The Club Magnate Pacha

Pacha today is one of the most well-known club brands, and the two cherries from its logo personify the sweet life from London to Buenos Aires and from New York to Sharm el-Sheikh. The brand took its first steps on Russian soil thanks to a series of parties held in St. Petersburg and Moscow last year. At the beginning of this summer the establishment Pacha Beach Bar opened in the northern capital, and in the quite foreseeable future the opening of a club in Moscow is expected. We would like to talk in more detail about the history, about what Pacha is today.

For the first time an establishment under the sign Pacha appeared in the small Spanish town of Sitges, located 40 km southwest of Barcelona, as far back as 1966. It was opened by a man named Ricardo Urgell.
The next swallow was the Pacha that appeared four years later in the most-visited resort of the Costa Brava - Lloret de Mar. But only the third club, opened by the same owner and with the same name in Ibiza in May 1973, brought him worldwide fame.
The club immediately fell into the focus of attention of a very motley public - from representatives of the hippies to the most inveterate hedonists that there could be in Spain at that time. All the more so as the first years of Pacha's existence coincided with the hippie movement - this marked the beginning of the story. Making money was not the main priority and people were more oriented toward enjoying themselves. People regarded Pacha as their own home, where everyone was a friend and all were passionately involved in the parties taking place in the club. The combination of just such an approach with carefully chosen finds of the entertainment industry, along with attention to the quality of the product being made, led to the emergence of a company famous the world over, which exists even now. Freedom of self-expression and rapture with life became the main credo of Pacha, reflected in everything - the music, the design, the decor. And, despite all sorts of reconstructions and changes, these features to this day remain the defining ones in the club's image. Worldwide recognition came to it in the 90s, when Ibiza was experiencing a tourist boom. Today the establishment consists of several dance floors, as well as a terrace and a restaurant. Thus, Spanish pop music plays in a zone called Pachacha; jazzy house, soul and funk in the Funky Room (El Cielo); hip-hop, soul and r'n'b in the Global Room; well, and all conceivable and even inconceivable stars of house music - on the main dance floor, they can also be heard in the VIP zone. In all, Pacha holds more than 3500 people and is still the only club on the island that operates year-round.

After achieving considerable success in Ibiza, with its unique and unlike-anything character, a big step for the brand was the opening of Pacha in Madrid. All the Mediterranean trends at that time were being brought into the capital and the place adjusted itself to the new currents. Thus, an unusual style was developed. This was the starting point for the brand's expansion across Spain, and later abroad as well. Inspired by the famous New York Studio 54, Pacha Madrid opened its doors on 23 April 1980 with the same success with which, several years later, here in Madrid too, the club/restaurant El Cielo opened. Many DJs, little-known at the time, would set off to the Madrid Pacha and afterwards become celebrities.

As for the origin of the most noticeable club logo - Pacha's signature cherries - it was not always so. The original logo was an eye, drawn in the spirit of pop-art, which was quite symbolic for the moment of the opening of the first establishments. But once (exactly when - history is silent), two cherries were used as the logo at a party and they so pleased the management that from then on they became the official logo of the brand.

And already in the early 90s the two cherries, having become well-known in their homeland, begin to open branches in the near and far abroad - Rimini (1992), Tokyo (1993), Buenos Aires (1993), Miami (1994) and so on. To date there are more than 70 of them. Moreover, they operate not only in such traditionally clubbing cities as London or New York (you can read in more detail about the opening of the club in that city in a special piece on our portal) or in beloved seaside resorts, but also, for example, in Munich, Rotterdam and Brussels.

However, the brand Pacha now means not only the eponymous clubs, but also a line of signature clothing, a hotel chain, a booking agency, a record label and an eponymous magazine, recounting life on Ibiza and coming out 4 times over the summer season with a print run of 30,000 copies. The most popular of them are: Pacha collection - a label of the fashion industry, the record label Pacha, Pacha management - a DJ agency, Pacha multimedia - this division deals with the development of party designs, as well as clips for TV, and also the chain of Pacha hotels and restaurants. The influence of the Pacha brand is felt not only within its own (club sector). There are other sectors of the market that are of interest from the point of view of producing peculiar products using this brand. One of the best examples is Ford Espana S.A, which wanted to use the brand for one of its most popular models - the Ford Fiesta Pacha. According to the manufacturer's data, use of the brand led to very impressive sales of this special model. Now Pacha is working together with the mobile operator Vodafone on the development of a Pacha phone.

In a word, it (the brand) covers practically everything connected with club life and the leisure industry. And, of course, like any other commercially successful product, it continues its development. At that, the opening of new franchise branches is the priority direction. One of the presumed places where a Pacha club may soon appear is Moscow. So we'll wait and see it all with our own eyes!