danny:Yeah. Yeah. Ricardo had the vision to buy that, make it into our own hotel, because we were putting loads of DJs into other people's hotels so we could fill our own hotel basically, and then utilize the brand, and suddenly the brand is now also a hotel brand with our hotel Pacha. And then we bought Leo, Destino sorry, Aldovino. Lisa had run out.
Danny:Ricardo had this vision to do this cabaret, but I think when Ricardo had it, it was much less, can I say, liner style cabaret, and it was more edgy? It was more suit the sole style, I think, originally. Yeah. You know, we did things like Seal Live with the band there, and then the, you know, there was stuff going on that made you hang onto your seat, you know, because you were acrobats and this, that, and the other. And I I think it was much more edgy at the beginning and much, personally for me, better.
Danny:Yeah. I understand there's a load of people who love Leo now. I get it. It it is what it is, but so we took on Leo, so that grew. Then we took on Destino, which used to be called the one hotel, and Hugo, the son, did an amazing job at redesigning that.
Danny:Massively overspent on it, but it didn't matter. They had the money, so they were gonna recoup at some point, it didn't really matter. Probably added a year or two onto the return of investment, you know we've got
Mason:You got a good product.
Danny:It's a great product, so you know you're gonna get it. Food is great, know, the environment was fantastic. You're close to Pacha. Anybody staying there gets access to Pacha, so the package is dead right. Yeah.
Danny:And then and then the meantime, we're opening we're starting the magazine, we're starting the record label, We're opening more franchises, New York, London. You know, you got one year old babies and baby grows with the cherries on, and you got 85 year old men walking around with the cherries on their t shirt. So it really did develop into an amazing lifestyle brand and still is to this day. Yeah. You know, them cherries are absolutely synonymous with clubbing and Ibiza Yeah.
Danny:More than any other logo you'd ever see. You you would spot them cherries a mile off down the road, you know. Yeah.
Mason:Lot of people have that tattoo, don't they?
Danny:Yeah yeah. A lot of girls have it. Yeah. You know, it's a feminine brand, that's why it's so good, it's so cool. Yeah.
Danny:You know, it really translates across men and women and young and old, know?
Mason:And is that why you think the brand was so successful from going from you know a nightclub into a full lifestyle brand? Was it because of the logo and it being a feminine brand and everything else that surrounded it or?
Danny:Yeah. I I think all of that helped, but the priority was to fill the club. Yeah. You know, once I got the club full seven nights a week, which we did by about year four Yeah. Of me being there, because it's an evolution.
Danny:You you know, you can't just do seven nights. You've gotta see how the three nights work. Now what can we add to that? Okay. Now we got four nights.
Danny:Now we've got five. Okay. Now we've got six and seven. Okay. We're done.
Danny:So, you know, and we had everything from David Getter, which is quite commercial, even though David's an amazing vinyl DJ and can play anything. Anybody says David isn't a DJ is doesn't know anything. He's one of the best DJs out there playing on vinyl. He's a superb DJ. So you got David Guetta up there doing being the entertainer now.
Danny:By this time, he's almost a pop star. And then you've got Luciano at the other end who was cool, incredible, and you know underground but still really sexy. Yeah. Right? And everything in between.
Danny:So you got your Murillo, your Swedish House Mafia, your Pete Tong, defected, all these things. So all the nights worked individually, but you could walk in there any night of the week and still have a great time, you know. So that was what was important with with Pacha, to make sure that no matter what we did was quality, you know, and it was. It always was.
Mason:And it bleeds out into it now, like, stood the test of time.
Danny:Yeah. Absolutely. Now I think they've got it easy, to be honest. I mean, the hard work, like any business, right, is getting it to the point where it becomes an institution. Yeah.
Danny:Once you've got an institution, then you don't have to be a genius to maintain that. You just have your finger on the pulse, see what's the next thing is, bring it in, merge it into your thing. Maybe one year you make a mistake and one night's not as good as it should be, but you can repair it the year after. The whole part was taking it from a one and a half to two nights a week nightclub into a seven nights a week nightclub. Yeah.
Danny:You know, but once you've got that institution, I mean, now, you know, I think once you've got an institution on Ibiza, you can't go wrong really, you know. You just have to maintain it and make sure you don't take your eye off the ball, you know.
Mason:Yeah. And like you said, people are coming in droves for it, so like as long as you're doing it right, then you're continue on
Danny:that path. Well we're doing it now with Chinois. I mean we've been open four years now with Chinois, and we had to find our place in the market because we're at a 1,500 cap nightclub, you know. We're we're not those great white sharks circling around like, you know, universe and high and passion and amnesia. These are all, you know, four to 7,000 cap venues in Ushuaia and so on.
