How to Make the Most of the International Music Summit

Staying up for 24 hours in Ibiza is hardly an achievement. In fact, for a lot of people who visit the mythical white island, it can become the norm, if not the bare minimum amount of time they'll be getting stuck in to all the island has to offer; the super clubs, the underground spots, the world class DJs, the sun, the sea, the substances, the VIP and bottle service, the after-parties, the villas or the wonderful natural environment, the hippy markets, Pikes, Es Vedra… whatever it is, there's a lot to see and do, which gives us every excuse to get carried away and stay up way beyond the limits of the regular human sleep cycle.

The thing is, staying up 'naturally', i.e. simply cracking on from a club, to a villa, to another villa, to a beach, to a fica, to Salinas to a mate's apartment, to Fish Shack and to bed, never really feels that bad, because it's usually unplanned.

For this trip, however, I'd had to plan things. As soon as I arrived I started clock watching, worrying about how interesting I was being, or not being, at one of the world's largest electronic music conferences: the International Music Summit.

8am: A rough start to the day and I didn't even have the excuse of a wild one in Sankeys to blame it on. I'd missed my flight and as a result my journey to Ibiza took around 16 hours. I've got no cool reason as to why I ended up nearly giving myself an aneurysm on the Heathrow Express. It happened because I was listening to J-Zone's album A Job Ain't Nuthin' But Work. Yes, I am a dickhead.

So the knock-on effect of my inability to close the laptop and leave the house in good time to catch a flight to Ibiza was that I not only had to take three different flights — taking in a quick stop off in Madrid where I buddied up with a couple of Polish lesbians before pinging off to Valencia with them for a night — to get to my final destination, but I also had to deal with being struck off the passenger list on the way home. I repeat, dickhead.

Finally, I made it to Ibiza. I checked in and had the tiniest of sleeps. It didn't really help me.

10am: Breakfast was a three plate affair that gave me the necessary sustenance for a packed day — and a grease-sodden belly. Full and ready, I made my way to the Hard Rock Hotel in Playa D'en Bossa, the conference's home.

There's a press desk, stalls lining the entrance, the big conference room — where the panels and keynote speeches happen — and beyond that are several communal areas where the industry's mover and shakers shoot the shit, cut deals or hole themselves up recovering from the previous night's excesses. Last year Robin Thicke popped up at the hotel for a brief performance, which was quite a big deal.

12.15pm: My first port of call was a panel entitled 'Market Focus: South Africa', which featured one of the nation's dance music superstars, Black Coffee, among others. Also appearing was Valentino Barrioseta, who I wrote about for THUMP a little while back. Though I was already physically drained, it captivated me and got me thinking a lot about the ins and outs of South Africa's electronic music industry. I walked out of the conference room wondering where the support for young, disenfranchised people would be coming from. Bridges For Music certainly offers a lot of guidance to young people from South Africa's townships, which is great and should be replicated across the whole country and beyond, to the rest of the continent.

13.05pm: Straight up after the South Africa talk is one called 'The Truth About Brands & Music'. To some of you reading you may be thinking that my 24 hours at IMS ended with this panel after it sent me into a coma.

You'd be mistaken. Club culture's recent evolution has created a massive new market for brands to target and it's how they target the market that's important. As cynical as that seems. A very open and honest Greg Burnell from Stack House management, who look after Rudimental, was definitely the highlight. Always pleasant to see someone on stage who's not afraid to talk money and figures, how deals work and so on, fair play to him.

I fight off pangs for an early energy drink and instead wile away my time between panels catching up with industry friends and bemoaning to cloudy weather, which may have been the work of a shaman. Yep, according to one friend who'd been at a peyote ceremony during the weekend preceding IMS, the shaman there was asked to sort out the ridiculously hot weather that had been blazing down on the island over the past few weeks, so he did a rain dance. Nice one!

3.15pm: Another panel; this time with the crew behind Damian Lazarus And The Ancient Moons — the Crosstown Rebel bossman's new band set up. The room is full as Damian and his support network of old friends and comrades are questioned by moderator Craig McLean, who does a fantastic job of probing the team members and procuring honest responses from them all. There are laughs, and a hell of a lot of insight during the panel and a lot of people raise their hands to ask questions afterwards, which is always preferably to awkward silence.

4.30pm: I'm hungry and starting to flag a little. Ideally I would've taken a good run at this 24-hour sesh with a proper night's sleep behind me. Ah well. Lunch with friends is the next step in my day. During the meal I regret binning off the energy drink. I'm too tired to engage in conversation, so just end up sat there listening to everyone else chatting and cracking jokes. Eight hours in, this is not good – I'm feeling like another nap is needed, but I refuse to allow that thought to stick in my head and smash down my escalope and chips, ready for an early rave at Mixmag's party.

5.30pm: My Spanish buddies UNER and Technasia go back-to-back for Mixmag, who've sadly had to relocate their party from poolside to the inside of the hotel because of the crappy weather, which, typically, clears up just after the party starts indoors. Cheers peyote shaman!. Even though it's not outside next to a pool, the Spaniards definitely get a vibe going and Kenny Dope follows up with a great set too.

