Justin Rouillon

3 weeks ago | wayfm.org.au | Justin Rouillon

By: Justin RouillonIf you’ve been around Christian music for a while, you’ll no doubt remember the era of Easterfest. Originally named the Australian Gospel Music Festival for its first nine years, Easterfest was a Christian music festival that ran in Toowoomba, from 1999 until 2015. This year marks a decade since the last ever Easterfest event, and a series of interviews in the brand-new podcast, The Rise and Fall of Easterfest, explores the incredible Easterfest story.

3 weeks ago | 96five.com | Justin Rouillon

If you were a fan of the annual Easterfest festival in Toowoomba, there’s a new, (although much smaller) event you might be interested in checking out. The Open Heavens – Live Music Under the Stars event will see a number of local Toowoomba artists bringing together a collection of songs that explore life’s great big, deep, magnificent questions. Leading the event will be local musicians Megan King and Raquelle Pedler.

1 month ago | 96five.com | Justin Rouillon

Main Image: Fans watching a BMX demonstration from JC Epidemic at Easterfest 2011 (Trent Rouillon). If you were one of the tens of thousands of people who would make the annual Easter pilgrimage up the range to Toowoomba, it was a sure bet you had community at the forefront of your mind. The experience of Easterfest was more than just a music festival, it was really a unity movement that gave festivalgoers a weekend spent with their peers.

1 month ago | 96five.com | Justin Rouillon

If you’re new to this whole Easterfest thing, Easterfest (the Australian Gospel Music Festival until 2007) was an Australian Christian music festival that ran in Toowoomba from 1999 until 2015.  This year marks a decade since the last ever event. The new 96five podcast ‘The Rise & Fall of Easterfest’ tells the story of that event. Over the course of 17 festivals, thousands of artists graced the stages of the Australian Gospel Music Festival and Easterfest.

1 month ago | 96five.com | Justin Rouillon

Main Image: Mainstage at Easterfest in 2011, the peak year of the festival (Trent Rouillon). In the late 90’s a group of Toowoomba church leaders, business people, the chamber of commerce, the local council and the Queensland Police get together with an audacious idea. That idea is to hold a gospel music festival that would bring people into Toowoomba on the Easter weekend – a weekend that had traditionally seen the city become a virtual ghost town.