Danny:And the explosion of daytime stuff in Ibiza Yeah. Is something because that takes people out the market. Yeah. You got 10,000 people in Ushuaia, 6,000 of them are not going out later. They're going back to the hotel room and, you know, or they're going for dinner and they're going to bed or whatever.
Danny:So it's become very competitive definitely, but we've evolved Chinois now into a place where it's the sort of antithesis of everybody else. You know, I always I always compare it to, you know, they're all supermarkets. We're in a delicatessen. Yeah. You know, because what we what I can do is because of the the the size of the club, because it's 1,500 people, I can target the kind of lineups and DJs that are quite cool and credible and, you know, the the stylish.
Danny:It's classy what we're doing. There's there's nothing there's nothing throwaway about it. But at the same time, you know, people are going, well, I went to Universe, and it was massive, and it was an amazing time, but I just wanna go to a club where there's like 1,500 people having a great time watching a you know, listening to a great DJ on a great sound system. You know? So we've just nicked that side of the market.
Danny:You know? And
Mason:done it really, really well.
Danny:I think we've done it really well, and I think we're evolving it all the time. You know? The owners, Sid and Sofia, are amazing. You know? They've got a great vision.
Danny:They've got great patience as well to grow. They didn't expect an overnight success, they knew it was gonna be a five year mission to compete with them guys, you know. Well we're like little Nemo you know, and they're literally jaws circling around us. But well, the good thing with that as well is they're not they're not afraid of us, which means they don't mess with us. Yeah.
Danny:You know what I mean? They're more afraid of each other. Yeah. You know? And so
Mason:just finding finding that niche.
Danny:Yeah. Whereas with us, oh, it's just Chinois. It's okay. No problem. Yeah.
Danny:Okay. Great. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny:Keep thinking. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like that.
Danny:So
Mason:And it it definitely feels like it's that level above in terms of elevation when it when you can look at, you know, these other major clubs that you go into versus, know, going into Chinois, it definitely feels more luxurious. It's it's it's kitted out so well inside. And I think that, to me anyway, from speaking to people, that seems to be what more people are wanting is going into a bit more of a niche venue that's got really, really good music, very, very good sound system. You're not squished in like sardines because you got a bit of space. But are you seeing that across the island that people are wanting to go to these smaller venues and rather than, you know, going to this massive warehouse tied tied club?
Danny:Yeah. And and what I'm also seeing is the obvious, you know, is it's an older crowd. Yeah. Ibiza's becoming older because it's becoming more expensive. Yeah.
Danny:Now I don't get me wrong. I think that's really sad. I mean, we had, you know, I I'm a huge fan of San Antonio. You know? For me, San Antonio, I call it the gateway to Ibiza.
Danny:Yeah. Right? So if you're 17, 18, 20 years old, you're probably gonna go to San Am for the first time for a week or two because it's affordable. At that point, you'll find your way to Ibiza Town and play them Bosa and Santa Lalia and other places. Maybe the year later, you'll come and you'll stay in play them Bossa or you'll, you know, stay in Santa Lallia and Ibiza Town.
Danny:And then ultimately, you fall in love with the island. And I think Ibiza well, think Ibiza probably has the best return of service to any other destination on the planet when it comes to people insisting they at least get their long weekend in Ibiza. Or come for one night. Or do flight yesterday,
Mason:so people behind us twenty four hours, that's it.
Danny:No. Some of them don't even book a hotel room. They land. They go clubbing. They keep on the beach the next day for a couple hours on a sleep.
Danny:And that yeah. Or don't sleep. And then they get on a flight and go back. It's I think it's the most missed flights in the world for a for a single airport. Yeah.
Danny:And I I think the return of service I mean, I've got people that worked for me. A girl called Emma Grateful, and she's a doctor, and she's amazing. She was my my top flyerer for about four years when she was working through university. Now she's got her own TV show, know, the skin doctor. She's one of these, you know, she's got her own practice in Harley Street.
Danny:She's like a major, you know, sort of, you know, cancer specialist, and there's a reconstruction surgery. She still comes to Ibiza. She brings their kids now. Yeah. And her and her husband Neil, who was also one of my flyers.
Danny:Right. So I've got this whole generation
Mason:Is that how they met?
Danny:I think they might have done. I mean, they're both from Belfast. They may have met before and came together Right. Probably. You know, but they're just an example of the people I know that have been coming to Ibiza for the last twenty years.
Danny:Regardless of where the line is. Regardless. And, you know, and now, I mean, I'm getting more guest list requests now from my friend's kids than I am from my friends. Yeah. You know?
Danny:Yeah. So and the problem is there's more of them. So my guess list is getting bigger. Right? So you know?
Danny:Yeah.
