Foxtel’s A&E channel and Gemba create the A&E Pit Boss Live arena at Meatstock festival

Foxtel channel A&E has partnered with Australia’s music and meat festival, Meatstock, since 2016.

In 2018, A&E challenged Gemba to create a compelling activation that showcased some of its programming to festival goers. Gemba collaborated with Meatstock organisers to seize the opportunity to leverage one of A&E’s most popular shows, BBQ Pitmasters, and A&E Pit Boss Live was born. Festival goers were treated to a live arena filled with wild competitions and live demonstrations which were filmed and shared in real-time.

Day one of the two-day event saw local BBQ teams competing for the ultimate BBQ award. Teams raced against the clock to prepare, cook, and present to the judges across four categories: Chicken, Lamb, Pork & Beef. Each team’s creations were scored by A&E’s panel of famous judges, led by the legendary Pitmaster himself, Moe Cason. The arena was a full house, with people queueing to watch the teams battle it out for the grand prize. Better yet, those who could not make the festival tuned in to the live Facebook feed and were able to be part of the action.

On day two, the A&E Pit Boss Live arena hosted a different kind of competition, the A&E Sausage Sizzle Throwdown. We invited hundreds of amateur eaters to come and test their eating skills, by seeing how many sausage sandwiches they could construct and consume in three minutes. To our surprise, even the experts wanted to have a go, with Australia’s 2nd and 3rd ranked competitive eaters coming to test themselves on the day. The first-ever A&E Sausage Sizzle Throwdown champion, Sven Pelman, managed to eat nine sausage sandwiches in the three minutes, and was stuffed.

The A&E Pit Boss Live arena was a huge success and one of the star attractions at Meatstock. As a result, registrations for A&E Pit Boss Live have doubled for the Sydney Meatstock event next weekend.

Make sure you come and check it out!