Rehearsal for the Apocalypse by Dr John Jiggens

The Nimbin Aquarius Festival, May 1973

In 1973, the Australian Union of Students held an innovative student festival called the Aquarius Festival in the middle of nowhere, in an unheard-of country village called Nimbin.

After 23 years of conservative rule, the election of the Whitlam government ushered in what seemed an Australian Spring, a time of hope that promised a new start for Australia, and the young who had supported Whitlam felt empowered to dream of a New Australia.

More counter-festival than festival, the inclusive and utopian spirit of the Australian counter-culture directed that the gap between audience and performer should be diminished, and festival goers were expected to create their own culture.

The growing awareness of ecological collapse added a feeling of forbidding that undercut the hope, and many were the messiahs gathered by the Zeitgeist to debate the central problem of the era, how to rehearse for the apocalypse.

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