The British Are Coming! Sankeys New York is open for business…
As Sankeys Ibiza’s third season draws to a spectacular close, attention now turns to New York as the club’s long-awaited opening is realised with the theme “The British are Coming”. The now permanent Ibiza fixture that regularly showcases the worlds biggest DJs alongside new and home-grown talent is set to become newest slice of the big apple’s clubland, housed on 29 West and 36th Street within the heart of Manhattan, Sankeys NYC proudly accommodates a brand new Void Incubus sound system and features the world’s first hydraulic LED Grid Matrix system. Sankeys NYC will thrive on the impulsive richness of the clubs attitude, that combined with authentic and palpable underground house music has driven this little soap story impressively further than it’s North Manchester roots. As anyone that has visited Sankeys in Manchester or Ibiza will know, New York’s club scene has been at the forefront of the global inspiration that created the world’s number one club, and captured the essence of legendary old school basement nightclubs like the Paradise Garage, Sound Factory and Vinyl from the “city that never sleeps”. New York will be a showcase for up and coming and breakthrough artists, many of whom have led a charge of fresh irrepressible musical energy during this years Ibizan season as well as featuring leading names from around the world. Establishing a family of collaborators, label showcases, underground promoters and DJ collectives has created a truly global feel to Sankeys, and travelling to New York is a long held dream for its founder David Vincent.
Interview : Dan Prince
Okay David well let’s get right into it. 12 months you will never forget with the closing of your beloved Manchester, a stupendous summer in Ibiza and now of course New York opening. But let’s kick off with these London rumours that are doing the rounds…
“After the closure of Manchester we received numerous offers on sites in London, we’ve had 6 other clubs come forward and there was one in particular we had a real good look at. It was for a 5-15 year franchise and on paper could have earnt us nearly 2 million pounds, any other club brand would have jumped at it but in the end we decided the people and the venue wasn’t quite right. Money has never been the motivation at Sankeys, it is always whether it felt right and we were doing it for right creative reasons firstly, not for money. Remember I come from the Hacienda school of thinking. We will do London when everything is right, unfortunately this wasn’t the time for it.”
So was it a stand alone venue, a new site…?
“No it was basically 35 ‘Sankeys pop-up’ parties with the idea to develop Sankeys in London and open up a proper venue the following year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a born and bred London Cockney and I would love nothing more to have my own club in the city, but this time things didn’t click. If anyone knows of a suitable venue or space we could take over and create a Sankeys London nightclub experience then email me on – david@sankeys.info.
The whole sending out the London Underground logo thing has certainly ruffled a few feathers up in Manchester. They think you have fucked them off…
“I know the people up in Manchester are upset and that’s the last thing I wanted. But the logo thing? Does that mean we are going to London or Sankeys is going Underground, you will have to wait and see? Who knows! Listen, we could have done a deal for London and made shed loads of money – but that’s not what Sankeys is all about, it never has been and never will be. Maybe that’s why I have a pair of tatty old trainers to get me around and don’t drive round in a flashy car like my former Manchester business partner who runs big Warehouse parties ?”
What has got everyone talking however is that in this very magazine you explained that one of the main reasons you were closing Manchester down was because you couldn’t run 2 clubs at the same time and Ibiza had to be the priority. Surely New York is a complete contradiction in terms then?
“It isn’t a contradiction in terms at all Dan. I closed down Manchester to concentrate 100% on Ibiza. Ibiza is shut down for the season so I can now concentrate 100% on New York. However people have to understand there is a clear definition here, this is a franchise with New York and we do not own it. I said from May after I shut down Manchester that in future I will always only ever own one club at a time and that is Ibiza, with New York it is a franchise. However, I am moving to New York lock stock and barrel to oversee the whole club and it’s not a case of simply taking a load of cash and saying here’s the logo do what you want with it. When I was running Manchester I was controlling everything, I had to. That meant my day involved the staff, the bars, the financial side of things…everything. That ultimately took me away from the creative side of things which is where I excel at. I’m not an accountant, I’m a promoter who likes putting on parties – GREAT parties at that.”
So there is no financial input at all, we are not going to see a repeat of Ibiza 2011 where you were selling your clothes to pay the bills?
“Definitely not. Thanks for reminding me, I am still getting over that.”
How long have you been waiting for Sankeys New York to open?
