Written by Mark Playle

Family is important and family doesn’t necessarily mean a blood relation. For the last few years when posting pictures and posts on the socials I have been referring to not only my blood family whom I love deeply but also my Ibiza family who I love very much and who have been drawn to me in many beautiful shapes, sizes and forms.

The excitement started to build as the loose bones of a plan finally started to appear once the Uneek boys knew they were attending this years Sónar Barcelona music festival for the 3rd consecutive year.

Sónar Barcelona is many things to many people and indeed the beautiful city of Barcelona as a back drop adds a fabulous stage set to proceedings. When we attended last year, there was one related event that was a defining moment – the Elrow Barcelona party, one of our most favourite events. So impressed with Elrow Barcelona as an event and a moment in time we did, with much deliberation choose the Elrow Barcelona party as our number one event attended in 2017.

We had originally stumbled upon Elrow when Andrew attended the Privilege Ibiza opening party in 2013 and Elrow hosted the Vista room and have seen its mammoth growth before our very eyes at their events in Ibiza, the UK, and of course, their Barcelona home over the last few years, to become the biggest party in Europe.

Elrow however is much more than a party in the current moment, have a look at this little movie below that reveals all.


Anyway if I hit the rewind button for a moment as we headed to Barcelona aboard the orange Easyjet flyer I noticed on the back of the seat in front an advert for a well known car hire company and with sober Sónar in mind when we touched down we made a b line to get some wheels. The lovely lady in charge of the hire car queue presented us with our first golden ticket of the day a bit of paper with 007 printed on it and then the keys to a bright red Fiats Abarth 595 was passed across the counter.

As we hit the play button on the stereo and we roared up the road to our first port of call being Elrow HQ at Elrow House with a personal invite to a family BBQ – the Elrow family BBQ.

As we pulled up outside the offices of the Elrow family, which is a magnificent villa in the leafy suburbs of Barcelona, we then parked in the quiet little side road adjacent to this magnificent address and walked in the entrance way, the vibe was amazing and we immediately felt the love as truly we were made to feel part of the Elrow family. It’s difficult to explain just how we felt in words so here’s a video on youtube explaining how the new Elrow family offices came about.

Family then. We wandered into Elrow House and immediately bumped into Juan Arnau. Wow, what a reception, he was so charismatic and friendly and made us feel at home, part of the family indeed.

Check out our own tour of Elrow House here;

Casting our minds back to IMS 2017 this talk at the conference hammers home the Uneek party philosophy of Elrow and the Arnau family.

So did you enjoy the party ? Yes the Elrow family BBQ was amazing and when we left we felt an enormous sense of well-being.

It seemed quite fitting then that spending 4 days in Barcelona should end with us heading to the airport in the little red pocket rocket Ibiza bound with a pit stop at … Elrow Barcelona.

For those of you who don’t know please note the first Elrow party’s started in Barcelona and the Elrow Barcelona party is permanently situated just 10 mins from the airport. It is taxi friendly but be aware such a popular party can take a little longer to enter and exit so do allow time, we don’t want anymore missed flights! Also note that the best western Alfa aeropuerto Hotel is a great place to stay with ample parking and the main bus stop outside to take into town plus bicycles and close to El Prat beach, a top top spot.

https://www.bestwestern.co.uk/hotels/best-western-plus-hotel-alfa-aeropuerto-92112

We rocked up at Elrow Barcelona mid afternoon as the party was in full swing. The sweet mixes of Patrick Topping (surprise guest DJ) filled the air and the mood was absolutely buzzing.

https://twitter.com/uneekibiza/status/1008383149473259520

The confetti cannons blasted the whole stage production and the music rocked as the numerous dressed up crazy characters bounded and bounced around the venue, the scene only to be likened to Disney land on acid.

https://twitter.com/uneekibiza/status/1008390902996488193

https://twitter.com/uneekibiza/status/1008391341112479744

Later on Kölsch took over the decks on the main terrace and pretty much this incredible spectacle that is Elrow put the icing on the cake as we boarded our flight onward to Ibiza.

We were left with such an incredible buzz we did not want the party to end and on arrival in ibiza we grabbed another motor headed for the next hotel and before you could say I’ll have 2 sugars with that we hit Pikes Hotel for a record launch and then finally on to Pacha to see Solomon.

Waking up in time for breakfast we did have to pinch ourselves and say did that really happen …

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