Mason:You're chopping it even out with with the oldies coming in.
Danny:Yeah. Totally. But there's definitely a, you know, if you look at things like Clockwork Orange and Slip Back in Time and these guys that are sort of older promoters, there are guys out there now. I mean, I'm 64, and I still love to go into a nightclub. I like it.
Danny:You know, I grew up with that thing, and I'm I'm not gonna give it up until it gives me up. You know? And and and you I see that they they'll come over Clockwork Orange come over with about 4,000 people once a year for four days, and they bring the people with them, and they all party together for four days. That's their club fix.
Mason:Yeah.
Danny:And then they all go back home having had a great time, and that's happening a lot. Because you what you got to remember is as well that, you know that our VIPs now are full of old ravers. You know they used to come when they were 18, 20, 21, whatever, no money, know stay in a little hotel for a week, party all the time, and they were that age. Now they're 45, 50. They've got a credit card.
Danny:They've got a bank account. Now they're coming over. They're we want a table with a bottle of vodka, and we want this and that. When I first got to Ibiza, my VIP was Mick Jagger and U2 and Madonna and people who you would say were superstar celebrity VIPs. Now it's it's old ravers with the credit card.
Danny:Yeah. Because they still love the scene, and that's why I'm not against it. And people go, oh, there's too many VIPs. They're not VIPs. I mean, there are some very, very wealthy people, you know, but so what?
Danny:I mean, if you wanna dance around a table with a bottle of champagne, happy days.
Mason:Yeah.
Danny:I don't care. And people are against it or I don't know why they're against it. I don't know if they're jealous or it's just not in their it's not on their landscape you know where people can do that. But I think if you want to dance to a great electronic music track around a table, fill your boots.
Mason:Yeah. And do you think it's the same people that are like, oh, it's not how it used to be because the VIP was something else that it is different now?
Danny:Yeah. I I think that, but they they don't understand the evolution of it. That's the problem. They just think it's a load of rich kids who wanna buy into a scene. What they don't realize is them kids were probably always in the scene.
Danny:It's just now they've got a bit of money. Yeah. So they want a different experience, and they're a bit older. And now they've got a wife, and they're like, okay. We want a table.
Danny:We want a bottle of champagne, but we still wanna dance to Svenvath or Luciano or Cole Cox. Yeah. I don't see any problem with that. But people don't the problem is they don't wanna think about that. They wanna just go, oh, look.
Danny:Pacha's half VIP now. It's not really. Yeah. Exactly. It's just a load of ravers with a credit card.
Danny:Yeah. You know? And they want a different experience. So what? Right?
Danny:Definitely.
Mason:Yeah. What's because you said it's like a it's been a four year journey, like, getting getting Chinois to where it is today. Like, going from joining Pacha, which was a very well established brand when you joined, and obviously, you've then, you know, aided and taken it to the next level over a decade. Like, what what are the sort of differences from joining Chinois, which is effectively like a start up in the in the rave scene. Right?
Mason:Yeah. You've got loads of different venues throughout Ibiza. Like, how is how much more difficult has it been, if anything, or easier getting the top names into into Chinois? Because the Chinois lineup's, like, amazing this year.
Danny:Yeah. It it's a lot it was a lot more difficult. Right. But because I was there, made it easier, and I'm not, like, blowing my own trumpet here. No.
Danny:I'm not. No. No. No. You know, it it you it's probably easier to get players to join Miami now because they got messy.
Danny:Yes. You know, the football players.
Mason:I'm the messy of the rap scene.
Danny:Well, I mean, that's a ridiculous proposition. But, like, no.
Mason:But it makes sense because Yeah. You've you've taken that brand from, you know, zero to a 100 over ten years. Like, of course, it's good it's similarity.
Danny:Well, listen, you know, it's a silly one, but ultimately, you know, the biggest agents in the world, your David Levy's, your Maria May, and you know, the Matt Smith, and these guys, they trust me. So even if it's a brand new club, they might not trust the club. But they'll be
Mason:like Danny Danny's gone there.
Danny:Danny's gone. He's gonna look after us. He's never let us down. Everybody's always got paid. The sound's always good.
Danny:The DJs get picked up, you know, they get treated well. So I think there's an element of that that this helped, but it was a lot harder to grow Chinois than it was to grow Pacha. Yeah. Also at the time we didn't have the competition with pasture. You know, there was amnesia, there was space, there you know, there was cue or or privilege, but it were only busy one or two nights a week, so I had I had this open field that I could dive into.
Danny:Yeah. With Chinois, it was a case that everywhere's busy every night. We've got to get into that, we've got to join into that. And you to get everyone
Mason:else's food to start with, basically going from a standing start.
