The Rise & Fall of Easterfest
In the late 90's a group of Toowoomba business people, civic leaders and the city's church community come together with an audacious plan - stage a gospel music festival that will bring people into the city over the Easter weekend. Despite humble beginnings, Easterfest (formerly the Australian Gospel Music Festival) grew to achieve major event status in Queensland, and became one of the largest ticketed drug and alcohol free events in the southern hemisphere. But only a few years after their biggest event, Easterfest became yet another casualty of the music festival business. It's been a decade since the final festival in 2015, and this podcast series will look back at how Easterfest grew to become a major player in Christian music internationally, and the events that led to the event coming to an end. It's a celebration of almost two decades of music, community and a spirit of unity, with the story told by the organisers, volunteers and the musicians that graced the stages of Easterfest. The Rise & Fall of Easterfest is written and hosted by Justin Rouillon and is a production of 96five Studios. For more podcasts with purpose, search for 96five in your podcast app or go to www.96five.com/listen/podcasts/
Episodes
In the late 90's a group of Toowoomba business people, civic leaders and the city's church community come together with an audacious plan - stage a gospel music festival that will bring people into the city over the Easter weekend.
Despite humble beginnings, Easterfest (formerly the Australian Gospel Music Festival) grew to achieve major event status in Queensland, and became one of the largest ticketed drug and alcohol free events...
The Rise & Fall of Easterfest is a celebration of the Easterfest and Australian Gospel Music Festivals, that ran for almost two decades in Toowoomba.
In this first episode, we’ll be looking at the rise – how did the festival get started in 1999 and then grow to become one of Queensland’s major events?
How did things like local Christian music scenes and the growth of Christian radio in Australia al...
The Rise & Fall of Easterfest is a celebration of the Easterfest and Australian Gospel Music Festivals, that ran for almost two decades in Toowoomba.
You can’t have a music festival without the music and that’s what the focus is in this episode.
What did the Australian Christian music scene look like in the late 90s and early 2000s?
How did local artists help AGMF grow in the early years? An...
The Rise & Fall of Easterfest is a celebration of the Easterfest and Australian Gospel Music Festivals, that ran for almost two decades in Toowoomba.
At the heart of the AGMF and Easterfest festivals was community – over and above the music, festival goers were really attending to be with other like minded people.
In this episode we’ll be looking at the Easterfest experience and some of the ways that the...
The Rise & Fall of Easterfest is a celebration of the Easterfest and Australian Gospel Music Festivals, that ran for almost two decades in Toowoomba.
The Easter of 2011 saw the biggest crowd in attendance that Easterfest had ever seen, but something on that weekend would lead to the downfall of Australia’s biggest Christian music festival.
In this episode, we’ll be looking at how Easterfest became anothe...
When I was making a list of guests for this podcast series, Paul Colman was right at the very top, because he and his band the Paul Colman Trio, were the biggest act in Australian Christian music as the Australian Gospel Music Festival got going in the early 2000s.
The Paul Colman Trio released a number of independent albums before relocating to the US in 2002. They subsequently received a Dove Award and a Grammy nomina...
If you’ve listened to the full series of the Rise and Fall of Easterfest, you know that the events that unfolded on Easter Saturday night in 2011 would end up being one of those key moments in the Easterfest story.
Steve Monro and Matt Gees were radio presenters with Vision Christian Media, who were on the ground on Easter Sunday in 2011, painting a picture to their listeners of what had transpired the night before.&nbs...
I was stoked that Claire Hazzard agreed to be part of this project, because she was one of the artists who was leading the charge in the independent Christian music scene in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Claire is a Queensland artist who cut her teeth on the Brisbane music scene, before signing to indie label CW Media, releasing her debut album The Goodness and Severity and subsequently relocating to Melbourne.
Through ...
One of my favourite Easterfest stories is around two expat Aussie brothers, who wrote a bunch of killer songs, crafted a sound that can really only be described as epic, and found themselves at the very top of the Christian Music industry in the US.
But when you look at the For King and Country story, the origins of it begin at Easterfest in 2009, when Joel and Luke Smallbone, originally billed as Austoville, and then Joel an...
When the Australian Gospel Music festival, the event that would give rise to Easterfest got going in 1999, the independent Christian music scenes across Australia were pretty healthy.
There was a lot going on in that space with plenty of Aussie muso’s diving in and giving it a go.
In Brisbane, the scene was thriving, with the local indie label Toupee Records bringing together the cream of the crop like Rhubarb, Ba...
Michael W Smith was one of the biggest artists to ever grace the stage at Easterfest, having been one of the defining artists of the contemporary christian music movement in the 1980’s.
Along with his good friend Amy Grant, Michael had a significant impact on the genre, not just as a performer, but also as a songwriter and producer.
But because of his commitment to his church at Easter, it took festival organiser...
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