“About three years all in all, getting through various red tape. When we won Best Club In The World in 2010 myself and Greg Vickers had a long chat at some after party and we came up with the idea of 7 Sankeys Of The World…and New York was one of the cities I wanted. I love the city, have friends through Sankeys Manchester there and after Ibiza, wanted New York on the list. I gave a good friend of mine a call, a guy called Stan Kuklya who worked at Pacha New York at the time – and explained to him we had been crowned Best Club In The World and wanted to open in New York, did he know of anyone who would be interested in opening a Sankeys there? He said he knew this guy called Antonio Piacquadio who had a space and was wondering what to call it. The very next day I received a phone call from his partner Paolo, I flew out the following week to meet him and his team and we did the deal on the back of a napkin in a restaurant that night!”
It was that simple?
“It really was.”
And did you like him straight away?
“I did, it was remarkable how similar our ideas were. Listen, you have to like someone you are giving your beloved brand to, it can never just be about a money thing as I mentioned earlier. I love him and his partners Paolo Angelo and Rob Toma to pieces and we felt comfortable with each other straight away. They really looked after me – and I also have to thank Stan Kuklya for putting that call in, he didn’t have to reach out like that.”
This is a dream come true for you right, you have always loved the Big Apple?
“It really is, I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to live in New York? Well, apart from the Queen I suppose….”
Heh heh. Well the world’s No. 1 club Pacha have obviously set the benchmark when it comes to franchising their brand, just how hands on are you going to be able to be with New York, will we know it’s a Sankeys as soon as we walk in just as we know it’s a Pacha in Egypt or Russia?
“Why do you call Pacha the number one club in the world Dan? Have they actually ever won anything besides at their own DJ awards ?”
They are only polls David just like the DJ Top100. I just think Pacha is the most successful club in the world…
“Well that’s fair enough, they are probably the richest club and I totally respect them as I used to work there in my younger days and they taught me a lot of things, they really know really how they operate at a very high level. But do you want to know something about the major difference between a Pacha franchise and a Sankeys franchise; When Pacha do franchises, basically any entrepreneur who comes in with the money, what they do is let them get on with it and let them interpret what Pacha is to the local territory and have full creative control as long as they pay their licensing fee. If you go to any of the Pacha’s around the world the only thing that is consistent with the venues is the cherry, that’s it. All the clubs look different, the music policies are different even the artwork is very different. There is no real continuing working relationship between Pacha HQ and the Pacha around the world at all. With Sankeys everything has to be about consistency; the low DJ booth, the red bricks, low ceiling, blacked out rooms – even the artwork. I have a guy called Martin Fewell who does all our artwork for Sankeys and that will stay the same. Do you ever think for one minute that the owner from Pacha Ibiza would fly out and live in New York to oversee the club there for 6 months? Not in a million years, but I don’t blame him!”
So this won’t be a case of you wandering around poking your nose into the running of the club and irritating the guys over there, everything will be down to you?
“I have a veto over a few important creative decisions, not that I have had to use it as the guys I work with now how I work (as they are my partners now in Sankeys Ibiza) – and we are all happy about that. I am a perfectionist as well as a control freak in these matters. I can remember when Steve Lawler walked into Sankeys Ibiza, the first thing he said was ‘fuck me David, you have completely reproduced Sankeys Manchester!’. And that’s what we are trying to do with New York. Sure we have hit some problems such as the big gap running through the middle of the club which really didn’t help us when we were trying to continue with the low ceilings, but I found a way around it by designing this incredible LED hydraulic grid matrix ceiling that moves up and down…”
How much did that cost?
“Around $200,000.”
Nice. So you are going to be completely hands on?
“Yes I am, I’m getting on a flight in a few hours and cannot wait. Dan, fairplay to Pacha and their dozens of venues around the world and I respect the way they do it and I am not saying the way they do it wrong, but we are going down the boutique route with myself in charge of the programming, the marketing – everything creative and fun. We are a great team that have done some wonderful things together in Ibiza and the city of New York is absolutely choking with excitement about the Brits coming to town.”
