Pacha Icons

A club brand that moved outdoors

Pacha Icons is not a band or a single DJ. It is the open-air promoting arm of the Pacha Group, and its job is to take artists booked under the group's umbrella out of the club and put them somewhere with a view. In practice that means two venues: Destino Five Ibiza, the adults-only resort on the cliffs of Cap Martinet overlooking Talamanca, Ibiza Town and Formentera; and Playa Pacha at FIVE LUXE JBR in Dubai. Ibiza runs through the summer, Dubai from October to New Year, so the calendar barely stops.

The parent company is old. Ricardo Urgell opened the first Pacha in Sitges, outside Barcelona, in 1967; the Ibiza club followed in 1973, built in the Ses Feixes area to resemble an Ibicencan farmhouse. The twin cherries arrived in the early 1980s, drawn by the designer Yvette Montsalvatge for Guinda S.L. — guinda is Spanish for cherry — and reportedly taken from the eye make-up of the actress Carmen Sevilla.

The outdoor site is far newer as a Pacha property. The resort at Cap Martinet traded for years as Destino Pacha. After the group changed hands it was renovated inside and out, reclassified from four stars to five, and reopened for the 2025 season as Destino Five Ibiza, with the Pacha Icons name over the parties.

What the Dubai owners bought

In October 2023 FIVE Holdings, based in Dubai, acquired the Pacha Group for €302.5 million, financed through a green bond and a revolving credit facility. The purchase took in the Ibiza club, the Destino resort, the Pacha Hotel, the merchandise line and the trademarks to the name and the cherries. Kabir Mulchandani, FIVE's chairman and chief executive, took the chairmanship of Pacha Group; Aloki Batra became its chief executive.

The figures since then explain why the outdoor series matters to the accounts. Between January and September 2025 the Pacha Group booked €118.8 million of revenue and €40.5 million of EBITDA. The Ibiza club itself took 583,834 guests across 156 events, a 20 per cent rise in guests and a 17 per cent rise in revenue year on year. Destino Five, working a truncated season after reopening on 1 June 2025, ran at 85 per cent occupancy with an average daily rate of €580, up 41 per cent. Pacha accounted for roughly a third of FIVE's group EBITDA.

In September 2025 FIVE secured a $460 million revolving credit facility, with around $500 million earmarked for deployment over two years across Dubai, Ibiza, the United States and Asia. The Icons series is the cheapest piece of that expansion to move: it needs a terrace, a sound system and a booking, not a building.

The 2026 Ibiza season, date by date

The shape of the summer was fixed early. Pacha Icons took twelve selected Thursdays plus one Saturday, 1 August, all of them running 17:00 to 23:00 — a daylight-into-sunset format rather than a club night.

Ibiza Spotlight reported in February 2026 that Marco Carola presents Music On Daytime had been given eight editions: 18 and 25 June, 2, 9 and 23 July, and 6, 13 and 20 August, with the Destino closing party added on Sunday 11 October. The full line-ups, published on 7 May, put Franky Rizardo, PAWSA and Da Vid b2b Matteo Dentone alongside Carola on 18 June; Loco Dice and East End Dubs on 25 June; Carlita and Ahmed Spins on 2 July; Prospa b2b Cloonee and Dennis Ferrer on 9 July; Chris Stussy, Mason Collective and HoneyLuv b2b Jazzy on 23 July; Damian Lazarus, Max Dean and Joey Daniel on 6 August; Adriatique and Toman on 13 August; and Paco Osuna b2b Ilario Alicante with Dennis Cruz on 20 August.

On 12 March 2026 the series announced four dates for Solomun under a new banner, Solomun Outdoors: 11 June with HAAi and Maxi Meraki, 16 July with Joseph Capriati and Magdalena, 30 July with Michael Bibi and Butch, and a closing on 27 August with Vintage Culture and Volkoder. He has taken at least one Destino date most summers, usually the grand closing, but had not been given this many since 2023.

The single Saturday, 1 August, went to Sonny Fodera, moving his house sound outdoors off the back of a Monday-night residency at the club, with Roger Sanchez, Franky Wah b2b Danny Howard and Saffron Stone.

Dubai: October to New Year's Eve

The winter half of the calendar runs at Playa Pacha, the beachfront space at FIVE LUXE JBR on Jumeirah Beach Residence, looking out at Ain Dubai and the skyline. Carl Cox opens the season on Friday 9 October 2026, with entry from 19:00 and the programme running until 03:00 on the Saturday. Tickets are tiered: AED 200 for early arrival before 22:00, AED 250 for dance-floor access, from AED 450 for the VIP zone and AED 1,000 to dance backstage. The policy is strictly 21 and over, with physical photo ID required — digital copies are refused.

The rest of the Dubai season is already listed: Sonny Fodera on 10 October, Adam Port with Alan Dixon on 31 October, ANOTR on 13 November, Marco Carola's Music On on 20 November with Chris Stussy, Ilario Alicante and Da Vid, &ME on 5 December, Luke Dean b2b Max Dean on 11 December and PAWSA on New Year's Eve. Pre-sale allocations for those nights are shown as sold out on the series website, with a final release remaining.

The Dubai format is not a copy of the Ibiza one. It starts when Ibiza finishes, at 19:00, and runs through the night rather than stopping at 23:00 — a beach club after dark rather than a sunset party.

Where it stands in late September 2026

The Ibiza season is all but done. Two Destino dates remain on sale: Music On on Thursday 1 October, with Carola joined by Franky Rizardo, Ilario Alicante, Mason Collective and Da Vid, and the closing party on Sunday 11 October with Luciano, Rossi. and Davide Squillace, listed from €95.95. Both are flagged as selling fast. Eight days after the closing, the Dubai season is under way, so the brand's dance floors overlap for a week in October.

Beyond the two venues, the Icons name is the group's most portable asset. It requires no club of its own, and the artists it books — Carola, Solomun, Cox, Fodera, PAWSA — already carry residencies elsewhere in the Pacha system. That is the logic of the series: the same roster, a different roof, or none.

What the parties look like on the ground

Coverage of the 2026 opening weekend gives the clearest picture. Ibiza Spotlight's photo-led report from the third part of the Pacha grand opening weekend at Destino Five, on 26 April 2026, described arriving at 19:00 to a dance floor already full and staying full to the end, with Mau P earlier in the day and Carola himself steering away from his usual tech house towards groovy, vocal-led house cut with more obscure records. The shift in his selection was the story of the night as much as the setting was.

Rolling Stone India, writing on 9 August 2025 after a stay at the resort, described the Thursday Icons parties taking place under a vine-draped canopy and set the noise against the rest of the property — yoga, breathwork and sound baths by day, the resort running on renewable energy, with the underground Tox Club kept for hotel guests and VIPs. The crowd it found was a mixed, well-off travelling one rather than a purely local scene.

Getting there is engineered around the 17:00 start. Complimentary shuttles leave at 17:00 and 17:30 from Playa d'en Bossa, Vara de Rey, Marina Botafoc and the Egg roundabout in San Antonio, returning after the party; a taxi from Ibiza Town costs around €16; and the free parking at the venue fills up on the bigger dates. Pre-sale drink bundles are sold with tickets, priced well under the bar.