It's around this point where the boozing really begins and I make an executive decision to neck a few beers and get myself into party mode. It's not long before I'm wobbling out of the Hard Rock and into a small crowd that has gathered around a bus that's branded by a guitar company, where a young man is crooning his little lungs out in remarkable style. He's good so I stick around to the end. I'm glad I do as none other than Arthur Baker happens to be passing by as I'm hanging around, so I grab him for an opportune photo. Yes!

8pm: After a quick change of clothes I'm off to the Old Town to check out the party at Dalt Vila. This year I was most keen to catch Damian Lazarus And The Ancient Moons, having heard the album some time ago but not yet actually witnessed them in action. I've bumped into some buddies on the way and we arrive midway into their performance, and it's pretty fucking cool — all world music vibes mixed with a bit of house, ornate cosmic costumes and Damian playing high priest/wizard. As expected, and very entertaining.

We congregate in the 'garden' area at the bottom of some steps below the stage area, where it seems most of IMS's delegates are also in attendance. From app developers to PRs, agents and managers, this is where it's at.

Dalt Vila is also where the night starts to descend into naughtiness, and things soon start to become a bit of a blur. One drink leads to another, and another and, before we know it, we're all vacating the garden to beat the crowds and grab a taxi from the Old Town to Ushuaia, where Becky Tong's Juicebox event is taking place. While in the queue I bump into some friends from anti-piracy technology company Audiolock, who tell us that, amusingly, while IMS is going on in Ibiza, elsewhere in the world the International Microwave Symposium is also happening, which has caused a mix up between IMS2015 hashtags on Twitter. We also discover that one of their topics is 'Women In Microwaves'— ping!

1am: By the time we hit the Juicebox party, Bristol boys Icarus are doing their thing. They're still pretty new to me and impress with their DJ set, which is perfectly suited to the small, vibey room we're all now occupying. Ah yeah, I forgot to mention that the party is in a room just past Ushuaia's foyer, not on that big, mental stage that the hotel is known for. In fairness, I think it's better to have our intimate soiree in that room rather than out on the big stage, it gives us messy heads all a chance to get to know each other better. Out in the smoking area there's a larger crowd chuffing their lives away than there is inside the bloody venue, which is par for the course.

I get locked into a really interesting conversation with Erick Morillo's ex tour manager before I realise I've actually become one of the 'outside people' I'd been lamenting just a few minutes before. I quickly have a word with myself before heading back in for more good vibes. This time it's Eli & Fur who are keeping the atmosphere buoyant in-siiiide the little room. This is the point in the adventure when time really starts to fly and becomes way less of a concern than it was, say, six hours earlier, when I was having a slight panic about whether I was actually going to make it through with some good stories to tell.

5am: We gather up a crew of new faces and make our way to Sankeys, a home from home for a lot of the UK ravers who head over to Ibiza. We get there just as the guestlist is closing and rush straight to the bar. The legendary Matt Jam Lamont is on the wheels of steel and he's doing it big style, old school house joints thrown in with a few contemporary cuts. Everyone is on that uninhibited tip by this time of the day (it's day again!) and all of our crew are bouncing around the dance floor, meandering around, chatting shit, dancing like idiots and generally having an absolute ball.

That's what Ibiza is sometimes: a hazy, loose feeling you get when you've overindulged yet refuse to go home to bed. You'll awake feeling awful but confident that you had an amazing time, but one which you don't really fully recall until you've caught up with everyone else who was there at the time and pieced it all together. Among our merry bunch of miscreants are a couple of guys from Damian's Ancient Moons, one of whom is still wearing the shamanic gear he was sporting on stage.

I'm not sure what time Sankeys closed, I have a feeling it was 7, though I could be mistaken… at some point the music stops and we leave anyway. Most of the team disperse…

7am (estimated): When we get on to the main road, we spot a couple of friends having a morning drink. So, of course, we join and power through the 24-hour mark – lots of gossip, jokes, drink and an impromptu game of Articulate, which is a hell of a lot of fun to play at 9am when your brain is in that sleep deprived, yet highly creative state… it's something to do with the theta waves apparently. One of the Ancient Moons throws up in the gutter, bless him. The sun is out, but my jacket hasn't been taken off since we first left Ushuaia over five hours ago, I'm mangled but hanging in there and, most of all, determined to go beyond 24 hours (which I already have, but my will to keep pushing the envelope further means I'm still pressing on). The Ancient Moons leave and it's the beginning of the end.

11am: We finally call it a day after one of the four remaining members left decides to head off and get a taxi back to his hotel. The wobbly walk back to the apartment isn't far and, as the sun beats down on my happy face, I feel a sense of triumph. My bed is calling, I made it further than 24 hours and I've had an absolute blast in Ibiza, once again. Three hours later I'm scraping myself out of bed to dash back to the conference for the another panel, and it starts all over again…

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