Danny:Exactly, and you know I always look at it the you know again it's a cynical way, and I don't mean this disrespectful, but with the size of our venue, we're either a nursery or a retirement home for artists. Right. And I mean that in a nice way, I'm not saying everybody's that our guys are too old or they're too young, they're not they're either breaking through where we can afford them and they're happy to come to us. They'll play with us for three or four years. Their bit the career will build, and then they'll leave for a bigger check and go to another nightclub.
Danny:And then we've got these other DJs who maybe can still put three two three thousand people in the club, but they can't fill 5,000 people. You know, that stage in their career where it's like that. So we're this little venue that can accommodate, you know, artists in that area of their career. And I think it's great for us because we end up with absolute quality with with the with the older guys, but they're still amazing DJs. They still pull a great crowd.
Danny:They still got loads of energy, and they wanna do stuff, and they bring in younger guests as well, so the whole and then we got these young kids who are breaking through like your mom, who'd Orhan, you know, and the appetite crew from from Essex, '25, 26 years old, and these guys are bringing 1,500 people to the nightclub. Yeah. Their future is bright, but I'm also realistic to know that at some point, they're probably gonna leave us because, you know, as with a 1,500 cap nightclub, I can pay them $20.30 grand. Whereas Jan and the big boys, they can pay them $200. Yeah.
Danny:So we have to understand our position within the market, build relationships to try and get as much out of them as we can because they like us and they trust us and they want to be with us until this point where the the extra zero's gone on where they go, no we've got to go. And at that point, know loyalty is a two way street right? Yeah. So I'm not gonna expect anybody to lose $20 a week to stay with me. I'm gonna shake their hand and say, thank you for the time you gave us.
Danny:Good luck.
Mason:Go and have the best time ever. And it'll come around again.
Danny:Sometimes they'll come back when when they're a bit older and they'll revisit. Yeah.
Mason:Do you think it's like a a point in time when we talked about, you know, having a 1,500 person venue and having people coming up and then, obviously, towards the end of the career, do you see Chinois then becoming this really exclusive, expensive, really premium experience of a nightclub? Or do you wanna because the the tickets are really affordable compared to all these massive nightclubs, which is great Yeah. Because it, you know, it makes it affordable for people to come in, but do you see the brand evolving into something more exclusive to bring the price bucket up and have
Danny:I don't I don't think we will. I I don't see that we have that potential because ultimately, I still need a thousand plus people on a dance floor.
Mason:Yeah.
Danny:Right? So we've got 23 or 25 VIP tables, that's it. You know, Pacha I think got over a 100. Yeah. High's got, you know, universe, hundreds, know?
Danny:We've got 23. So we would rather make the the experience really nice for you know, not only that as a group, as Highland Hospitality, we've got Beach House. Yeah. We've got Zuma upstairs, you know, that we got the franchise for. We've got Hotel Mikasa.
Danny:We've got Finkela Plaza. We've got lots of businesses within the group. So all we want All amazing brands. All amazing all amazing functioning working venues. So all we need from Chinois is is to function really well.
Danny:And and if the kids come to Chinois, they're gonna find their other brands. They're gonna end up going up to Zoom or Beach House or Finkala Plaza or whatever. If you cut if you cut that out, it would be like Ibiza losing San An. You know how are the kids gonna come here? Know and then something else happens like it did with Mykonos where all the rich people go oh well let's go there now, and you're left with this vacuum.
Danny:So Ibiza and I think what we do as a brand have to stay open to the youth coming into our brand, and them growing and evolving with us you know. I think if we just said now Chinois is like Leo, I don't think we'd be around very long.
Mason:Yeah. You know? Yeah. Definitely. We've gotta create a playground.
Mason:You know? Yeah. It definitely feels like there's there's so much thought that's gone into it though, like the way it's laid out, the interior, everything. And I definitely think that that is the way that people's preferences are going, being able to come into a venue like that and actually not be surrounded by, you dickheads or whatever. It's like it creates a nice environment.
Danny:Yeah. And, well, and it's not a destination venue as such. It's somewhere you can walk past. Yeah. You know, you don't have to drive there.
Danny:You don't you know what I mean? You you where you you got some of the other bigger venues, it's a mission to get there. And can you get a cab, and do you have to queue up when you leave?
Mason:That well, this is all spilling early hours of the morning.
Danny:Yeah. You can walk out and walk into a bit of town and grab a burger or whatever, know? It makes it an ideal venue really very easy. I did this thing where, because you know I do that big show up in the castle for the music summit.
Mason:Yeah.
Danny:And you know what you have at the beginning is people actually going, well where is Chinois? You know, I don't even know where it is. But from the castle you can see it. Yeah. So what we did is we got a drone to go from the castle and fly down to the outside of the pub to show people that you can walk there.
