The Motel
About The Book
The Motel is a love letter to a lost paradise: Ibiza in the 1990s. It's a celebration of all those people from around the world who came to a small Mediterranean island and became part of the swashbuckling adventure that was Manumission.
In 1998, with Manumission going into its fifth year, Mike and Claire borrowed a large amount of money from an armed German cocaine dealer and against all odds took over an abandoned brothel on the outskirts of Ibiza town and turned it into a 24-hour party destination – the most notorious venue of the decade – The Motel.
This is the story of the Motel but it’s also the story of Manumission. Over its fourteen-year history, over 1.5 million people attended the club, it was the biggest weekly party in the world earning it a place in the Guinness World Records. On the dancefloor young ravers rubbed shoulders with supermodels, rock stars, fashion designers, drug dealers, and the sporting elite – sharing a universal feeling of ecstasy – with zero violence – everyone partying in complete harmony.
With much of club culture currently under the spell of VIP service, corporate sponsoring and branding, The Motel is a timely reminder that life wasn't always that way.
The cover image of Claire at the Motel is by kind permission of the photographer Franck Sauvaire.
You literally did not know what sort of a day you were going to wake up into. Or if you were going to wake up. Or even go to bed at all, ever again.
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