A new chapter in Vina Robles Amphitheatre’s rocky saga has begun, and it promises to bring new life to the venue, which was years in the making. You may recall its initial architect died before construction began. When it finally opened, its first season was a financial disappointment. The venue’s first general manager was fired, and he later sued the venue owner. Rocky indeed.
But guess what? It’s a world-class mid-size outdoor venue, and even the farthest seat is only 150 feet from the stage. The sound system is amazing. Every artist who’s played Vina marvels at the backstage amenities. Subsequent concert seasons have consistently improved. The truth is, it’s an absolute gem, and now it’s got a new owner who hopes to continue growing the venue.
A quick recap
An outdoor venue had long been the dream of Cal Poly graduate Tim Reed, who worked for years trying to find a financial backer and appropriate location. He eventually connected with Vina Robles Vineyards and Winery owner Hans Nef, a Swiss entrepreneur who founded the winery in 1996, along with Nef’s managing partner, Hans-R. Michel.
Under Reed’s guidance, the 3,000-seat amphitheater’s initial design concept was developed by the late architect Tim Woodle before being transferred to Stephen Buchholz after Woodle’s untimely death. It eventually opened in 2013, Reed was hired as general manager of the venue, and Prescient Entertainment in partnership with AEG Live booked the inaugural season.
Long story short, after an underperforming first season and claims of misconduct, Nef fired Reed, who later sued Nef and eventually settled.
“I worked hard for 20 years,” Reed said. “I should have finished my career guiding that facility. I designed it to directly compete with the Santa Barbara Bowl. It was my fourth amphitheater. I went on to build two more, and that one’s the best. That’s my best work. That’s why I’m so happy and so proud to see this coming full circle. I’m very excited to see the future.”
It was a rough beginning, but optimism is high for the next chapter.
Since the second season in 2014, the venue has been booked by the company that just purchased it, Los Angeles-based Nederlander Concerts, which also acquired the 14,200-square-foot mission-style hospitality center and some of the surrounding land. The winery and wine brand were sold separately.
“I love Nederlander, and my first feelings on the news that they were the owners of the facility was just a great release,” Reed said. “It’s a major improvement for the venue to be guided on the executive level by ownership that has a primary objective of concerts and performing arts. It felt to me like the venue [is] finally free of the wine distraction. [Hans Nef and Hans-R. Michel] saw it as a vehicle to sell wine and that’s it. That was the end of the vision.”
Meet the new boss
Georgia native Alex Hodges is CEO of Nederlander Concerts, a company under the larger umbrella of the Nederlander Organization, an operator of live theaters and music venues that was founded in 1912. Early in his career, he managed Otis Redding, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
“By principal trade, I would call myself an agent and a manager of artists,” he drawled during a Zoom call. “Where that helps us is that I understand an agent’s needs reporting to an artist.”
He’s also oversaw booking bands into venues, for instance during his time as executive vice president of House of Blues.
“I think that I have had the advantage of understanding both sides of the table, if you think of an agent as a seller and a promoter as a buyer. I’m tuned in to the routing of bands, and I’m tuned in to the value of a first-class venue, and what that brings to the table. Because it’s home for a day for a band when they’re traveling. If you treat them well, they’ll be back, and they’ll pass the word.”
One reason Nederlander bought Vina Robles Amphitheatre is because Hodges recognized how well designed it is.
“They’re so many nice features about Vina Robles, Paso Robles, and the amphitheater. Whatever the future is, we’re just going to have to make it even better. It’s a spectacular area.”
Though Reed’s name seems to be completely scrubbed from the amphitheater’s website—that’ll happen when you sue your boss—Hodges recognizes his contribution.
“He had a good idea, and he helped forge for Hans Nef and Hans-R. Michel some of the attributes that are sometimes left out of venues and planning, and that’s what the bands need and the crews need. We have a saying, ‘We do a first-class job from load in to load out.’ And that’s so important. The loading docks are critical. The dressing rooms and the catering areas are critical, and we want them to be happy that they’re in the right venue, and the word spreads.”
Hodges and his vice president of booking and event programming, Eric Milhouse, also have the advantage of experience in the local market. This is Nederlander’s 12th year booking the venue. While the amphitheater’s audiences obviously draw from SLO County, they see surrounding counties such as Monterey, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Kern, and others as part of the venue’s potential patrons.
“I think we’re learning a lot about how to approach the fan base,” Hodges explained, noting that for many, Vina Robles is a destination venue, which means hotels, restaurants, and nearby businesses also get the benefit. Of course, as an outdoor venue, the concerts are seasonal, but the hospitality center can be used 52 weeks a year.
The other thing the new ownership means is Nederlander can open the venue to other promoters.
“If we are the exclusive booker, we want to protect that exclusivity,” Hodges explained. “When we own the venue, we’re open to other promoters, more so than ever. I think as ownership, we have our investment, No. 1.”
Book ’em
Milhouse worked “on and off for Golden Voice” and “was on the early years of Coachella,” he explained. He also booked for Pomona venues The Glass House and the Fox Theater.
“I bounced down to San Diego for a little stint where I booked a venue down there called The Belly Up, a historic 600-capacity club in Solana Beach,” Milhouse added.
He’s scheduled 25 acts for this season but continues to add more. He also books into other venues like the San Jose Civic Center and others as far away as Texas and Massachusetts. Milhouse also understands where Nederlander Concerts stands in the marketplace.
“We live in the shadows of the giants, right? Like Live Nation and AEG, and as an independent company, we try to find opportunities and turn over things that were either overlooked or just not seen as immediately profitable,” Milhouse explained. “For instance, Vina Robles, when it started, was booked by AEG, and the first year, I think the market was just too new for them. I heard it lost a bunch of money, like a million bucks. I don’t know, maybe more. And they said, ‘OK, we’re out.’”
Nederlander saw the potential of the Paso venue and market, even though its start booking Vina Robles was “rocky.” But Milhouse said it’s gotten “better and better,” and he praises Nederlander for not being a company only focused on “profit, profit, profit.”
Apparently, the entire Nederlander team has the hots for Vina Robles and Paso.
“Whenever anyone is going to cover a show at Vina Robles, we all clamor for it. We’re all like, ‘No, no, no, I wanna cover it.’ It’s just such a unique little slice of the state. You’ve got working-class farmers, hipsters, college kids—it’s this really cool cross section of folks. And then it’s just obviously beautiful country. The wine is just unreal.
“To stumble in and work in that venue is very lucky for us because it’s stunning.”
As he gets to know our market more intimately, Milhouse has continued to experiment with programming.
“We did Slayer there on a Tuesday night, and we were like, ‘Let’s just try it. Who knows? Slayer at a winery? Let’s just see if it works.’”
He noted that there are a lot of genres to expand into, like hip-hop and EDM.
“It’s been really interesting to learn the market and to see it grow. We spend a lot of time studying ZIP code reports on where fans come from. We’ll have some shows where a lot of people come from Los Angeles because it’s a winery destination.”
After the bust year of the pandemic, concerts bounced back with some strong numbers. But lately ticket sales have softened, so part of Milhouse’s job is to find a way to grow the audience.
“We try to make tickets as affordable as we can,” Milhouse said, explaining that it can be a battle with the artist who wants a certain price point even though the market can’t bear it.
“It’s just this game of going back and forth because the artists need to make what they need to make, and we’ve got to make it pencil out and not lose money. We’re being cautious. I’m hopeful that the economy turns around and we start to see a little bit of relief.”
The home team stays
Both Hodges and Milhouse praised the local team of employees, and to ensure seamless continuity as ownership changes, the local team remains in place. The current general manager is Jennings Jacobs, who started at the venue as the stage manager years ago and worked his way up, becoming GM last year.
“We’re pretty much business-as-usual here,” Jacobs said, “with the exception that we have a whole lot more support from our new owners as far as moving forward with improvements on the venue and booking. We feel like we have a lot of support.”
Some needed maintenance had been deferred after Nef passed and his holdings went to his family.
Jacobs noted that maintaining a venue like Vina Robles is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: “You get done and you have to start over again.”
‘I always say, “If AEG, Live Nation, and Golden Voice are like Costco, Walmart, and Target, Nederlander is Trader Joe’s.” It stays in its lane. It’s not trying to be Target. It likes to play nice with others, so we’re kind of excited.’
—Manuel Barba, Vina Robles Amphieatre events sponsorship and premium seating sales manager
Manuel Barba is the events sponsorship and premium seating sales manager, who also believes the new ownership will improve the venue and audience experience.
“The support that Jennings is talking about comes by nature of us being part of this larger team,” Barba added. “It seems like everyone that we talked to has been with Nederlander for 10, 18, 25 years. They seem to take great care of their staff and enjoy a lot of loyalty. We’ve felt like these arms have been wrapped around us because we operated a little bit like an island for years.”
As Jacobs noted, the amphitheater was operated under one of eight corporations Nef was involved in, and it was the only one in entertainment. The others were all agricultural.
“With ownership being in Switzerland, there was that disconnect,” Barba added. “It’s like there were people in a European country making decisions about rock ’n’ roll over here. But now we’re under the umbrella of a company whose lifeblood and singular focus is entertaining people. The company’s been around for over 100 years. We’re thrilled. They’re really trying to lean into and understand the local culture. They’re not trying to impose any kind of cultural shock here.”
Jacobs has a pretty good idea why the Nef family decided to sell of the winery, vineyards, and amphitheater.
“Our old owners just didn’t want to be doing business in America anymore,” he said. “Remember, their father started this place and built this place and they inherited it. So, it was never their dream to be amphitheater owners. Ultimately, it was better for them to get out of this business because it was never anything they wanted.”
“When Hans Nef died, by nobody’s fault, obviously, it transferred to his daughters, and this wasn’t their American dream,” Barba reiterated. “This was his American dream. His DNA is all over this place. They seldom came to visit, seldom came to check on things. You get a lot of autonomy when you have ownership that’s just very hands-off like that, but it’s also nice to be part of a big team, to have those kinds of connections and feel like our family just grew. Everyone that we’ve interfaced with has been awesome.”
Reed believes the old owners never wanted to be in the entertainment business at all.
“In the end, it was clear that no one actually wanted it,” Reed said. “They didn’t want the performing arts. They were second-guessing themselves the whole time, and now we’ve got ownership that’s got a clear primary objective.”
Ch-ch-ch-changes?
In general, don’t expect any drastic changes to the Vina Robles that consistently wins Best Venue in New Times’annual Readers Poll. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
However, some improvements have already been implemented. Now, instead of buying a box seat for the entire season, you can purchase individual box seats for a single concert. They’ve incorporated spirits into the concession’s offerings. They have a shuttle program through SLO Safe Ride with pickups and drop-offs starting from SLO to Paso. One of the kiosks has been modified into a nonalcoholic vendor with mocktails.
Nederlander, which specializes in 2,000-to-6,000-seat venues, seems like the perfect company to take the reins and guide Vina on the next leg of its journey.
“I always say, ‘If AEG, Live Nation, and Golden Voice are like Costco, Walmart, and Target, Nederlander is Trader Joe’s,’” Barba joked. “It stays in its lane. It’s not trying to be Target. It likes to play nice with others, so we’re kind of excited because hopefully we’ll get to see some co-promotions.”
Not having to profit-share with their parent company will allow Nederlander freedom to work with other promoters.
“They own the whole pie, so in theory, that should allow for bigger budgets and bigger offerings for artists and talent coming through here,” Barba said.
CEO Hodges also noted that a venue name change might be coming in the future and that there’s room to expand the venue’s size.
“I think the goal here is to change as little as possible unless there are negative impacts somewhere,” Jacobs said. “Our team continues to improve operations and our guest experience. Every time someone comes here, it’s really about that guest experience and always has been.” ∆
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in June 11-18, 2026.
