GET TO KNOW ARTHUR-ART BAR
Arthur-Art Bar is the best kept secret in the city’s west. Owner Cass Tombs tell us more about Adelaide’s home for creation...
Image via @rmzadelaide (Facebook)
Inside an old, abandoned furniture shop, Adelaide’s creative cohort congregates for nights of experimentation, innovation and fun.
The venue is known as Arthur-Art Bar – a quirky two-storey Currie Street building that houses artists, music and performances year-round. It still retains its original art-deco veneer and ‘Avant-Garde Furnishings’ signage. But instead of selling furniture, it’s a hub for creation and a place where anything goes.
“We’ve only got one rule at Arthur, and it’s don’t be a dick,” owner Cass Tombs says. “Unless you’re Dick – who works behind the bar.”
Cass was the co-founder of the now-defunct but globally adored Tuxedo Cat pop-up. The venture ran for 15 years and would open in abandoned buildings during festivals like the Fringe. It provided performers a place to play, supporting their experimentation without financial stress. “Rent was cheap, so we could pass on savings to the artists,” she explains. “People could actually get their idea off the ground.”
The Tuxedo Cat ethos moved with Cass when she opened Arthur-Art Bar. Initially, the space was to be a place where people in the creative and technology industries could meet, connect and collaborate. Cass planned for it to open at Lot Fourteen, using Arthur-Art Bar as her “prototype” of the space she envisioned. “We made what tech people call a ‘minimal viable product’,” she explains.
When it opened during the 2019 SALA Festival, the exhibitions were purposefully tech-heavy, with immersive art installations and 3D holograms. Ultimately, Lot Fourteen decided to invest elsewhere, and when the pandemic hit, Cass pivoted her initial project. “We started booking bands.”
Slowly, Arthur-Art Bar became the go-to destination for young musos cutting their teeth in the local scene. The venue regularly hosts stacked bills with bands like Mum’s Favourites, Molly Rocket and Violet Harlot playing to sold-out crowds.
“I think COVID was really good for Adelaide because the kids that normally move to Sydney, Melbourne or even Berlin were stuck here. It became a catalyst for the live music scene,” Cass says. “I’ve been back in Adelaide for 15 years, and I haven’t seen this kind of energy since I was here in the ’90s.”
Arthur was also purposefully built as a blank canvas, a malleable venue for any creative vision. “Everything’s on wheels. The bars, the stages,” Cass explains. Consequently, the best and most bizarre nights unfold inside the shapeshifting city haunt.
Comedy funk three-piece George Glass transformed Arthur for their final Art Attack event in 2021, hanging sheets of canvas across every surface in the venue. When showtime came, punters donned plastic ponchos and painted while bands played on stage. “Those events are amazing because it’s so immersive on so many levels,” Cass says. On other nights the venue has been a ’60s-inspired bohemian garden, a pop-up restaurant and a host for Adelaide’s underground music festival, Slingshot.
Arthur’s Fringe roster continues to tap into the exciting oddities of experimental performance. There’s an immersive augmented reality game that takes audiences on an adventure, late-night comedy and mind-boggling physical theatre performed in the car park.
“Whether it’s a band wanting to tour or somebody wanting to design a plasma rocket for picking up space junk... I like watching ideas become a reality,” Cass says.
“Arthur isn’t just a bar, it’s not just a band room – there’s so many things happening all at once. It’s an ignition point. We’re a place of creation.”
