For many years, Sunday in Ibiza did not mean the end of the weekend.

It meant another party.

And at the centre of that Sunday tradition was We Love... at Space.

The party became one of the defining institutions of Ibiza's clubbing culture, famous for marathon sessions, adventurous bookings and a musical policy that refused to stay inside one genre.

It was not simply another night at a famous club.

We Love... helped turn Sunday into one of the most important days of the Ibiza week.

It started with Home

The history of We Love... is slightly more complicated than its name suggests.

The party's roots go back to Home, a project associated with British promoter Darren Hughes.

Hughes was already an important figure in British club culture through Cream, the Liverpool night he co-founded with James Barton in 1992. By the late 1990s, he was looking for a new direction.

Home became the precursor to what would eventually become We Love... at Space. DJ Mag describes 1999 as the year We Love... was born, while other accounts trace the Sunday concept through the earlier Home period.

That distinction is important.

The party's story did not suddenly appear from nowhere in 1999.

It evolved.

Why Space was the perfect home

By the late 1990s, Space had already developed a reputation for doing things differently.

The Playa d'en Bossa club had become famous for its Sunday sessions and its unusual relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces.

The Terrace, in particular, had developed a distinctive identity.

DJs could play while planes passed overhead on their way to Ibiza Airport.

The club's atmosphere was unlike a conventional nightclub.

Space was already a destination for DJs and serious clubbers.

We Love... arrived at exactly the right moment.

The 22-hour Sunday

One of the most extraordinary things about the party was its length.

Space and the We Love team developed marathon Sunday sessions that could run from Sunday morning into Monday morning.

Space's own history states that the 22-hour sessions were developed in collaboration between Darren Hughes, Danny Whittle and the club, running from 8am Sunday until 6am Monday.

That was an extraordinary proposition.

You could arrive in the morning.

You could stay through the afternoon.

You could watch the club change as daylight disappeared.

And, if you had the energy, you could still be there in the early hours of Monday.

The traditional idea of a nightclub had been stretched almost beyond recognition.

A Sunday became a festival

The secret was not simply making the party longer.

It was making the long day feel worthwhile.

We Love... operated almost like a miniature festival.

Different rooms offered different sounds.

Different DJs appeared throughout the day.

People could move around rather than spending the entire session in one room.

Space's history describes the Sunday programme as a combination of different DJs and styles, allowing people to choose between rooms and different moments of the day.

That format feels familiar today.

At the time, it was much more unusual.

The music was deliberately broad

One of the defining characteristics of We Love... was its refusal to become too predictable.

When the party started in 1998, according to DJ Mag's 2008 anniversary interview, major names such as Sasha, Steve Lawler and John Digweed represented the house and progressive sounds of the late 1990s.

A decade later, the programme had expanded dramatically.

Mark Broadbent, who programmed the party with his wife Sarah, described a programme that could include artists from the Ed Banger scene alongside Felix Da Housecat, James Zabiela and Steve Lawler.

That variety became part of the identity.

We Love... was not about delivering exactly the same sound every Sunday.

It was about discovering what might happen next.

Mark and Sarah Broadbent

Darren Hughes was central to the creation of the party, but Mark and Sarah Broadbent became equally important to its identity.

They joined Hughes in Ibiza after years of involvement with the British club scene.

Mark had originally worked outside nightlife before becoming involved in clubs, eventually working alongside Sarah on Ibiza events.

DJ Mag described the couple as the people who programmed the We Love parties at Space for many years.

Their influence was significant.

The party became known for its eclectic programming and willingness to book artists who did not necessarily fit a conventional Ibiza formula.

That helped keep We Love... interesting even as the island's club scene became increasingly commercial.

Booking the unexpected

This may have been the party's greatest strength.

We Love... could put major dance DJs alongside artists who were not obvious choices for an Ibiza superclub.

DJ Mag's account of the Broadbents' 14-year involvement mentions bookings including Grace Jones and Aphex Twin, alongside more conventional electronic acts.

Those bookings said something about the philosophy of the party.

The audience was not being told what Ibiza club music was supposed to sound like.

They were being given an opportunity to hear different things.

That could mean house.

Progressive music.

Techno.

Electro.

Live music.

Experimental sounds.

And sometimes artists who seemed to belong to an entirely different musical world.

The Terrace became part of the mythology

It is impossible to talk about We Love... without talking about the Space Terrace.

The Terrace had already become one of the most distinctive spaces in clubland before We Love... arrived.

But the Sunday party gave it an enormous platform.

Its open-air atmosphere became part of the experience.

During the years when daytime music was permitted, clubbers could experience the transformation from bright Ibiza afternoon into evening and then night without necessarily leaving the venue.

DJ Mag's history of Space notes that the club's open-air environment and low-flying aircraft became part of its unique appeal.

The setting was impossible to reproduce elsewhere.

That mattered.

The sound of a Sunday afternoon

There was something psychologically different about a Sunday party.

A Friday night starts with anticipation.

Saturday is usually the big night.

Sunday should, traditionally, be about slowing down.

We Love... turned that idea upside down.

The afternoon became the beginning.

People could arrive while the sun was still high.

They could spend hours moving between rooms.

The party gradually changed character as the day progressed.

And by the time the evening arrived, the people on the dance floor had already been partying for hours.

That created a different kind of crowd.

It helped make Sunday an Ibiza institution

Other parties existed on Sundays.

But We Love... became closely associated with the day.

Its longevity gave Sunday a special place in the Ibiza calendar.

DJ Mag's 2008 feature described the party as celebrating ten years of marathon partying and high-level dance music.

By then, We Love... was no longer simply a successful club night.

It was part of the island's identity.