Ah glad you mentioned Ibiza, can you explain exactly how Antonio, Paolo and Rob are involved in Sankeys Ibiza…
“When I was fucked financially when the investors pulled out last year, I had literally 1 hour to sort some serious cash out or Sankeys would have gone bust. I can laugh at it now looking back but the situation wasn’t funny. Rob had come over from New York to see how Ibiza ran so he could get his head around it and had heard all of these amazing things about the island thinking it would bode him well for when he was part of the team running New York. Anyway with sixty minutes to go sitting in my apartment in Ibiza I was assuring him that this wasn’t how I normally do things. I had the insurance to pay, all sorts of debtors on my case…it was horrible. He picked up the phone and called Antonio and literally begged him for some money, telling him that if he didn’t help there would be no Sankeys New York. Like an absolute angel he transferred some money there and then and became part of Sankeys forever. No contracts, no questions asked…he simply sent over the money that allowed us to open the doors again. I call that night The Night Of Truth, never forget it for as long as I live.”
New York is undoubtedly one of the greatest clubbing cities the world has ever seen. Where does your history of the city’s dancefloors begin…?
“I first went there in February 2002. I’d obviously heard about places like Sound Factory, Paradise Garage and Tunnel and wanted to see it first hand. The first party I went to was Danny Tenaglia’s ‘Be Yourself’ at Vinyl, and it blew me away. I went to see Tenaglia many times at Pacha NYC and some cool Brooklyn warehouse parties with Shadee James (legendary local New York figure) and basically I caught the NYC bug.”
One of the things you must be very excited about is bringing over all of the new Sankeys artists that have been wowing the white isle this summer to New York for the first time? Which artists in particular are you drooling about taking over?
“We are in the middle of sorting work permits out for loads of people, but I am so excited about teaming up with my residents such as Steve Lawler, Darius Syrossian and Enzo Siragusa. Also the legendary Tribal Sessions will finally return and debut at Sankeys NYC as I feel the time is right to bring the night out of retirement as I can be fully creative again. Are you Tribal ?”.
New York has some great clubs at the moment, Cielo and Pacha are doing okay. But nothing is doing AMAZING, nowhere is setting the world alight right now. How big an opportunity is this for Sankeys?
“I think people will be amazed, I truly do. Dance music has obviously exploded over there and we are coming in at the right time. I feel if we had opened 3 years ago we wouldn’t have made the same impression as we are doing right now. The New York press are all over us and the hype is crazy, we have amassed nearly 20,000 fans on Facebook in a matter of weeks…we must be doing something right. It is really funny reading all the press as they really know so much about Sankeys and refer to us as this legendary institution from England which makes me feel proud”.
One thing I wanted to touch on is some of the legendary DJs of America currently being left in the wilderness by their home country…
“Dan you have read my mind. Sure I am excited about bringing over ‘never seen before talent’, but we are also delighted to be working with the legends. People like Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, Derrick Carter, Chez Damier & Sneak – these guys do not get the respect they deserve and it is so important that we link up these icons with the new guys, the same way DC10 used Kerri Chandler with all of their younger European DJs – bridging the gap between the classics and the next generation of superstars. House music has had a huge resurgence of late and we love that as Sankeys is and will always be a House music club. Its funny as it feels Sankeys is returning to its musical home, as it has always being a New York musical inspired basement nightclub, with a futuristic global twist”.
Let’s talk about Sankeys Ibiza, was this the summer you finally proved the doubters wrong, is the club firmly on the island map now?
“Yes, in a word! We showed we can run a club with a seven day programme all in-house putting on 120 events over the summer. We have had over 150,000 people through the doors which means our attendance is up over 120% from last year. More importantly though is that the quality of the nights and the atmosphere was unparalleled on the island – this summer was one of the best things I have ever done. Ask any of the 150,000 clubbers what they thought of the club this year, my aim was to make it one of the best club’s in the world and the people who came this year will have seen that. The dancefloor never lies.”
