I was an Ibiza rep in the 90s – what I saw was CARNAGE but there are some even darker things I’ll never forget
A FORMER Ibiza holiday rep has revealed what it was really like to work there during the party island’s “golden age” of the 1990s.
Julian Cobby, a now 57-year-old dad-of-two, became a holiday rep for the iconic Club 18-30 after travelling to the island in 1989 and never looked back.
He was there for Ibiza’s extraordinary heyday as it embraced rave culture and legendary super clubs such as Amnesia and Pacha blasted electronic music from some of the world’s best DJs.
Julian shepherded Brits to the best night spots as they arrived on the island after it became a pulsating palace of blissed-out hedonism.
Pleasure-seekers packed out dancefloors and explored the drug scene, experimenting with LSD and ecstasy, partying right through till sunrise.
Nightclub romps were commonplace as DJ Carl Cox once said: “Back in the 1990s, if you had a camera, you had to leave it in the cloakroom.
“So if you wanted to have sex in the middle of the club, you could. No one would care.”
But working as a holiday rep meant that Julian was mostly unfazed by drunken tourists and randy holidaymakers who were free to let loose on the island.
Speaking to The Sun Online at his bar in San Antonio he looked back on his time during the 90s fondly but says it was “all good clean fun”.
However Julian admits there was a dark side to the island – with one his most shocking memories being the the death of a tourist who plunged from a balcony just a few weeks after starting the job.
He told The Sun: “That was a bit difficult to get my head around.
“It was a pure accident he fell off a balcony he wasn’t drunk or anything, that was a little bit hard to deal with I guess.”
He recalls Brit getting so drunk they would go missing for days on end while others would go wild carrying out bizarre acts.
He said: “Our job was to pick up clients from the airport, take them to their hotels, give them information about the resort.
“We sold them packages with excursions which tended to be bbq, beach parties, a cabaret, that type of thing.
“Many silly incidents happened, when you have 500 people on a beach these things happen.”
Julian said: “The funniest thing I remember was a guy who was staying at the hostel Valencia being absolutely p****d.
“He went down to the port and kept telling the fishermen ‘hostel Valencia’ so they actually took him to Valencia.
“It took him three days to come back.”
He added: “Another guy brought his skis on holiday and was actually trying to ski up the west end street.”
Ibiza’s rave reputation really took hold in the 1990s and it became a private party hot spot for the rich and famous, with the likes of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise rumoured to have visited.
Clubs such as Manumission and Privilege became known for their wild sex shows while naked aerial acrobats and scantily clad dancers took centre stage at clubs.
Speaking about her time in Ibiza in 1997, Sun reporter Samantha Brick said: “…Then there were all the 18-30 day trips.
“One couple started having sex behind some bushes on a day trip. We’d only arrived half an hour earlier.”
Julian worked as a rep in Ibiza for three summers while working at a ski resort through the winter but later settled down as a bar owner in San Antonio before having his two sons.
He added: “I have fabulous memories, I wouldn’t change it for anything.
“The reps then were like the crews you find on luxury yachts and the customers were a bit like [celebs on] Love Island.
“People are slightly different now- there were not as many photos or Instagram and social media so hiding was an easier thing to do.
“Being a rep was great fun, I think for people who do it now don’t get involved with the guests as much as they used to do.
“We used to be with them from breakfast at the hotel till we made sure they’d got back to the hotel in the morning.
“It is easy to sit in an ivy tower and say drunk Brits abroad while forgetting that when you were 18 you would probably get on a plane, the plane door opened in the destination, you felt the heat, you went to a bar that stayed open until six in the morning and you could buy booze.