John Fowler and Peter Evans

As part of our commitment to capturing and sharing great Australian music stories, the Australian Music Vault asked some of the country’s most influential trailblazers and unsung heroes to open up about their lives in music.

In 1972, John Fowler founded Sunbury Festival, a multi-day event that would change the local music industry forever. It was dubbed Australia’s Woodstock and was the spiritual precursor to the Big Day Out festivals. Between 1972 and 1975, Sunbury Festival was a highlight of the cultural calendar attracting up to 40,000 people each year to see hot local acts like Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Daddy Cool, Skyhooks, Sherbet, Chain, The Dingoes and Wendy Saddington.

John Fowler grew up in the Melbourne beachside suburb of Frankston where he studied to become an electrician before joining television station GTV9 as lighting director in 1957. It was here that he met fellow lighting designer Peter Evans whose enthusiastic review of the Wallacia Music Festival in New South Wales in 1971 opened Fowler’s eyes to the potential for staging a local festival.

The first Sunbury Festival was held at Duncan’s Farm just outside of Melbourne over an Australia Day long weekend. Set in a natural amphitheatre, the festival site allowed Fowler to offer not only live music but camping, swimming and market stalls. Evans designed and operated the lighting for the event from 1972 to 1974 and in 2017 he wrote the definitive account of the festival, Sunbury Australia’s Greatest Rock Festival.

Sunbury Festival was inducted into the Music Victoria Hall of Fame in 2015.

In this interview, John Fowler and Peter Evans discuss the logistical challenges of mounting an annual open-air festival, the importance of promoting local talent and the night that AC/DC and Deep Purple’s roadies came to blows.

Interviewer: Jenny O’Meara

Location: Melbourne Room, Arts Centre Melbourne, 2017