Australian Venue Co Pay Rates 2026: Bar, Floor, Kitchen & Casual Pay

Australian Venue Co (AVC) is one of the country's largest pub operators, with more than 200 hotels, pubs and event venues across every state, including the Queensland pubs it runs in partnership with Coles Liquor. Venue staff are bar attendants, gaming attendants, floor and kitchen staff and duty managers — overwhelmingly casual.

AVC venue roles sit on the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, which carries its own gaming-attendant classifications alongside food and beverage. The award ladder and penalty rules below are the floor for every AVC venue.

The federal awards relevant to Australian Venue Co roles:

• Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 (MA000009)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Australian Venue Co Limited declared 8,342 employees across 2 reporting entities — 64% casual and 47.3% women, with 347 in management roles. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

From 1 July 2026 the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 (MA000009) adult minimums in the food, beverage and clerical streams are:

Weekend, late-night and public holiday penalties apply on top — check a specific shift with the penalty rates calculator. Junior rates apply under 21 (percentages of the adult rate, except that liquor-service roles are adult-rated from 18).

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

As at 6 September 2026, our corpus of 14,141 federally registered enterprise agreements holds no current agreement for Australian Venue Co. That usually means one of three things: the employer pays on the award (or on individual contracts above it), the agreement covering you is registered under a different entity name (check the employer name on your payslip and search our agreements database), or — for state public-sector employers — pay is set by a state award or agreement outside the federal register. If you have a copy of an agreement that names Australian Venue Co, it beats the award figures above.

The patterns worth checking on a Australian Venue Co payslip:

• Flat rates that don't beat the penalties — an 'all-in' hourly rate must leave you better off than the award's weekend, late-night and public holiday loadings for your actual roster.
• Unpaid set-up and pack-down before opening and after close.
• Introductory level for too long — it is a three-month, no-experience rate, not a permanent grade.
• Split and broken shifts without the award's allowances, and casual shifts under the minimum engagement.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.