The finca (country house) that would become the Amnesia nightclub was sold in April 1970 by the Planells family, who had inhabited the house for five generations, to a widow from an aristocratic background. In May 1976, the widow signed a five-year lease on the house to Antonio Escohotado, a Madrid-born philosopher who had arrived on the island five years earlier to start a new life.
Ibiza, which had become a destination for tourism in the 1950s, was in the 1970s a hive of counterculture and idealists. Escohotado sought to turn the old farmhouse into a place for hippie bands and culture. He launched a discotheque named El taller del olvido ("The Workshop of Forgetfulness"). He wanted to express that when people go out at night it is to forget their problems and indulge in an unknown world far away from ordinary routine. However, co-founder Manolo Sáenz de Heredia proposed the Greek word Amnesia.
Initially, admission was cheap, 25 pesetas (equivalent to 1.74 EUR now) including one soda or beer.
There were no access restrictions.
Escohotado was not interested in the commercial operation and left after 8 months.
The dance floor was in the open air and sessions lasted until 12 or 1 pm.[5]
In 1978, Ginés Sánchez, a manufacturer from Madrid, took over Amnesia. Unexpected closings alternated with summers with capacity crowds in competition with the other discothèques, such as Ku (now Privilege Ibiza), Pacha, Glory's, and Lola's.
In the 1980s, Prontxio Izaguirre took over Amnesia, changing its theme to dance music, a mix between pop and funk, and hip hop. Freestyle mixing was permitted, house was about to take over, and Balearic Beat was invented by DJs such as Alfredo Fiorito.[6]
In 1984, the drug of choice at Amnesia was mescaline from Valencia.[5]
In the late 1980s, the routine circuit was:
On 22 June 1991, Amnesia reopened under MFC management. The clubs of Ibiza began to gain international fame. In the mid-1990s, Ezna Sands brought UK promoters and labels, including Joseph Mullen, onto the Balearic Island and into Amnesia. The island, once merely a destination for holidaymakers aged 18 to 30, became a mecca for dance music enthusiasts.
While earlier, each club had a personality, now the parties depended on the theme or the hired DJ.
In July 1995, techno parties were brought from Germany.[5]
The club expanded, increasing its bars from four to 16, and growing from a staff of 30 to a summer workforce of more than 200, including waiters, go-go dancers, security, and administration staff. As of 2003, the venue had a capacity of 5,000 people and is divided into two areas: Main Room and Terrace.[4]
Since 2005, Amnesia has been run by the Liverpool nightclub Cream, created and founded by Joseph Mullen in 1995. Mullen sold the brand to Cream UK for £4.8 million and retired from the music industry.
^Brewster, Bill; Broughton, Frank (2014). Last night a DJ saved my life : the history of the disc jockey (Updated and revised ed.). Grove Press. p. 380. ISBN9780802146106.
