Charles Touber

Charles Touber is an Australian businessman and tour promoter from Hobart, Tasmania. He is best known as the organiser of the Gone South series of festivals in Launceston and Hobart in the early 2000s,^[1] as well as the Southern Roots Festival in Hobart in 2007.^[2]

Touber was a candidate for the Australian Senate in the 1996 Australian federal election, but did not win a seat.^[3]

Touber was formerly a member of a band called The Innocents, who were "one-hit wonders" in the 1970s, and reformed in 2000 to play at the International Pop Overthrow festival in the United States.^[4]

In more recent years Touber has acted as a music promoter, with varied success. In 2004 he was unable to resurrect his Gone South Music Festival, and in 2009 his Southern Roots Festival failed, with Touber blaming rises in the Australian dollar.^[5] Also in 2009 a scheduled performance by international 1980s legends Madness was cancelled by its Promoter Touber the morning of the show, with Touber blaming poor ticket sales ^[6]

In 2009 charges against Charles Touber Productions as organisers of the Southern music festival for operating a place of assembly without a licence in 2007 were dismissed ^[7]

In 2011 Touber was appointed Promoter of the highly successful festival MSFest, a fundraiser run for the MS Society of Tasmania since 2006, which had previously been managed by Promotions company Opcon, and which at its peak had attracted an audience of 13,000.^[8] After Touber took over the event was relocated to Hobart, and was widely criticised regarding a poor lineup, erratic ticketing and inconsistent communication. On 28 February 2012 - four days before the event - it was announced the MSFest 2012 was unviable and was cancelled.^[9] . Organisers cited issues ranging from weather, to audience disinterest, and to the actions of the Launceston City Council,^[10] however some critics claimed the show's lineup was at the root of the Festival's demise.^[11]

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