Hacienda Nights

During the 1980s there were plenty of venues that became iconic and none more than the Hacienda Club in Manchester.

It became the place to be during the Madchester years where the introduction of Acid House tunes from Ibiza and the whole rave scene exploded like a movement and the Hacienda was the place to be.

The club opened for business in 1982 and was owned by Factory Records and the group New Order after being sparked into action by Rob Gretton who was the manager of Joy division and New Order. The club was given it's own Factory Records number FAC51 and the idea was to have a all in one entertainment venue with live music, bars, cafe's and DJ booth.

The club slowly started to gather momentum and featured many live bands such as Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Smiths and the club also saw Madonna make her first TV appearance on The Tube where she performed Holiday at the club for TV live.

However, it wasn't till the introduction of the House music nights that the club was put on the map. Mike Pickering (later to be with M People) and Little Martin hosted Nude nights and the venue started to fill up quickly and turned the club into a operating profit. Coupled with the Madchester growth the Ibiza Hot nights were proving successful hosted again by Mike Pickering and his Co DJ Jon Da Silva.

However, the rave scene was seeing the introduction of drugs and one incident had an impact on the club when a 16 year old girl died after taking ecstacy, following a clampdown by the Police and authorities the club did close for a while until security was much more rigorous. This was to be a thorn in the club side and many issues mainly with guns inside and outside was a constant problem.

The club closed in 1997 mainly due to financial issues. The club struggled to break even as alcohol sales were so low due to the high drug taking. It was estimated by Peter Hook from New Order that it lost £18 million. The club was bought by Crosby Homes and was eventually knocked down and converted into flats. The club was a success in terms of numbers but perhaps not run by natural businessmen as Peter Hook alluded to in his book.