Paul Piticco, impresario, restaurateur, property developer

He’s in the business of good times, and the Brisbane public’s appetite is insatiable.

Paul Piticco: ‘I’m quite happy with the product.’ Picture: Kim Eiszele

Paul Piticco is in the business of good times. As an owner of the Splendour in the Grass music festival, a touring company, record labels, a booking agency, restaurants and promotions companies, the former Powderfinger manager has created a multimillion-dollar integrated music and entertainment group that stretches around Australia and across the globe.

“To be selling musical experiences, selling food, booze and tunes – I’m quite happy with the product – they’re all nice things to be associated with,” he says. “It’s enjoyable, making sure people enjoy themselves.”

Piticco is a co-owner of Secret Sounds festivals – which includes Splendour in the Grass, Falls Music & Arts Festival in Lorne, Marion Bay, Byron Bay and Fremantle, and Download – while touring headline acts in partnership with the world’s biggest entertainment company, Live Nation.

Next on the agenda is a 3500-capacity performance space in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley which will provide a venue for Live Nation touring acts and, he says, “complete the loop” of his business operations. “It’s more of a bricks-and-mortar approach to what we’re doing rather than just being content creators,” he says.

Brisbane born and bred, Piticco got his start in the music industry as manager of the then up-and-coming local band Powderfinger in the early 1990s.

It was a job that took him around the world and launched him into the business of entertainment. It also helped him appreciate the fierce tribalism of his city.

“It was much more conducive to artist development,” he says of his home town. “I compared Brisbane in the nineties to a little Seattle, where the music community came and supported bands like they were sporting teams. They were really like your patrons who would financially and morally support you while you were creating your art.”

Now, he says, Brisbane is firmly on the world stage with its cosmopolitan population, entertainment options and exposure to international trends. Piticco himself has stakes in four of the city’s leading restaurants and bars, including The Gresham and Walter’s Steakhouse.

But he thinks the city still needs better infrastructure to support its growing entertainment industry. It also needs to repeal its “archaic” lock-out laws “if they’re serious about having a modern global city with a night-time economy as well as a daytime one”.

Pittico reckons the city has kept its traditional charm as it has grown.

“Brisbane has always had its own identity that was different and a little bit of a diamond in the rough compared to Sydney and Melbourne,” he says.

“There has never been an air of pretension around Brisbane and I like that quality about the city. I hope it continues even as we develop into a more modern city. I hope we continue to have that welcoming and unpretentious air about us.”