Don’t Mess With The Judge

Confusion reigns in San Antonio, as the sunset resort’s most popular party, Judgement Sundays, is rumoured to be leaving Eden for next door neighbour and rival, Es Paradis. It’s been a difficult year for Judgement Sundays as they try to weather the storm of changing market patterns and new ownership at the club. San Antonio, long the unfashionable sister of the clubbing market in Ibiza, is now becoming much more attractive to international players and DJ’s. The new owner at Eden, Micheal Van De Kuit, recently appointed Danny Whittle’s IBZ Entertainment company to manage the clubs DJ programs and bookings. It was an interesting and unusual move as the clubs music program was farmed out to an outside agency. It was expected that the new Eden would bring a Dutch feel to the club and reflect a new direction for San Antonio. It’s hard to tell if much of this is clever marketing and publicity or if there is as rumoured, trouble and strife in the garden of Eden.

Judge Jules, has earned a reputation as a DJ who speaks his mind and is not afraid to tell things as they are. Earlier this month he released a statement informing his fans of the reasons why Judgement Sundays was to move to a Friday slot at Eden. In the statement, he cited three main reasons for moving the party; work pressures, competition and the changing market in Ibiza. He maintained that a new date was in the ether from last September “The previous owners had many excuses why we shouldn’t move. I now realise it was because they were trying to sell the venue and didn’t want the uncertainty of their biggest night moving putting off the new buyers. In the end, Eden was sold very late in the day, with the final paperwork only being completed a month ago. By this point I’d given up on Fridays and we’d booked 10 consecutive nights with Ferry Corsten on Sundays, plus some others on the different Sunday dates.The new owners immediately asked that Full On Ferry and us promote separately, telling us that they’d heard we were prepared to move to Friday nights”. That all seems to make logical sense and a perfect reason for Judgement Sundays to remain at Eden for Fridays. Why the party has not been confirmed by either Eden or Judgement Sundays and now rumoured to be moving to Es Paradis instead, is where the real story lies.

The only element of the equation that has changed since Jules above statement, has been the appointment of IBZ International. All media communications are now silent on the issue, a policy that went out with the dinosaurs. Eden have gone to ground and are not replying to emails. They have also removed a link from their website that advertised a Ministry Of Sound “Creche” party for Friday nights, instead of Judgement Fridays. More ominous and linked to the removal of the Creche announcement, is the current offline status of the Judgement Sundays website. In my opinion, the next move will be a direct and authoritative statement from Judge Jules. It’s clear from the media silence that something is going on behind the scenes, as normally there would be some sort of PR spin put out. While Es Paradis has their Friday night already filled, it is for their in house water party, Fiesta Del Agua. It would be workable for Es Paradis to fit in Judgement Fridays, even at this late stage, as its not contractually bound to any promoter and the Fiesta Del Agua party already takes place on Tuesday nights. Until official statements are released by Judgement Sundays and Eden all the above is just opinion and speculation, with judgement reserved, until it is served. Expect this story to heat up considerably, over the next few days.

UPDATE 17/6/13 Eden Confirm Judge Jules as a resident for Friday nights at Eden. Ticket price will be €32.