The 1999 season

The 1999 season is particularly important.

Space's own history identifies 1999 as the moment the club developed its famous 22-hour Sunday sessions with Hughes and Danny Whittle.

DJ Mag also identifies 1999 as the year when We Love... emerged as Space's flagship party.

This was also a pivotal period for Ibiza more generally.

The island's clubs were becoming increasingly international.

Electronic music was spreading rapidly.

British club culture and Ibiza were deeply connected.

And the distinction between a club night and a large-scale musical event was beginning to disappear.

We Love... was perfectly positioned inside that transformation.

The DJs who passed through

Over the years, the party hosted an enormous range of artists.

Sasha.

John Digweed.

Steve Lawler.

Aphex Twin.

Grace Jones.

James Zabiela.

Felix Da Housecat.

And many more.

The point was not simply the size of the names.

It was the contrast between them.

One week could feel completely different from another.

Even within the same Sunday, the music could move through several different worlds.

That unpredictability became part of the attraction.

We Love... was about discovery

The best Ibiza parties have often worked because they offered something people could not completely predict.

We Love... understood this.

A clubber might arrive because they wanted to hear one particular DJ and end up spending hours in another room.

Someone could discover an artist they had never heard before.

A live performance could interrupt an otherwise DJ-focused programme.

A room could develop an atmosphere that had nothing to do with what was happening elsewhere in the building.

The party rewarded exploration.

More than a DJ line-up

That is why simply listing the DJs does not really explain We Love....

The party was a format.

It was a way of experiencing Space.

The length.

The rooms.

The changing music.

The outdoor environment.

The Sunday tradition.

The crowd.

The sense that you could arrive early and still have no idea when you were going to leave.

All of those elements worked together.

The people behind the party mattered

One of the interesting things about We Love... is how much its history is connected to promoters rather than just DJs.

Darren Hughes was already an experienced promoter before bringing the concept to Space.

Mark and Sarah Broadbent then became central to its programming.

Danny Whittle was also involved in the development of the extended Space Sunday format. Space itself credits Hughes, Whittle and the club with the creation of the 22-hour sessions.

That combination of promoter, programmer and venue was crucial.

A successful Ibiza residency is rarely just one person's creation.

It requires the right venue, the right crowd and the right musical vision.

The party kept changing

We Love... did not remain frozen in its original form.

That was part of why it lasted.

The music changed.

Ibiza changed.

Club laws changed.

The Space Terrace changed.

The audience changed.

The party changed with them.

Mark and Sarah Broadbent eventually left their programming roles after the 2013 season, bringing the end of a particularly important era. DJ Mag reported that their 14-year period included bookings ranging from experimental electronic artists to major live performers.

The end of We Love... at Space

After 17 years, the We Love... story at Space came to an end after the 2014 season.

Ibiza Spotlight described the 17-year run as one of the defining Sunday parties of the era and reported that the party would move on to its next chapter.

The move was significant.

For many people, We Love... and Space had become inseparable.

The party had helped define what Space Sundays meant.

Separating the two was therefore more than simply changing venues.

It marked the end of an era.

The party continued

We Love... did not disappear immediately.

The brand moved to Sankeys in 2015, continuing its story in a different environment.

But the Space years remained the period most closely associated with the party.

That is where its reputation had been built.

That is where its long Sundays became famous.

And that is where its programming helped influence Ibiza's wider club culture.

Why We Love... mattered

There were bigger parties.

There were more famous DJs.

There were clubs with larger capacities.

But We Love... mattered because it changed expectations.

A Sunday could be a serious clubbing day.

A party could last almost an entire day.

A superclub did not have to limit itself to one musical identity.

A DJ line-up could include the obvious names and the completely unexpected ones.

And a club could function almost like a festival without losing the intimacy of a weekly residency.

The blueprint for the modern Ibiza day party

Today, Ibiza is full of events that begin in the afternoon and continue late into the night.

Daytime parties are normal.

Multi-room programmes are normal.

Long-format events are normal.

Eclectic line-ups are normal.

We Love... was not responsible for every one of these developments, and it would be too simplistic to say that it invented them.

But its Sunday sessions became one of the clearest examples of how these ideas could work together on a huge scale.

The Sunday ritual

Perhaps the greatest legacy was simply the ritual.

Sunday morning.

Sunday afternoon.

Sunday sunset.

Sunday night.

Monday morning.

For thousands of clubbers, this became a completely normal way to experience Ibiza.

The traditional weekend calendar no longer mattered.

The island had its own timetable.

And We Love... helped write it.

Why people still talk about it

Ask longtime Ibiza clubbers about Space and the conversation often turns to Sundays.

They remember the Terrace.

The planes.

The marathon sessions.

The music.

The people.

The unexpected bookings.

The feeling of being inside a party that seemed to have no clear beginning or end.

Those memories explain something that statistics cannot.

A successful club night sells tickets.

A legendary club night becomes a memory people keep talking about decades later.

We Love... became the latter.

The legacy of We Love... Space Sundays

The most important thing about We Love... was not one particular DJ or one particular year.

It was the idea.

Take one of Ibiza's most important clubs.

Give it an unusually long Sunday.

Fill it with DJs and live artists who represent different sides of electronic and contemporary music.

Let the crowd move between rooms.

Allow the party to evolve throughout the day.

Then do it again the following Sunday.

For years, that formula worked.

And it helped turn Sunday from the quiet end of the weekend into one of the most anticipated days on the Ibiza clubbing calendar.

We Love... may no longer occupy the same place it once did.

Space itself has gone through its own transformations.

But the idea of the Ibiza Sunday remains.

Come early.

Stay late.

Follow the music.

And never assume the party is finished just because the sun has gone down.