Danny:Yeah. You don't need a cab from Ibiza Town. You see them queues in Ibiza Town waiting for cabs. Yeah. No.
Danny:It's ten minute walk down the road there, and you can walk straight into the nightclub. Mhmm. So it was important for me to to let people know the location of the venue. Yeah. You know?
Danny:Because people might have heard about it, but then they don't know where it is. Yeah. You know? It's What you've said about
Mason:it being accessible price wise, it's also accessible in in all in all facets. Yeah. Good.
Danny:Yeah. Absolutely.
Mason:Yeah. Yeah. You talked about like, obviously, talk about hospitality with a lot of guests, and you've got, like, two sides of hospitality. You need to keep these stars happy when they're coming over to the island and put them up in hotels. And, like, what's all the stuff that goes on in the background with the DJs of, like, putting them up and looking after them?
Mason:Like, what are the sort of things you have to do to to keep sweet.
Danny:You know what? Be professional at the end of the They all know me. The agents, the managers, most of the DJs, they know me. They know I'm not gonna mess about. You're not gonna have only blue Skittles in your bowl.
Danny:You're not you know what I mean? You're not gonna have, But at the same time, we will do the best we can to make you feel the most comfortable you can be. And everybody's treated really well with regards to, you know, just good professional manners, you know, and every I I don't know a DJ that's been to our club that's walked out saying, I didn't like that. Maybe there's one or two because, I don't know, maybe they're high or something and you got the wrong idea. Who knows?
Danny:But generally, my staff, our staff at Chinois are next level. I mean, my my two guys, I call them my kids that work with me, Hugo and Jaime. Everybody absolutely loves them. You know, whatever DJ goes, they they were, oh, we met Hugo. He's amazing.
Danny:You know? And and they're learning the trade now. They're learning Hugo's learning from me about booking how you handle artists and managers and and agents and so on. And a lot of it's to do with, you know, being very confident, being very professional, and a lot of it's timing. You know don't rush into stuff.
Danny:Don't look desperate, but don't be lazy. Know and for me timing is so important in business in general. Yeah. You know if you make an agent wait a day you know, but not three days, then it you can see that you're and you're not desperate and you're not lazy. You know if you answer within ten minutes, he's got always a bit keen.
Danny:Yeah. You know, add another 10 k you know or whatever.
Mason:When So you've been in the game for a while, so it's like you know where to pull those.
Danny:It's a it's a rhythm. Right? The it's a rhythm, I think, that you get over time where you kinda know that, okay. That's about the right time now. Think, okay.
Danny:And there's the email. Okay. Yeah. And then they'll come back and say We'll do the key. Yeah.
Mason:And what about that on the other side for like hospitality for like guests and customers that are coming through the door? Like, what are the conversations that go on in the back with the team to say like, you need to do this, you need to show up in this way type of thing to make sure that they're really pulling out all the stops?
Danny:Yeah. I mean, our VIP staff for for the all the tables, again, they're they're so on point. I mean, Carlos, who's our boss in the club, is, you know, his operations boss, is amazing. His whole team that work around him are really, really good. If I say to them, this guy's coming and he's really important to us, do, you know, do they they treat him like a king.
Danny:You know, they'll comp him a table. They'll put a bottle of champagne. They'll Yeah. Take him to the Green Room and settle him down. They I mean, they really work with us.
Danny:They understand that the situation is if we wanna grow as a venue, then we need to have some really tight relationship. Yeah. It's loyalty. You know, it's loyalty. It's, you know, you ask you get a big manager coming over like a Mark Gillespie or a Jazz or these guys from three six zero, you know, they look after everybody from Calvin Harris to Jamie Jones or whatever.
Danny:They're coming in the club. They're gonna get looked after because we wanna work with them. We want them to feel really comfortable, really good. But at the same time, they also understand we are a small venue. You know, some nights it might not we can't make them feel like King Kong, but we can definitely make them feel like a prince, know.
Danny:So but they meet us in the middle. They they know if we can do it, we'll do anything. Yeah. But if we can't, we can't. So yeah.
Danny:There's there's a real mutual respect I think between most of the industry. You get the odd dick, you know, that comes in thinking they, you know, they should have everything they want at the time they want
Mason:it, but And you just deal with them in a certain way, and you know
Danny:You just deal with them, and then, you know, if we if we we lose them, okay, we lose them. But, you know, it's never down towards being lazy or or being late. You know? It's it's too it's because they're a dick. Yes.
Danny:And it happens every now
Mason:and again. Yeah. Of course. Like going further upstream, like getting people in venues. Obviously, you've spent the last however long, like, just trying to get as many people in with the right with the right acts.
