It's mid-April and bit by bit our party calendar is filling up. About time we start looking ahead at the season to come.
Regular Ibiza Spotlight readers will have noticed that at the end of last summer, there was no big season review as there usually is. To make up for that, we decided to do in-depth season previews this year. Instead of doing one massive piece, we split it up into parts to make it more digestible.
Today we start with Ushuaïa simply because they just announced their final residency and so their full weekly programme is out now. Let's have a look at their week:
No surprises here. Same as in the past few years, the Monday evening slot is taken up by Monsieur Guetta. One of the hottest selling tickets on the island, as well as one of the biggest productions you can catch anywhere in the world, this party is simply champions-league stuff. BIG had a massive summer 2017 and we predict more of the same for this season.
Tuesdays - Tomorrowland presents Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike | Garden of Madness
A new party at Ushuaïa last summer (after DV & LM did a residency at Amnesia in past years), Tomorrowland is back for round two. Their first season was solid, albeit seldom packed out. But seeing Ushuaïa's programming for this summer, I think we can expect bigger numbers on Tuesdays this year.
Wednesdays - Tinie Tempah | Disturbing Ibiza
After a short first stint in 2016 and a proper season residency in 2017, TT is also part of Ushuaïa's delicious 2018 party menu. Happening on Fridays last summer, this season sees Tinie taking the Wednesday slot.
Martin Garrix is no newcomer to the Night League family (Ushuaïa and Hï Ibiza). In fact, last summer he did a double residency, hosting both an evening event at Ushuaïa as well as a club night at Hï. Very few artists have the power and the pull to fill two venues on the island week in week out, though, so this summer it's back to just one weekly event: Thursday evenings at Ushuaïa. This one I am more than sure will do extremely well.
This is the venue's novelty of the season. Fridays will be something like Ushuaïa's interpretation of Burning Man. Maybe not exactly in terms of decoration and sand everywhere, but most likely in terms of the music. Even thought details are still under wraps, I think we can expect a lot of the artists performing you normally hear playing that now very popular desert sound.
Ushuaïa's undisputed king and the open-air venue's only tech fest, ANTS is unsurprisingly back for another summer, promising to hack the system this season. Whatever this will mean exactly is yet to be seen, but we have no doubt ANTS will be the island's most popular Saturday daytime event yet again.
Ushuaïa's week ends the same way it has ended for the last two summers, with Norwegian DJ and producer Kygo. His mix of tropical house and pop stuff goes down very well outdoors and makes for a deliciously smooth Sunday evening after Saturday's tech assault.
Conclusion
Summarising, we can say that Ushuaïa's programme has changed only very little compared to 2017's: instead of Limited Edition, which was last year's Wednesday party and musically probably simply too similar to Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Tinie Tempah switches from Fridays to Wednesdays and thus breaks up that all-EDM programme nicely.
Add to that the new DYSTOPIA on Fridays, which also is a different sound, and you get a more rounded line-up allover. The rest (five out of seven parties) stays the same.
2017 wasn't a record season for anyone on the island really (more on this in future parts of our season preview) and thus probably neither for Ushuaïa. That being said it seems as though they had a very decent season, so it simply makes sense to keep the general direction and only change a little.
By putting on a Burning Man-type party, they cater for a trend, as the 'desert house' genre is quickly turning into a global phenomenon.
What did change last year is that instead of having a proper competitor right across the road as they used to (Space), in 2017 what used to be Space turned into Hï thus actually becoming part of the Ushuaïa group.
This new situation meant new chances - putting up events at Hï that are similar in sound to those at Ushuaïa so that people can carry on at Hï once Ushuaïa closes at midnight. It also means a bit of risk because, if you suddenly own two clubs next door to each other, you might create some in-house competition. We'll talk more about this once the full Hï weekly programme is out.
Oh, one last thing - even though Ushuaïa's weekly residencies are out now, there is still some gunpowder left for surprises so as always... stay tuned!
Part 2 of the season preview to follow once the next club has released all of its weekly parties!
