Born not far from the hallowed ground that hosted the Woodstock Music & Art Festival in upstate New York, Adam Wilkes was destined to do great things in live entertainment. For the past decade, China has greatly benefited from his promotional moxie that to date is responsible for organising over 100 concert and sporting events. Chances are if you’ve attended a major western musical or sporting event recently, you have him to thank.

Wilkes’ path to Shanghai was anything but normal. “I graduated high school early at 16 and ended up at Northeastern University,” he says. “For the longest time I wanted to get out of my hometown. When I got to Boston it was a taste, but it wasn’t enough. I thought if it tastes this good and I am only three hours from home, I bet it gets even better.”

He ended up in Valencia, Spain on a study abroad program. “When it came time to leave at the end of summer, I wasn’t ready to go back. I felt there was more to do, more to see and there wasn’t really any pressing reason to get back besides school, my job and a serious girlfriend,” he laughs. His trip back to the States had a layover in Milan and he found himself in a taxi instead of on the connecting flight.

He made his way down to Florence where he worked for a while in a family friend’s small restaurant in Piazza dell'Accademia. After reaching out to his university to find a job or study opportunity back in Spain, he instead landed a job in Mexico working at a bamboo plantation-cum-furniture factory in the middle of the Yucatan.

“When I showed up I found out the Texas-based owner had fired the general manager two days before and after talking to him on the phone, he put me in charge,” Wilkes recounts. “I told him I hardly speak Spanish and don’t know a thing about farming or furniture, but he told me I’d figure it out.” Wilkes stayed on for about half a year until he was nearly killed by an intestinal bug and needed a six week stay – including his 20th birthday – in a rural Mexican hospital to recover.

“At this point most people would say it’s time to go home, but this wasn’t the victorious return I had hoped for,” he says. “So the journey continued and I ended up in the middle of a low-intensity civil war in Bogotá, Columbia for six months.”

Pondering his next move, Wilkes cast his eye east. “I had not yet travelled to Asia. At that point China was still very much off the radar,” he says. “I felt like it was something out of the ordinary. I thought I’d only be here for a few weeks – it’s now going on 10 years.”

“Wherever you go in the world you want to embrace the place for what it is, so I did what everyone else seemed to be doing in Shanghai and went out drinking,” he reminisces. “In the fall of 2001, there was only the Maoming Lu bar strip, Park 97 and Pegasus. By my fourth week I was broke, so I decided to organize a nightclub event.”

He went to Pegasus and spoke with owner Judy Qiu, successfully bagging a shot at turning the venue’s then empty Thursday nights around with a new-to-Shanghai hip-hop event. “I partnered up with another guy and we made silly little flyers and handed them out around town,” he says. “The night of the event, at 9 o’clock, nobody was there; at 10 o’clock two people showed up and left right away. By 10:15, Judy comes over and says, ‘It seems you don’t have any friends, but you’re a nice enough guy so enjoy some free drinks and have fun.’ I was feeling pretty depressed so I went to the bathroom to collect myself and when I came out a short time later the place was absolutely packed – 300 or more in the club and 100 lined up at the door. From there Pegasus Thursdays grew into one of the most renowned nights in town for the next five or six years.”

“My interest and passion has always been live music and performance, so I used this as a springboard to start doing other events and parties at other clubs,” he continues. “I started bringing over up and coming American rock bands to play at smaller venues in Shanghai and Beijing.”

Eventually after a stint working at Sony Music China, Wilkes formed China West with two partners. “We brought out Norah Jones, Black Eyed Peas, Ziggy Marley, The Roots, DJ Tiesto, James Brown – personally one of the highlights of my career – and that was when it went to the next level and I realised the excitement and growth opportunity here in China. We had barely scratched the surface.”

Earlier this year, Wilkes joined AEG Live, one of the global leaders in the live entertainment industry, in the newly created position of Senior Vice President, Music and Touring, Asia. “AEG reached out to me and offered me a fantastic opportunity and a really great platform,” he says. “What they’ve been doing around the world for the past five or six years is just incredible, and something anybody who has been working in my industry is very aware of.”

With AEG-owned Mercedes-Benz Arena now in place, Wilkes believes Shanghai’s event possibilities will explode – this is a watershed moment for live entertainment in China. “There hasn’t been a fair balance to the music that’s come out,” Wilkes admits. “A lot of R’n’B and pop has come, which is great, but there hasn’t been enough rock and I know there is a market for it.”

Fortunately, China is no longer a novelty gig for major recording artists and is slowly becoming a fixture on world tours. Over the next several years, AEG plans on gracing the city with a minimum of 12 major events per year. And in the midst of all of this will be Wilkes, doing what he was born to do. “To have the experience to work with some of greatest artists in the world is what drives me to do the next show.”

Web: www.aegworldwide.com