Mason:Like, what's the best marketing stunt that you've pulled or brand stunt that you've pulled where you've seen something go from a to a to b, but, like, stratospheric?
Danny:I would say the best stunt I ever pulled was when I convinced Ricardo to do the passion magazine. Right. Because he didn't wanna do it. Right. And he said, well, prove to me that it could work.
Danny:So what I did at the time, and Charles Ward's gonna hate me for saying this, but Charles was the business manager of DJ Mag at the time, and DJ Mag used to do four editions a year on Ibiza. And I rang him, I said I want to take eight pages about it, and he was like rubbing his hands together, oh my god this is big money, it's like grand a page or whatever it is, over four editions. And he went great, I said but I want the outside back in eight pages in. Right. Right?
Danny:So it was outside back, inside back, the next seven pages, something like that. And he went, great. I said, okay, contract signed, done, we've got them. I said, I don't want them printing upside down. And he went, yeah.
Danny:No problem. Yeah. Yeah. No problem. Okay.
Danny:Contract done. Then what I did is anyway, about a month later when it all came out, when the magazine came out, I get this phone call. It's like, fucking Danny, what are you doing, man? You're gonna get me fired. I'm like, what?
Danny:He goes, you made the outside look like before covering my passion magazine. So what I've done is I made the outside bank passion with the dates and a single magazine. And then you read in for Eight pages, it looked like a passion magazine. Right. So then what I did, they were all left lying around in Mamba.
Danny:I said, well, we have a contract, so, you know, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Yeah. And and then Ricardo, I think, was down at Mamba or in town at Montesolo somewhere, and he saw the the thing upside down, so it looked like a Pacha Mag. And he flicked through it like that, and then he called me and he went, okay, do your magazine. Yeah.
Danny:Yeah. Yeah. So it really was a stunt. It was a real stunt that people would call it, know, texting, wow have you done a Pacha magazine? I know it's just the back of DJ Mag.
Mason:Yeah exactly.
Danny:I've just hijacked it basically. Yeah.
Mason:Well it's being creative and like thinking outside the box right?
Danny:Yeah. No that's what that's what it was all about. I mean it was me trying to prove to the owner that we can do it and it will look amazing because I had this beautiful front cover, well back cover, but front cover. Yeah. And it was this beautiful girl lying in a hammock buried in cherries.
Danny:Right. But like stunning you know? Yeah. And then Pacha magazine, the date, the serial number 001 or whatever, little headlines like this you know it looks exactly a magazine. But I think, you know, now what I've seen, the big evolution, it's all about paid ads, social media.
Danny:I mean, forget the posters, forget the billboards. People have made their mind up where they're going before they leave England or Holland or Germany or whatever. I mean, last year, we took some screens on the airport. I think it was like $300, right, for these screens. Ten seconds every minute was Chinois.
Danny:Right? So I went down there to have a look because I didn't make the call to What, just
Mason:to see who was looking at them?
Danny:Yeah. See what was going on. What were the kids looking at? Their phone. Yeah.
Danny:Their phone. Yeah. And I looked at these kids, not one of them looked up at the TV screen. None of them. I mean, the minute they land, right, the phones are on.
Danny:They're scrolling. They're on there.
Mason:You've got an itinerary plan before you even book your
Danny:Yeah. And and they're just looking at that. So what they're seeing ultimately is paid ads on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. And so this year we said okay we're gonna take that budget, so we're gonna put it into paid ads, and you instantly see a return. You see you know We can
Mason:see a link clicked ticket booked. Exactly. It gives you much more transparency.
Danny:But you see nothing from a billboard or a poster or a screen on the airport. You don't know the return. There's no way of, you know, analyzing anything. There's no data with it. Yeah.
Danny:So now, I mean billboards when I was running ministry was the first year any nightclub took a billboard in Ibiza, and I took 16 of them. So you know when you're the only nightclub on Ibiza with 16 billboards, they're an amazing tool. That's another stunt. Right? Ministry logo every Friday, Pacha, bang, 16 of them all around the island.
Danny:Everybody saw that. Now the billboards are completely, you know, diluted. Yeah. Because there's so many of them. It's normally some DJ's face that looks like he just got out of rehab, you know, and there's no artistic Land to it.
Danny:Yeah. Behind it really. There's a few of them that are quite good. Elle Rose's quite good. I like Hoogle's stuff as well Yeah.
Danny:From High.
Mason:I think it's all pink, isn't it?
Danny:Yeah. I think generally High and Universe, when they do the like ants, their own stuff, it's pretty arty. But when you leave a DJ to do their own, it's normally a picture of them. Yeah. Then they're promoting them and their face.
Danny:Yeah. And no, I think not enough consideration into the vibe of the night, you know. So I'm not into billboards. I'm happy that they got rid of them altogether to be honest.
