The festive season is a distant memory now for those embroiled in the business of a long cold winter north of the Alps. So now attention turns to that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel - summer holidays.

T.V. advertising is now awash with waves lapping beaches decorated with bikini clad revellers frolicking in the sun. The time has come to book a summer holiday, and the tourist boards from resorts all around the Med are setting out their promotional stalls. It is also the time of year when news gets a bit thin on the ground. Journalists have to dig a little deeper into their resources, or imagination, to come up with something that the ‘editor’ might find print worthy.

So, neatly combining these two facts, the international press have once again seized upon the imminent demise of Ibiza as a holiday destination with headlines like “The Party’s over”. The logic behind writing off Ibiza this year stems from the decision of San Jose municipality to fall into line with the rest of the island’s municipalities by insisting that its clubs close at 6 in the morning.

This has been the case for some time for the rest of the island and for all but one of the big clubs – Space.
The only other notable venue affected will be DC10, but that has more or less revolved around a dozen or so Monday mornings each summer. Consequently it seems a little odd to vilify, for alleged noise nuisance, a venue in the middle of a field on the far side of the airport runway.

The consensus of opinion, amongst the majority of those who should know, is that the negative effect on island tourism is unlikely to be huge. As regards Space, it has capitalized upon being voted the ‘best night club on the planet’ by prudently investing and expanding to cater for the various ‘Carry-on’ parties and other events that have enabled it to stay open almost around the clock. Their business will be affected, as will the livelihoods of their daytime promoters fighting for slots in the most exclusive clubbing market in the world, but don’t expect Space to file for bankruptcy any time soon…

Turning to the thousands of clubbers who’ll change their holiday plans if they’re not allowed to party between 6 in the morning and lunchtime - most of us probably won’t notice their absence. In actual fact, they’ll be struggling to find anywhere else in Europe offering ‘after-hours’ parties, so they might as well pass those morning hours waiting for the clubs to re-open at one of the islands’ hundred plus beaches for a change?

If, however, the island authorities’ assertion that the people who attend after-hours parties are undesirables and cause problems, what are their contingency plans if these people still turn up?

They won’t be confined to two easily controlled clubs in the southern corner of the island - they’ll be everywhere else… One does wonder what constructive observations were put forward by the islands’ police, to proposals that will likely see them running around the island breaking up illegal hill and beach parties when they’re already understaffed and struggling to keep on top of petty crime. The ambulance authorities certainly aren’t amused by the prospect of attending to drug casualties in homes spread across the island, rather than at one or two clubs with security and medical officers in house. All in all it promises to be another interesting summer on Ibiza.

Expect to see further growth in the burgeoning private villa party sector, which the police have no power to stop…

(This article appears in February’s Ibiza Now Magazine - tomorrow…)

Just because we like it we’re putting this piccy up: