#068 – Ibiza & Athens

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First week of the Europe trip down.

Ibiza for three nights and Athens for three.

If I was to describe the last week in a single word, it would be ‘immense’.

I just love being on this continent.

There’s something about it.

I’m not exactly sure what it is but more of the same please, Europe.

Some reflections from the first few days:

1. The business of Ibiza is insane (I’ll dive into this a little more below).

2. The beaches in Spain are next level – they alone make it worth the visit.

3. Taxi drivers are unquestionably one of the most accurate barometers to assess the sentiment amongst the populous of a city.

4. Where there is scarcity, there will almost always be demand. It’s a status game.

5. In every corner of the world, humans remain incessant in their desire to feel accepted by those around them – even those they haven’t met, don’t know, and will never see again.

The Business of Ibiza

As most of you probably know, Ibiza is generally known for one thing and one thing only: the nightclubs.

They are by far the single biggest source of tourism spending.

The beaches, the water sports, and the restaurants are all ancillary to the one reason why most people are there.

One of the things that surprised me most about the island was how well-oiled it was as a business machine.

It impressed me so much that I wanted to run some very basic calculations to see just how profitable the clubs really are.

In the interest of simplicity, let’s look at just one example.

The event I visited on Friday night was Calvin Harris at Ushuaïa, arguably the most popular club on the island.

The event was an absolute sellout of the venue's 7,000-person capacity.

At €100 minimum per ticket, that totals their ticket sales for the night at a whopping €700,000.

That’s over 1.1 million Aussie dollars in just one night.

Now, let’s add in the drinks.

A standard alcoholic drink was €24. If we apply a conservative average of 1.5 drinks per person, that sums to a beverage revenue of €252,000 (or 404,732.27 AUD).

So, excluding merchandise, VIP tickets, and bottle service, that’s a minimum of $1.5 million in revenue from ONE night alone.

Calvin Harris performs every Friday night between 31 May and 13 September.

That’s 16 nights during the year.

And every single one of those nights is a complete sellout.

16 nights × 1.5 million revenue = 24 million AUD.

And that’s just ONE artist performing ONE night per week at ONE club.

Ushuaïa, Hï Ibiza, O Beach, Amnesia, Pacha, all of the big nightclubs are all open 7 days a week for the entire 3-4 months of the summer season.

When you break it down, the numbers are outrageous.

All from a tiny little island off the Spanish coast.

Incredible.

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

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