Get To Know General Admission Entertainment

Reinventing UniBar, driving the Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival and hanging out backstage at Coachella – Gareth Lewis and Aaron Sandow’s careers have never been less than exciting…

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According to Gareth Lewis, he and his business partner Aaron Sandow got their start in the music industry by accident.

It was 2007. Gareth ran the now-defunct Marble Bar on Waymouth Street and he wanted to host some of Parklife Festival’s headline acts in the car lot across from the venue. Instead, the event organisers, Fuzzy Entertainment, took a punt on the pair and asked the mid-twenties mates to have a go at running one of Australia’s biggest dance music festivals.

“[It was] a total fluke,” says Gareth. “I wanted to get into festivals because I liked going to them and it was a good way of getting free tickets!”

For the two Commerce degree dropouts, diving head-first into the festival industry paid off, or as Gareth has it, “It sort of snowballed…” Today, they are the brains behind General Admission Entertainment, co-founders of Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival and co-owners of UniBar Adelaide. In addition, Gareth is a Program Manager at MusicSA, while Aaron freelances as an event and site manager for major touring shows like Ed Sheeran and U2.

The first five years of General Admission Entertainment saw the company become SA’s go-to festival organiser. They ran the SA leg of hardcore, metal and rock festival, Soundwave, from 2008 to 2015, hosting heavyweight acts like Green Day, the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails. The 2013 line-up of the event, featuring Metallica, Paramore, Linkin Park and Blink-182, saw more than 45,000 punters flock to Bonython Park.

Despite being green in the festival world, the pair saw rapid success. “I have a [bank statement] in my office from the first time we turned over a million bucks on a bar,” Gareth says. “For 24 hours, we were millionaires. It was a total whirlwind.”

In between events, the pair would fly to interstate shows and overseas festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza, learning the industry ropes by being amongst the action. “You don’t watch much music when you’re working festivals,” Gareth says. “Apart from work, a highlight [would] be being backstage at Coachella, drinking Jack White’s rider while he was on stage.”

But the pair also witnessed the rise and fall of Australia’s biggest touring festivals like Big Day Out, Parklife and Soundwave. “You have to evolve with the industry,” says Aaron, “knowing a lot of these [events] have a somewhat limited shelf life. It could all dry up at some point.”

In part, this inspired the duo and Marc Huber (of Mismatch Brewing) to launch the Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival in 2015. In seven years, it’s quickly become one of the most anticipated music, food and booze events in Adelaide’s calendar.

This year’s programming includes five stages, an extensive barbeque contingent, more than 50 musicians (including Dune Rats and The Living End), hundreds of brewers and a special collaboration with Ukrainian brewery, 2085 Brewery.

In 2019, the pair pivoted again and re-opened UniBar Adelaide with the goal to re-establish the bar as a legacy venue. “I spent too much time in the UniBar to finish my degree,” Gareth says. “We both wanted to get into the live venue space. I was keen to get into the booking space. It was a good opportunity.”

In spite of their timing, the due came out relatively unscathed from the pandemic. Gareth says the venue booked more shows than any other place in South Australia, re-opening after the initial lockdown in late July. It also helped them host many first-time gigs for up- and-coming bands. A particular favourite is The 745, a mid-coast surf-rock quartet who often play a song about getting kicked out of the UniBar for underage drinking.

“I’m proud it’s the first experience for lots of people,” says Gareth. “You know, 17 or 18-year-old kids probably see their first show at UniBar – I know I did. I think we fill a pretty vital role.”

“The grassroots level is how you build an industry,” Aaron adds. “The talent coming through [Adelaide] is incredible. There’s a real camaraderie in our scene because we’re all tighting the good fight. We all move together.”

Keep up to date with everything going on at General Admission Entertainment here.

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