After a winter of rumours about the venue formerly known as Angel's, Penelope and Heaven opening again this summer, yesterday a first official press release about the new club BOMBA Ibiza was finally doing the rounds. But as ever with such exciting news, there were still tons of unanswered questions and we wanted the full lowdown from the man himself. Danny Whittle, IMS founding partner, promoter of the Ibiza 123 Rocktronic Festival, ex-manager of Pacha and now the mastermind behind BOMBA, met up with me to chat about the forthcoming season, politics and Ibiza in general.
Hi Danny, thanks for having me. BOMBA Ibiza is finally officially confirmed to open on Wednesday 22nd May. After there being nonstop rumours all winter, can you outline why it took you so long to confirm? What difficulties have you faced in this new venture?
"Well Stivi you know, from running the IMS as well as the 123 Festival, I already knew that putting up a new business in Ibiza isn't exactly the easiest thing. Giuseppe Cipriani, the owner of the venue, has had the same experience with opening up his restaurant last year. Now, I tend to think that new business on the island is good for the island and for the people on it, but there are obviously always people who don't think that way. You simply have to go through that political process and we just wanted to wait until everything's approved before we start making too much noise about it."
What kind of club is Bomba going to be, and how will it be different to what the island already has?
"It's honestly not going to be massively different, in the end a club's a club. With our weekly programme and our line ups, we're going to sit nicely in the middle of places like Sankeys and DC10, who totally specialise in underground, and the big clubs who tend to have the biggest stars. But what we want to do, and this is what Giuseppe absolutely specialises in, is the level of service. The way he services people through his restaurants, he truely values the return of service concept. People come back to any venue because they feel treated well. And that's where we want to stand out."
Looking at the venue map, at first glance, BOMBA looks a bit like VIP heaven. But on the other hand, we know you as a music lover. So what shall people expect? How big is the VIP section? And for anyone that's never seen the venue before, what's the capacity of the club?
"Basically, a thousand people will fit into BOMBA. And again, Giuseppe's mentality is that people should feel comfy, so we're definitely not looking to have an overcrowded club. He'd rather have people having a really good time than making an extra bit of money and I'm really glad he sees it that way. The last thing he wants is someone walking out of that club complaining."
"The VIP section is about 25% of the club. And it's our bad really, because on the first plans we've released, with the wording on the plans, it may look like a lot of it is VIP. But if you look at them properly, all the spaces in white are general public access and only the coloured bits are reserved for VIP. Generally, we won't be putting 20 people around a table that should be for 6. We have spacious areas for those who want to pay more so they feel comfy. But what we massively understand is that, without a dancefloor, without a club that's functioning really well, the VIPs don't want to be there anyway. You have to have a good working nightclub to have a good VIP. Let me also add that, the name VIP section is not a great name for a space in my opinion. You know, very important person... I mean, they're not! They're just people who want to spend more money, have some bottles and more space, and get a great service. To us, they're not more important than the guy paying a normal ticket and having some beers, because quite simply, without either of them, it doesn't work correctly!"
BOMBA Indoors
BOMBA Outdoor Terrace
"Undoubtedly there are going to be celebrities in the club, simply because Giuseppe has a lot of famous friends, but nobody should say that, if you have a lot of money, you can't like good music. You don't have to be the coolest kid to like good music. I know plenty of very wealthy people with a fantastic taste in music and I know people that have no money and have a really bad taste in music. The colour of your credit card really doesn't say anything about your taste in music..."
With Giuseppe Cipriani being the owner, his restaurant almost being next door as well as lots of other upmarket venues nearby, I assume we can expect a very upper class crowd in the club. Obviously the million dollar question now is - what's the door policy going to be like, will anyone get in? Is there a dress code?
"The door policy is simple - if you have a positive attitude and you look nice, you're in. If you wear a tuxedo, but look aggressive, you're not. We're on a holiday island and people generally have a really positive attitude and that's what we want - we want good people, fun people in the club. We don't want people with football shirts in the club, but at the same time, if there are people that look cool with a pair of shorts and they're funny, they're in! It's definitely more attitude than what people wear."
Now, Luciano, Erick Morillo and Defected have all left Pacha - for different reasons. They're all going to be part of your weekly programme. Was it difficult to convince them to risk a new venue like this? And can you already provide further details about your programme for the summer?
"It wasn't very difficult to convince them because they liked the newness of the concept. It's something new and the eyes of the world will be on it, so the promoters were definitely interested. They also liked the fact it's not a massive venue and you can build a nice intimate atmosphere already from early on until very late. And all of us and them have one very important thing in common - we all have a massive love for electronic music."
"So speaking about the weekly programme, Defected stay on their Saturday night slot and Luciano stays on Sundays. Erick Morillo is going to be either on Mondays or on Wednesdays, depending on another night we're going to sign very soon, so we'll be confirming this in the next few days. The other night we've just confirmed is Circus, Yousef's night which will happen on Thursdays. I'm thrilled with their line ups, that's gonna be a very cool night and will also nicely sit inbetween the more mainstream FMIF and Cream and the very underground ENTER. We wouldn't want to put them on a Wednesday, where you got Guy Gerber at Pacha, Jamie Jones at DC10 and FUSE at Sankeys, that would be much more of a clash. Every night has been considered that way and we'll announce the remaining three nights over the course of the next week or maybe ten days. But I can say I'm really happy how things are shapening up, it's going to be a nice rounded and varied programmation."
What's the deal with tickets? what's your pricing policy going to be and where can people get tickets?
