The Ibiza Bible: The Story of the Island’s Original Party Guide

Some things about Ibiza never make it onto Instagram. One of them fits in your back pocket: a small, free booklet that beach PRs, hotel receptionists and ticket sellers across the island have been using as their working manual every summer since 2008. Ask an island veteran what it is and they’ll tell you without looking up — the Ibiza Bible.

We’re proud that GXC is featured in the current edition — you can see it (and the office copies we keep handing to guests) on our About page. But the guide itself has a story most visitors have never heard, and it starts a long way from the White Isle: in Munich, in 1994, with a photocopied fanzine and a generation discovering techno.

From a Munich Fanzine to the Mediterranean

Before smartphones, if you wanted to know where the party was, you needed paper. In May 1994 a group of friends in Munich started Partysan — widely considered Germany’s first techno and house fanzine. The idea was almost absurdly simple: collect the club flyers and event listings for the month, shrink them into a pocket-sized A6 booklet, and give it away for free in clubs and record shops.

It worked. Partysan grew into a network of regional editions — at its peak, over a dozen editions across ten countries, hundreds of thousands of copies in circulation — and became famous in the scene for stunts like Rave & Cruise, a two-week rave on a Mediterranean cruise ship, and Rave On Snow in the Alps. It was the club culture of the 90s, printed and stapled.

In June 2008, Partysan finally arrived where a party guide arguably belongs more than anywhere else on earth: Ibiza.

The Woman Behind the Bible

The Ibiza edition wasn’t launched by a media corporation. It was built by Friederike “Rica” Diestel, a German journalist who first came to the island in 2001 at 21 years old, doing what thousands of island workers still do every summer — waiting tables at a beach restaurant, handing out flyers, working club seasons — while studying political science back home.

By 2008 she had moved to Ibiza for good and founded the local Partysan edition; in 2010 she set up her own Ibiza-based publishing agency, which produces the guide to this day. Nearly two decades on, the Bible is still made on the island, by people who live here — which is exactly why it reads differently from the countless listicles written from a desk in London.

Three Names, One Guide

Long-time visitors might remember the booklet under different covers. The lineage goes like this:

That last line matters. The modern Bible still has the party calendar at its spine, but it grew up the way its readers did — today’s edition covers beaches and sunset spots with GPS coordinates, iconic bars and restaurants, an island map, etiquette do’s and don’ts, and the helpful numbers you hope you’ll never need at 6am.

What’s Actually Inside

A typical edition packs the whole season into roughly a hundred pocket pages:

• The party calendar — the weekly residency grid for every major club: Pacha, Hï, Amnesia, UNVRS, DC-10, Eden and the rest, night by night. Still the fastest way to answer “who’s playing where on a Tuesday?”
• Club profiles — capacities, locations, and what each room is actually like, from 5,000-capacity superclubs down to legendary shoebox venues.
• Cover stories and interviews — over the years the covers have featured names like Guy Gerber, Pan-Pot and Robin Schulz, alongside interviews with the likes of Richie Hawtin, Loco Dice, Luciano and Jeff Mills.
• The island beyond the dancefloor — beaches, sunset spots, restaurants, and survival advice for first-timers (including our favourite printed commandment: don’t be rude to Spanish people who don’t speak fluent English — learn a few Spanish words instead).

Why a Print Guide Still Wins in 2026

It sounds like a paradox: the most Instagrammed island in Europe, and one of its most trusted nightlife sources is a paper booklet. But the Bible survives for the same reason it was born — it’s a working tool, not content.

Around 20,000 copies are printed each season and distributed through roughly a hundred points across the island — hotel receptions, rent-a-car stations, the port and the airport, ticket points, bars and restaurants — plus hand-to-hand through some 250 promoters and beach PRs, concentrated where the island actually parties: Playa d’en Bossa, San Antonio and Ibiza Town. Your phone dies, the WiFi drops, the algorithm shows you last week’s party — the booklet in your pocket just keeps working. That’s why the people who sell the night — PRs, receptionists, ticket sellers — are its heaviest users.

There’s also a quieter reason: trust. An independent guide that has had to be accurate every summer since 2008, printed before the season starts, can’t chase clicks or quietly rewrite itself. What’s on the page is what the editors stood behind in May.

GXC × The Ibiza Bible

For us, being featured in the Ibiza Bible means more than a logo placement. GXC has been operating on the island for over 15 seasons, working with 50+ venues, and our team lives the same season the Bible documents — from the June openings to the October closings. Appearing in the island’s original party guide, the one the workers themselves use, is the kind of recognition you can’t buy with a media budget.

If you’re planning your trip, the combination is simple: grab a copy of the Bible when you land (or download the current edition free at ibiza-bible.com), use it to map your week — then let us handle the nights themselves. Our party calendar tracks what’s on across the island in real time, and our experiences — from the Rigatoni Dinner Show to Tantra open bar nights and boat parties — come with real tickets, real prices and a licensed local team behind them.

One small note so you find the right one: the pocket guide lives at ibiza-bible.com. There’s also a UK-based online community with a similar name — great at what they do, but a different thing entirely. The original booklet is the one in the pockets of the people working the island.

The Whole Island in Your Pocket

Eighteen years, three names, one idea that refuses to die: put the island’s nights on paper and hand them to people for free. In an era where every travel tip is a sponsored post, there’s something almost radical about that.

So when you land this summer, do the old-school thing. Pick up the Bible, fold the corner on the nights you can’t miss, and when you’re ready to turn the plan into tickets — we’ve got you.