Mason:Yeah. Yeah. Well hopefully that's some of the evolution that we still haven't gone through yet that's
Danny:Yeah. Wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me. I mean a lot of them were if you see all the white ones, because they were all illegal, but that's why there's nothing on them. Yeah.
Mason:Okay. I just thought no one was paying for them.
Danny:No. No. They're all illegal. They would sell like that.
Mason:Right. Fine.
Danny:Because DJs now, even take their own billboards. If a club says we're not doing billboards, too expensive, no return, they'll pay for them because it's it's a vanity project Yeah. Ultimately. Yeah. Know?
Danny:Talk
Mason:to me about IMS. Right. What is it? I just started. What's it doing?
Danny:It's it's a labor of love. We've been doing it for seventeen years, and I think next year is our eighteenth year. It's me, Pete Tong, Ben Turner, Simeon Friend. We were all work when I was at past year, I think it must have been 2004, something like that, Pete was my Friday resident. Ben was my Eddie through the magazine.
Danny:Very smart people within the industry. Simeon's got an amazing production company called The Shop here on A B 3, does all the big events. And we all sat upstairs one one night and on the terrace getting drunk saying Miami's not like it used to be. They moved the dates of Miami Winter Music Conference to tie in with spring break. Right.
Danny:So it went from being this very niche music event to being this big party for frat boys and you know so on. So we we fell out of love with Miami because of that, an ultra music festival. Yeah. So we fell out of love with it and there was less business getting done there. And so our first year, so then we said okay let's do one.
Danny:We didn't do it. Then the next year we got drunker and said okay we're definitely doing it this time. So we put I think we put like $30 each in or something like that to make the first one happen. And the first one was like 90 people and we're like fuck, what'd done man? Shall we do it again?
Danny:And we're like yeah okay. But another $10 each in to add to the, you know, to cover the lawsuits and with second year it was like 300 people. And we're like okay, that's a growth you know, 300%, that's a growth, so we'll carry on. And then it went up to like $506,100 or something like that, and then it was a thousand, and now it pretty much sells out. I mean it's 2,000 delegates from all around the world.
Danny:By year two they gave us the license to Dorp Villa, which is insane. It's a world heritage site and they let us do a rave up there, we're the only ones they allow to do that. We then went off and did LA. We had guests like we've had guests like Quincy Jones and David Lynch and Moby and so on. We did IMS College in Malta for a few years, and then we went to Shanghai.
Danny:We did Singapore. The last couple of years, we did Dubai. We would have gone back and done Dubai again this year, but Yeah. With the war, it's problematic. So hopefully, we can return there next year because it was all that MENA area, you know, that Middle East, North Africa.
Danny:They were the clients coming actually, were coming even from South Africa. So it was a really nice collection of people that probably won't come to Ibiza, but they'll go to Dubai. So that that was really nice. And we just because we've all got our own jobs, you know, Ben's got an amazing management company called Grateful, he looks after Richie Orton and Miss Monique and people like this. Pete's Pete Tong, you know, godfather the scene.
Danny:Simeon's got his productions, I do my stuff. So whatever we've made on IMS, spent the year after.
Mason:Just reinvested it back
Danny:into Yeah. So all we've wanted to do is make IMS better every year, bigger and better every year, and that's what it's been, it's been consistent growth. And now we're like we're at that age where we're thinking well can't we just make a bit of money to see on this thing you know. Know and yeah, so I think we're all looking at maybe considering that, although we get too overexcited, you know. Well you just
Mason:keep putting more in and a better product and a better product.
Danny:No that's what we've been doing for eighteen years, and now you know we're making, we're pulling big money for three, four day events. Yeah. But we spend it all. And now we're looking at doing a festival on Calyonga Beach next year on the Saturday.
Mason:Oh,
Danny:cool. Maybe. We're looking at it. Maybe the Saturday or the Sunday. And again, that's gonna take huge investment, and so I I don't see us making any money for at least another couple of years.
Danny:Yeah. Be I'll basically I'll be at retirement age. Yeah. I actually I looked at my when I got because I thought I got my UK pension next year at 65, but they've increased the age to 67. I'm like, oh, I didn't sign up to that when I was when I was 16.
Danny:Know? Now you just added two more years on. But anyway, so the good thing is I don't retire for two more years after that. Yeah. But maybe then we'll start making a bit of money off it, but we we love it.
Danny:I mean, is one of the best conferences in the world because you got you've got 2,000 people all together over two hotels that are all on the same footprint. Yeah. So unlike some other events where it's spread over a city, know you get desperate and you see each other, you really see everybody you want to see and yeah I don't even put meetings in place because it won't work for me. You know I'm gonna be late for everything because you bump into everybody. So what I do is I just leave my diary open and I just bump into everybody and talk to everybody there, right there and then, and then I'm not pissing anybody off because, oh, you're half an hour late.