"I think ticket prices wil be somewhere between 35€ and 55€, depending on the night, the time of the year, the DJs and the demand. We also want to keep drinks at a reasonable price. The way we've developed the VIP, and people paying lots of money for that and getting a great service in return, we can let the rest of the club have a better deal. And that doesn't mean we're trying to rip anyone off for somebody else, the service will reflect the fee. We want the kids to come to enjoy the club, because we know that, 5 years down the line, they're probably going to use our VIP, because they've been treated so well and had such a great time. Of course tickets will be available online through Ibiza Spotlight."
How did the cooperation with Pioneer happen? You've announced you're going to be the first club having their custom sound system? What's special about the system?
"I worked with Pioneer quite a lot through the IMS and we've always had a great collaboration. When it was becoming apparent that we're gonna take over the club, they approached us about fitting their sound system in BOMBA. It's surely easier to get a club to fit in a system when they actually need one than to go to a club that already has a sound system and convince them to rip out theirs and put in a new one *laughs*. But once we've started talking and they told me who's involved, we realised we're dealing with people who've installed some of the world's best sound systems - we're talking Soundfactory, Twilo, Stereo Montreal, Zouk Singapore... so straight away we got interested."
Giuseppe and I then flew over to Tokyo to check it out. And I can honestly say we were blown away with it. The depth, the warmth and the clarity of that system is just incredible. And while our shirts and trousers were shaking with the power of this thing, we were still able to talk together just the way we're talking you and I now. It's irrelevant whether we're the first ones with this system or whether we're going to get a lot of press coverage because of it, we wouldn't have committed to that system if it wasn't right. But the quality absolutely convinced us."
What do you want most out of this first BOMBA season?
"I want people to give it a chance! Don't form too many opinions beforehand and come and have a look before you judge! The reality is, there's always going to be people who don't like it and others who love it - and anything in between. Come check it out, and if you have a genuine complaint, then I definitely want to hear it. We're putting a lot of money and effort into this thing so I think we deserve people to only judge after they've seen it."
From the outside, the venue still looks absolutely untouched...so how are you going to manage to open on time and what's planned for the first few nights?
"We're not going to change the building as such, so there's not that much work to do. But from next week onwards, we'll have 50 guys working there around the clock to get it all ready for our opening night on 22nd May. The designers and the builders know exactly what to do and you'll be amazed at how quick that place comes together."
"As for our first few nights, we're having the IMS opening party on Wednesday 22nd May, with line ups still to be confirmed. On Thursday 23rd May we'll have Fatboy Slim. Friday 24th May is TBC again and then Defected starts on Saturday 25th with Dennis Ferrer and more."
UPDATE 18TH MAY: see Bomba's announcement regarding delayed opening of their venue.
Lately, there's been a lot of news around in the media in regards to you leaving Pacha. Is there anything you'd like to comment on? You're basically neighbours with Pacha now, with a very similar clientele as well. How do you treat the situation?
"I have a huge respect and a long-standing deep love for Pacha. I've been working full time there for 13 years and have done stuff there before that. I'm good friends with the owner's sons and I have absolutely no problem with Pacha and neither have they with me. The way I personally see it, the anger from the New York Times article is basically about one statement that says "electronic music hasn't evolved in 20 years and is for idiots". That statement is not mine and got up the back of a lot of people who live and breathe eletronic music..."
"Apart from that, I don't care if they write I was fired, the fact is I wasn't and anybody at Pacha will tell you that. We weren't agreeing on the direction of the club and it was time for me to move on - that's it. Some people now talking about "lines being drawn" and all that... it's ridiculous, we're talking about a disco, not North and South Korea."
On a side note, what happened with the Ibiza 123 Festival? Why didn't it happen in the end and will it be back in the future?
"We had issues to get the land from what I understand from Pino Sagliocco, who was dealing with this. And the problem with this project being so massive, if you don't do it early, you won't get it right. But as the problems with the land kept dragging on, it became very difficult, because if you want to have artists of the calibre as Lenny Kravitz and the like, you have to book them early! The other problem was, the concept was to bring more people to the island. And to do so, you need to announce in winter really, because that's when people start to book their holidays. We wouldn't bring any more people to Ibiza if we'd announce only that late. So in the end we had to decide and say let's give it a miss. We hope this will shake things up so that, for next year, we can start really early and get the support we need."
"In the end, don't forget that apart from the tourists we want to bring to the island with the festival, we also wanted to provide a festival for people who live on the island, with acts you normally don't get to see in Ibiza. If you and your partner want to go and see a big rock / pop act, you'll fly out of the island to Barcelona or Madrid and you'll easily spend 300€ per head just for flights, accomodation and the tickets. We wanted to provide this for 60€ in San Antonio."
What do you think about the whole Las Vegas Vs Ibiza discussion? Do you really think you can compare those two destinations..?
"It's ridiculous to think you could compare Ibiza to Las Vegas! But Las Vegas, like many other places around the world, is now utilising the Ibiza model. They use electronic music to bring people to the city. People mustn't forget that, while other tourist destinations are facing recessions, Ibiza, thanks to the electronic music, is driving on through!"
"As for Las Vegas, anybody who thinks that only old DJs go there to retire, needs to open their eyes. Everyone plays Las Vegas nowadays. Have a look at the calendars of The Light, Hakkasan and the Wynn Group and you'll see all of the big names that play in Ibiza. As EDM is exploding in the USA, it is totally logical there are also a few important hubs over there and Vegas is definitely one of them."
Finally, what do you love about Ibiza?
"Ooh that's a big question. Ibiza has become such an important part of my life. I met my wife here, my boy was born here and I built my house here. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. I've tried to live elsewhere before, but nowhere else comes close to Ibiza. No matter where I go, it's always a pleasure to come back and there's not many places you can say this about. Coming from the North of England, the one thing I really love about Ibiza is that I spend 80% of my life outdoors. And in the North of England you tend to spend 80% indoors. And that obviously has a massive effect on your wellbeing in general. Ibiza has just become a massive part of my life."
