One run.
One guitar.
One dune.
How a redundancy, a desert run and a sunset concert for a few hundred people turned into the Big Red Bash.
Monday 8 July 2013. Where it all began.
If You Build It
ABC Australian Story, 2022. Greg tells how a redundancy and a big gamble turned into the world’s most remote music festival. Read the story on ABC
A run,
not a festival
Greg Donovan spent about twenty years in insurance in Sydney. The music was never the plan. A run across the Simpson Desert was.
Inspired by his youngest son, Steve, Greg started running long distances to raise money for type 1 diabetes research. In 2012 he took on four desert ultramarathons in one year with a small team that included his son Matt, and raised around $150,000. Then he wanted to bring that run home, and he chose Birdsville.
One concert on top of the dune
The first Big Red Run was over, and the runners and volunteers had come a long way. Greg wanted to thank them, so John Williamson agreed to play on top of Big Red as the sun went down.
Word travelled along the bush telegraph. Greg sold a few tickets to cover costs. The music started as an add-on to the run, and it turned out to be the first Big Red Bash.
250 kilometres,
six days
From 2013 to 2018, runners crossed the desert in the weeks before the Bash, raising money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In the end, more people wanted the music than wanted the running.
The posters, 2013 to 2027
From one concert on a dune to a three-day festival, here is how each year looked.
A town that appears once a year
From a dune to a pilgrimage
A family reason to run
Inspired by his youngest son, Steve, Greg starts running long distances to raise money for type 1 diabetes research.
Four deserts in a year
Greg and a small team, including his son Matt, take on four desert ultramarathons and raise around $150,000.
The first Big Red Run
A sunset concert on top of the dune follows on Monday 8 July, with John Williamson and about 500 people.
Jimmy Barnes
Greg takes a big swing and books one of Australia’s biggest names. About 3,200 people turn up.
The last Big Red Run
After six years, the run comes to an end as the music takes over. Nearly 400 runners raised over $1.1 million.
Ten years of the Bash
The festival celebrates a decade, 2013 to 2023, with Icehouse, John Williamson, Hoodoo Gurus and more.
Back to where it began
With no Bash that year, John Williamson climbs Big Red again for a sunset concert on Tuesday 8 July, twelve years to the day after the first one.
One final Bash
After 13 years and more than 78,000 visitors to Outback Queensland, the Big Red Bash closes with its last festival, 6–8 July.
Greg, Raylene,
Laura and Steve
Greg runs the Outback Music Festival Group as a family business, with his wife Raylene and their children Laura and Steve. Steve took part in the first Big Red Run. Their son Matt isn’t part of the festival, but he ran the four deserts with Greg in 2012.
The family also created the Mundi Mundi Bash, on the Mundi Mundi Plains near Broken Hill, and that one keeps going after the Big Red Bash finishes.
Come to the last one
Thirteen years after one concert on a sand dune, the Big Red Bash says goodbye. Tickets go on sale at 10am AEDT on 12 November.