“Pacha Hugs Everyone”: Popping My Ibiza Cherry at the Island’s Oldest Club

After a summer of unfortunate partying in New York, I felt ready to retire into a cave for the fall—until a weekender invite to Ibiza’s most iconic club fell into my lap. Bottles, models, cherry emojis, and that one viral sparkly blue dress was all I thought I knew about Pacha Ibiza, but I was in.  A couple days before leaving, the agenda came in for the two-night soiree: pregame at 11, party at 1, repeat. “It’s great because you won’t get jetlagged, my colleague Taylore told me. “Just stay up, sleep in, and go to the beach in the morning.” Great advice, but there was one nagging question on my mind: what do I wear? I pictured a funner, sluttier, drunker version of myself—maybe one that wore colors—and stuffed every miniskirt and open toe I own into a carry-on.

After a nine-hour flight spent charging up on sleep, I was greeted at the airport in a van emblazoned with a massive cherry. On our drive through the island towards El Hotel Pacha, I saw billboards with more cherries. I was right about that one thing: this is a franchise. Pacha Ibiza, which started over a half-century ago when Ibiza was mainly a hippie haven, has transformed into both the most symbolic house nightclub standing and a lifestyle and hospitality group. That history was evident when we pulled past the club, which retained its cottage-like regional architecture, to the hotel steps and I landed in my space-age room, where baskets of sweets greeted me. A friend replied to my story post begging me to bring back the Pacha-branded tissue paper it laid on: “I will buy it off you,” she said. As I looked out from the balcony at mountains, palm trees, and sunlit pool, any lingering Fire Island FOMO slipped away. America sucks. Here, even the strawberries tasted sweeter.

Post-dinner and drinks at the hotel, our entourage of journalists and PR girls walked across the street past a giant cherry sculpture to the “Pacha Family” entrance. The Saturday, like every Saturday, was Flower Power, the longest-standing club night in Ibiza, a head-on embrace of the original hippie culture that brought revelers to the island. The season’s resident DJ, musician Bora Uzer, was tapped by the club to lead the party into a new era. “Closing Saturday at Pacha is prime time, a big time dream,” he said of the residency when I met him later. “Pacha is a palette that holds many different colors, and Flower Power is a color that bursts on Saturdays.” And colorful it was. I grabbed a shot in the VIP garden and followed the group through the corridors and kitchens of the club until we emerged from below into the big room, the music hitting my ears. It was about 1:00 a.m. and DJ Kiddy Smile was playing groovy happy house.

Like the sound, the air inside was crisp, a respite from the humidity outdoors. Our guide for the evening ushered us to a table behind the booth and fed me tequila as I took in my surroundings. The room was huge, and the GA section in front was packed to the brim. “Pacha is 360,” said Bora Uzer, and it’s one of his favorite things about the club. “Artists being in the middle is beautiful, rather than having just a few people behind you, or none. Pacha hugs everyone.” The club was decked out in flower-shaped things—hanging garlands, tree-like statues, and giant glowing carnations. Older couples and groups of hot girls wore flowing dresses and headbands. A dancer in glowing blue body paint vogued around two others in furry masks. I looked up at the ceiling and watched animated cherries grow and burst, wishing I was on drugs. “When they decided to merge Flower Power with me, I was very excited, but it was a big responsibility,” Uzer told me later. “I started asking people from that era and the new generation, everybody, what Flower Power means to them, and none of them actually mentioned any songs or music. To them, it was more about everybody being free, and colors, and being high. Either weed or acid. That was the conversation. You really get lost in that psychedelic world, and it’s beautiful.” 

Bora Uzer, photographed by Raul Sanchez. Courtesy of The Media Nanny.

Just as I was thinking about how I haven’t been around this many straight people in forever, our other PR friend grabbed me to say, “Let me show you the other room.” We descended through a maze of decorated hallways to XTRA, the gay party secreted in the club’s underbelly. There, the music thumped a little faster. I felt like I was at H0L0, but snapped out of it when I remembered there was a cigarette vending machine outside, a distinctly un-American luxury, and grabbed a smoke. The kids in the smoking area nodded when I suggested that Ibiza is the Miami of Europe (quick flight, beach, club, repeat). But Uzer, who’s Turkish by way of Miami, disagreed. “Over here ,the community is very strong, and the locals are connected. In Miami, nobody’s connected to each other unless you’re getting something from them. There’s so much culture besides partying. If you want, you can escape and have a totally chill life on Formentera or somewhere.” If only.

I found my way back into the big room to watch the dancers, who by now had switched the looks up from subway breakdancer to drive-through bride. An older woman in alien makeup and a green beehive wig sat beside our section waiting for her turn on stage. Two cute girls in beads and blue lipstick walked around with a plate of fruit and I accepted a piece of pineapple. Resident DJ Bora Uzer took the decks, even strumming along on an electric guitar, and everyone started dancing a little harder. Uzer later told me that Barbara Tucker joined him for a jam earlier in the season and Katy Perry danced around in the VIP a few weeks ago. It was a complete sensory bath, like nothing I’d experienced, and nothing else on the island, everyone told me. “I think that’s one of the reasons that I love Flower Power, because it’s very diverse,” Uzer explained. “I would say it’s leaning to women and transgender people at Flower Power. And it’s where you see tourists and locals really blending really well. It’s a 50-year-old party, so locals already knew of it. There was a change, and it was a question, are they going to embrace it or not? And they did.”

Before I knew it, it was early morning, and I walked across the street and back into the hotel looking haggard—nothing the bellhop hadn’t seen before. I considered skipping sleep in favor of an early beach morning, but I was pulled away by a dream about flowers, fringe, and freedom.