I interviewed Claude von Stroke during the summer. Let’s just say he was finding it difficult to understand just what a different kettle of fish running a night in Ibiza was compared to San Francisco. He had a few problems along the way…
“When I sat down with him at the end of the summer and explained the whole ‘running of a club in Ibiza’ thing, he got it. People don’t realize just how difficult and draining running a night in Ibiza is, it is totally different to anywhere else in the world. When a new night begins in Ibiza it can either go bust in year one and will never be seen again, or come back in year two when everyone will then realize they have a player on their hands. Sometimes you have to take the slow approach with nights on the island, you can’t always expect fireworks straight away. Sure Claude had some problems which were out of his control such as the power going when Eats Everything & Fatboy Slim was playing to their best attended crowd of summer in August, but that wasn’t our fault. The whole block where our club was affected – this is a small island we are talking about and sometimes it can’t take all that power in high season! It obviously hit the following week as people were going round saying ‘oh did you hear about dirtybird last week, it’s fucked’…but the night bounced back two weeks later and was still getting over a thousand through the doors and the closing party was ridiculous. You have to take it on the chin in Ibiza sometimes, come back fighting and get the momentum up and running again. Look at us in year one, we were averaging 450 people a night! I hope Claude and dirtybird come back next year, we’d love him back at the club.”
Okay let’s look back at the summer, give us a few words on how you think some of your other weekly nights did…
Carnival – which cities/brands worked for the night?
“The Junk boys from Southampton put on some great parties, Be As One was really good as was the Skreamism party with Bugged Out and the D-edge parties. Again, the night did well.”
Viva Warriors – best night at Sankeys?
“Without doubt. 2000 people every week going mental, the busiest night at Sankeys this year. Steve and Darius stole the show.”
Flying Circus?
“It had some special moments, another very consistent night that can be built on”.
Fuse – heard some great things about this night…
“Yeah it went really well. The music was just incredible and Enzo just donned it alongside Seb Zito, Rossko and of course tINI. The unexpected appearance from Loco Dice was also magical.”
Hypercolour – heard they had a hard season?
“They did but it wasn’t Hypercolour’s fault. The external promoter we brought on board just didn’t deliver, he didn’t put his hand in his pocket to promote the night and that’s why they had an indifferent summer, but the Maya Jane Coles show was incredible. The night is only as good as the promoter at the end of the day and the guy was an idiot and we will not be working with him again…”
Looking back at Ibiza 2013, what are your thoughts on the season. It was a season where every club seemed to be happy with their numbers but nowhere ran away with it…
“I don’t know about running away with it, but we were 120% up on last year, I think we had the best growth out of any of the clubs this season ! Does that not classify as running away with it? I cannot comment on the rest of the island to be fair, I know Amnesia did as well as ever, maybe slightly higher – and Marco Carola and Music On is without doubt my favourite night on the island. Ushuaia went up and DC10 had a great season as well. The problem you have is that with so much content spread out so much, no one is going to streak away. The main problem is artists spreading themselves too thin by doing two residencies at the same time, it does not work. You just have to look at some of the big names that have suffered this year. It has to be addressed in 2014, I do know one thing though, we won’t be doing it next year. It just dilutes the whole thing. We want everything to be special to Sankeys and we have the reputation now to ask this from our main artistes”.
I know you are a man who never says never, but will the city of Manchester ever see Sankeys lighting up the city again, or are you happy to draw one big fat line under that particular location?
“Listen Dan, re-read my interview with you from before the summer. I have never said Sankeys Manchester will be shut forever, I always said it was closed indefinately and I meant indefinately. I keep reading about all of these quotes on various social media saying ‘oh we went to the closing of Sankeys and they are milking it by opening London, what the fuck?’. Or they went to the closing and are not happy about the club opening again. People are obviously miffed about these rumours and are protective about it which is great. I love Sankeys Manchester and do want it to re-open as it is the spiritual heart of Sankeys, but I shut it down as I could not own two clubs and it was stressing me out, nor was my future in Manchester anymore. I do love the city and gave it 13 years of my life but what do people want me to do, serve the rest of my life so they can go clubbing in Manchester? When the time is right and the right people approach me to run our beloved Sankeys in the way its heritage deserves then I will let them reopen Manchester, I could open it tomorrow in the right circumstances!! It is time for me to pass the Manchester baton on to someone else now up there on a franchise basis, I want to try different things, experience new cities and live my life how I want it. I won The Best Club In The World award and was recognised by a national museum for creating culture to the City of Manchester. I have done Manchester. Now it’s time to move on…”
And finally Mr Vincent, more rumours! What can you tell us about the Sankeys 20th Anniversary that is taking place in 2014…?
“Really exciting year for the club next year, 20 dates in 20 cities hopefully culminating in a 20,000 capacity festival. Watch this space.”