Andrew McManus

Andrew McManus is an Australian live music promoter, and founder of several music promotion companies. In 1998 he established his first music promotion company, International Touring Company (ITC), in Brisbane. His companies promoted notable and high-profile tours of Australia by international acts include Fleetwood Mac, Mötley Crüe and Aerosmith.

McManus has also promoted comedians at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with acts including Pauly Shore and Joan Rivers.

McManus is the former owner and promoter of the short lived World Wrestling All-Stars promotion, formed in October 2001 with its final tour in May 2003. The WWA toured Australia, Europe and New Zealand, airing their shows on USA pay-per-view. McManus appeared on air a few times to make some announcements, but mainly ran things from behind the scenes.

In 2009, McManus organised the Impact Fighting Championships tournament, featuring Ken Shamrock, Big John and others.

Music career McManus' career arguably started with his managing a band room in Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney.

McManus Entertainment was the promoter of reggae festival Raggamuffin since its launch in 2008. In 2014, McManus Entertainment partnered with Dawn Raid Entertainment to move Raggamuffin from Rotorua to Auckland.

In 2019, American rock band Live were to headline a music festival Under the Southern Stars run by McManus' enterprise, One World Entertainment. The festival was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Live pulled out. Customers were only offered a rescheduled ticket to an entirely different concert set for March 2022. One World Entertainment denied refunds and told those who did not attend in 2022 that they must attend a concert in 2023 as compensation instead, resulting in dozens of ticket holders lodging complaints with consumer affairs. McManus had assumed nearly a quarter million dollars in debt, and blamed state governments and cited the Live Performance Code of Practice as reason to refuse refunds. NSW Fair Trading suggested this refusal to provide refunds and instead offer a "like for like" replacement breached the Australian Consumer Law.

In August 2022, One World Entertainment in partnership with TEG Live presented the Australian End of the Road World Tour by rock band Kiss to sold-out shows throughout the country. Founding Kiss member and bass player, Gene Simmons said of promoter Andrew McManus, 'He's family, and the best promoter in the world. We wouldn't be here without him.'

As of 2024, McManus is the promoter organizing the Pandemonium Rocks Festival, which is to be held across Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, and Brisbane in April. The Sydney show was originally scheduled to be held in The Domain on ANZAC Day but forced to relocate to Olympic Park due to NSW Govt being forced by the RSL Branch of NSW to block the Domain concert and forced the event our to Sydney Olympic Park. On 8 April 2024, Pandemonium Rock music festival announced on Facebook that 6 of the original 13 bands advertised as performing had pulled out, including major headliners Placebo and Deep Purple, with only partial refunds offered in the form of merchandise and drink credits. On 19 April, it was revealed that a massive data breach had occurred when the festival organisers asked patrons who were seeking refunds to fill out a form containing names, email addresses, phone numbers, and banking details. In an Instagram post, the festival acknowledged they caused the breach by leaving the admin settings on the form on, allowing normal users to see the results of the form.

ITC On 11 May 1998, McManus registered his International Touring Company Pty Ltd (ITC) also known as the Ultimate Rock Symphony with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). McManus is purported to have sold this company to the public company Abigroup Limited in 2000. By 3 October 2001, McManus' company owed almost $270,000 to creditors, The company held only $15,251 in the bank, while it had debts exceeding $4.2 million. The company was promoting tours of Stevie Nicks, Mötley Crüe and Joan Collins, when the company was liquidated on 25 August 2011, McManus Entertainment, which was already lobbying for a Sydney New Year's Eve concert, Former cage-fighter Sean Carolan believed to have trafficked a tonne of cocaine onto Australia's streets. Michael Croke and McManus had fabricated their story together via an email exchange, and produced fabricated evidence in support of these false claims. McManus has subsequently claimed that at the time of talking to police, he was under the influence of cocaine,

In November 2014, police raided McManus' business in Richmond and his home in the Mornington Peninsula.