As Adelaide live music hot spot Fat Controller passes into its third year of operation in 2018, we sit-down with General Manager Hugo Pedler.
Fat Controller opened in November of 2015 and has played host to countless concerts, DJ sets, club nights and festival after-parties.
Briefly describe what you do at Fat Controller?
[Hugo] As General Manager my role is split into two elements. Venue operations, which includes the night-time management of staff, security and artist liaison.
The other part of what I do is working in the backend of the business with accounts, stock control and working with the 5/4 Entertainment team. That's the fun part for me. I love being involved in artist bookings and helping bring so many shows down to the venue.
How did you come into the job?
I used to work with some of the other partners at Little Miss Mexico when I had my first ever hospitality job.
What experience do you bring to the role?
I come from a cocktail background, but my role at the venue is far from that. I love hospitality because it's an industry that doesn’t require years of experience or a degree. Anyone with a good work ethic that is willing to do the hard yards can make it.
Have you made any major improvements/ renovations to the venue?
Every year we look to renovate the venue to improve. We learnt a lot from our first six months of trade and knew we had to make some drastic changes to keep ourselves as a top-notch live music venue.
For last year's renovation we made a conscious decision to focus on live music artists moving forward, so we made some massive changes reworking the sound system, rebuilding the stage and refitting the air-condition system.
We have spent some serious money making the basement sound as good as if not better than a lot of big name live music venues and the artists and people have responded well. This year we did more of a cosmetic fit-out to freshen the venue and bring it away from the basement feel, softening everything up with loads of timber.
We are always striving to improve the sound and feel of the venue as we intend on being around as a live music venue for the long term.
How will you celebrate Fat Controller's third birthday in 2018?
After the last few years it’ll be hard to top some of the acts we’ve had through to celebrate the Birthday. We love outdoing ourselves though, so watch this space.
Fat Controller must have hosted hundreds of bands at this point; what have been some of your favourites?
After having the likes of Kevin Parker and San Cisco on the opening night to Temper Trap and Winston Surfshirt these last couple of weekends, it's hard to pick a favourite.
Northeast Party House, Jungle Giants and Vera Blue have to be some of the Fat Controller's highlights, but it's impossible to only single a few out.
What has been Fat Controller's involvement in side projects such as Oh Yes, Touch Bass and Alison Wonderland Warehouse Project 3.0?
The venue and its staff all play a massive role giving the marketing support and bar operations needed to run these large-scale events. The collaborative effort between local SA businesses like ourselves means national and international artist teams and promoters are willing to take the leap coming to Adelaide. We help share the risk.
Fat Controller is involved in some really exciting things moving into 2018 and we can't wait to show you guys.
Is there one band or artist you'd love to have play but haven't been able to book yet?
Alabama Shakes and The Black Keys have been top of my hit list for a very long time. Maybe we can petition to get them down to the venue in 2018.
As General Manager, what have been some of your proudest moments?
The proudest moments have always been when up and coming bands get to play a sold-out show at the venue. It's great to see Adelaide coming out to support local artists and getting to see all the Fat Controller team's hard work pay off.
How important is Fat Controller to the live music scene in Adelaide?
The whole idea when we first started Fat Controller was to have a venue that went out on a limb to capture every show or artist that was missing Adelaide. Whether it was rock, pop or big name DJs, we have strived to make sure that skipping our city doesn’t happen.
Live music is the biggest focus for Fat Controller and we have an amazing team that make sure it's always the best it can be.