Danny:Know what? I mean,
Mason:you're only running around like a blue ass fly. You'd be like, oh, do this, do this, do this.
Danny:Exactly. So I I mean, for me now, I just walk around and I I bump into whoever I bump into, and we sit and have a coffee or a beer together and a chat for half an hour, and then I I walk around again and bump into somebody else. So that's sort of the best way to do it for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny:Of course. You know? If I if I put meetings in, I promise it, within half a day, would all collapse. Yeah. You know?
Danny:It would be like I'd be already an hour late for the fourth meeting, you know? Yeah.
Mason:Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Like you've talked about the evolution of Ibiza, like where it's come from since you first landed. Like where do you think it's gonna go in the next ten years?
Mason:Like what do you think that evolution looks like? And do you think you'll still be on the island here for good now?
Danny:I'm here for good. I mean my wife's family are Ibiza's, you know, she was born here, her dad's old Ibiza's, 85 year old Ibiza's family, is a Riera Planais family, which is you know, the famous names of Ibiza, there's six or seven names that completely Ibiza, you So I'm going nowhere. I love living here. I mean, I love my hometown of Stoke On Trent, don't get me wrong, love it. I love to go back there, visit my friends, watch my favorite football team.
Danny:Oh, black pudding. Stoke City, love black pudding. Yeah. That's a Yorkshire thing I think, but I love it. Yeah.
Danny:Stoke is o cakes, and when all my mates come over from Staffordshire they bring me Staffordshire o cakes.
Mason:Fine, right.
Danny:But yeah I love my hometown, I'll never forget where I came from, but Ibiza's my home, it's completely and I think the evolution, you know, it it can go in many directions. I hope that we don't ever give up on the youth. I hope we don't price ourselves out the market. We can't gentrify an entire island because you'll stop that entry point, and you'll stop people falling in love with the island. Because people fall in love with things, you know, from the age of 16 to 30.
Danny:After that, they become a bit tougher skinned, you know you know, they're not quite Quite so please and Yes. They're they're not quite so loving, but you know, when you think of what you did in your sort of late teens, early twenties, it's the stuff that you really fall in love with it, and you'll be in love with it for the rest of your life. So, know, I think that we can't give up on that. You know, I do see, I mean, biggest problem on the island is accommodation. Know, it's very difficult for people to come and work here in the summer now.
Danny:I think that the powers that be need to work that out. I mean, we've got some massive ex military bases that they could put, you know, static homes on or stuff like this and sort of rent them out 500 a month to to people coming in who are working for the season. It's like seasonal workers, you know.
Mason:You need to able to accommodate them because they're they're who, you know, they they power all these venues that the tourists come into.
Danny:We need to make that easy. Because then what you end up with is really good staff who wanna come here. You've got somewhere nice to stay. It's cheap as chips. The town hall's making money or the or the council and the are making money as well.
Danny:Yeah. I mean, I we went there's a big military base called Saccoma. When I did Ibiza one two three, you know, when we booked Alton John and Sting and Lenny Kravitz, all these big we went to look at it to do the event there. We ended up doing it next to Mamba in San An. They've got a parade ground there that could probably sit 500 static homes, you know, and you've got two people sharing.
Danny:You're already taking care of a thousand staff. Yeah. And if they're paying 500 a month, and it's an old military ground, well you're making money. Yeah. Then they can pay for their electricity and their water, and it becomes affordable.
Danny:Yeah. You know? Even a thousand a month, if there's two people sharing, it's only 500 each a month to live. So we need to get creative. We need to get creative in so many ways, and then I think the island is is very sustainable.
Danny:I also work with the Ibiza Preservation, you know, Ibiza's and Formatana Preservation Society. So my wife works there as well. We very much wanna take care of the island, not only on the land but in the sea with the Poseidonia and and everything else. So I think we're in a good shape, I think we're in a good place, but I think we need to get really creative. Yeah.
Danny:For sure. Last question,
Mason:what are you grateful for?
Danny:My wife, mostly. My son and being able to live in paradise, you know. And and I think for me, winter is the prize for putting up with the summer. You know, anybody who wants to come to Ibiza in the winter, they'll see a most beautiful paradise you can ever imagine. Yeah.
Danny:And summer in the end, June, July, August, September is work. You know, that's where we make our money. That's how the island evolves. That's how we we it turns. But you come here in November, December, January, February, for me, it's paradise.
Danny:Absolutely paradise. Yeah.
Mason:So I'm grateful for them. Good. Thanks, Danny. Cool, man. Appreciate it.
Danny:Nice one.