Greg Donovan had it all. A suburban Sydney home, a doting wife, three precious kids, and a sensible corporate career spanning 20 years.
The "suit-and-tie guy" poured everything into his insurance job. Managing people was rewarding and Greg felt a solid grip on each rung as he climbed the corporate ladder.
Then out of the blue, he was sent on his way, made redundant with a "pocket full of money".
Most people in their 50s who unexpectedly end up with a $300,000 windfall would opt to put the money in a nice safe place. To Greg, that sounded "pretty damned boring".
"I wanted to do something more than sit around and watch my money in a balanced superannuation fund," he tells Australian Story.
People called him crazy. His financial advisor couldn't watch. But Greg could see his desert dream becoming reality.
He decided to gamble the lot on an outback concert with "Australia's biggest rock star".
"They thought I was nuts. I thought, let's roll the dice," Greg says.
This wild punt marked the beginning of Greg's unlikely journey to running "the most remote musical festival in the world".
A life-changing diagnosis
Greg and his wife Raylene were "childhood sweethearts" who married in their early 20s and had three children, Laura, Matt and Stephen.
His "pretty vanilla life" was ticking along well until 2008, when "something happened that was ultimately going to change our lives".
Greg and Raylene noticed their son looked unwell.
"He was skin and bones. He was wasting away really," Greg says.
Stephen remembers looking in the mirror and being "taken aback".
"I just saw my ribs and I saw my hips poking out and my shoulder blades and I looked like a skeleton," he says.
A blood test confirmed Stephen had type 1 diabetes, which he found difficult to process as a 14-year-old.
"[Stephen] really suffered mentally and physically after the diagnosis. It was difficult," Greg says.
"Type 1 diabetes is an incurable disease. It can severely shorten your life span. My heart went out for him."
Greg's rock bottom
Greg's son Matt watched a lack of control overcome his dad's already fragile mental health.
"He felt like he had a lot of responsibility to be able to look after the family and in this situation, there was nothing that he could do at all," he says.
Work, at the time, had also been demanding. Greg felt crushing pressure hurtling towards him from every aspect of his life.
"I don't know what you call it, a nervous breakdown, but things just get too much and you feel like you can't go on. That's where I ended up in around about 2010," he says.
Raylene struggled to watch as her husband crumpled with extreme anxiety. She feared for his safety when it led to depression, then suicidal thoughts.
"That was a really hard time for our family. For two years, he would ring me almost every day saying that he wouldn't be coming home," she says.
Greg spent six weeks as an inpatient at a mental health facility, finding comfort in the one freedom he had – running.
It allowed Greg to "feel human" again and cope with the reality of fending his demons away in an unfamiliar setting.
He couldn't cure Stephen, so Greg eventually decided that running to raise funds and awareness for type 1 diabetes was the next best thing he could do to help.
"The hardest running event in the world" seemed like an ideal all-consuming goal for Greg.
The Four Deserts grand slam
The 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series requires participants to run across four multi-stage 250-kilometre events through deserts in Namibia, Mongolia, Chile and Antarctica.
"I thought, well that's it, that's got to be the hardest thing I can find," Greg says.
He desperately wanted to move forward with his life. This was Greg's opportunity to carry out a grand gesture, to make his family and Stephen prouder than ever.
"Once he did have this idea, it did feel like we were getting the happier Greg back," Raylene says.
Greg pulled a team of five together, including his then 20-year-old son Matt, to run the four deserts in one calendar year, and "break a world record essentially".
"I thought the idea was crazy, absolutely crazy. I think we all did," Laura says.
Through food poisoning, dehydration, injury and extreme temperatures, the team completed "the desert grand slam" in 2012 and raised about $150,000.
"What I learned was that I could make a difference. I wasn't as helpless as what I initially thought," Greg says.
"I could take action, I could make something happen."
But in true Greg style, it was only the beginning.
'It's too hard': 250km run challenge
While most people would be exhausted, Greg felt the logical next step was to launch his own event.
"Knowing how life changing it could be and how unique these events are, it occurred to me, 'Why isn't something like this in Australia?'," he says.
Raylene thought Greg "had rocks in his head". But she also knew he had the grit and determination to see any idea through to the end.
Greg identified an outback town, with a population of 100, as the perfect base for a running event.
Sitting on the edge of "the world's biggest parallel sand dune desert", Greg had no doubt Birdsville in far western Queensland was it. But he had to see it for himself.
Traditional owner and park ranger Don Rowlands gave Greg a bird's eye tour of Munga-Thirri National Park, commonly known as the Simpson Desert, on a helicopter ride.
"Greg and his team have always been respectful of our need to be consulted and also of our culture,” Don says.
"My initial reaction was 'this is not going to work'. It's hard, it's harsh country, it's tough country. And once they see it, they'll pack up and go home."
But Greg had already started mapping the course in his head. Soaring above the red sand and vast gibber plains, he knew, "this is the spot".
"What I saw was just amazing. The landscapes, the dunes, the salt lakes," Greg says.
The Big Red Run, a 250-kilometre course through the desert starting and finishing in Birdsville, was launched in 2013.
It was a milestone moment for Stephen, who decided to join the gruelling event "as the ultimate proof that you can still do anything as a type 1 diabetic".
Making music in the middle of nowhere
Knowing how far the runners and volunteers would have to travel, Greg wanted to provide some entertainment.
"John [Williamson] agreed to come out and sing on top of the Big Red dune," Greg says.
To his surprise, people outside the running community started contacting him and asking if they could buy tickets.
On performance day, the stage was made up of "nothing more than a couple of pallets", an amplifier, speakers and John Williamson on his guitar.
Williamson says, "the atmosphere was unbelievable". But carting gear up a 40-metre sand dune proved to be a practical and logistical nightmare.
The crowd adored the music but struggled up and down the dune each time they had to use the loos or head to and from camp.
Still, Greg saw the potential.
"It just opened our mind to the fact that we could put on a music event in the middle of nowhere and people want to come and buy tickets for it," he says.
In 2014, Greg and his family decided to run a music event separately, prior to the running event.
But it cost them "a bucket load". Nowhere near enough people purchased tickets to cover the expenses of bringing live music to the desert.
"We lost a lot of money and went home with our tail between our legs," Greg says.
He put it in the too hard basket and returned to his day job in Sydney. But as Raylene anticipated, Greg was not one to give up.
Then, "something big happened".
Gambling on Jimmy Barnes
After 20 years in the insurance industry Greg was made redundant.
"It was a bit of a shock," he says.
His colleagues weren't surprised. Greg had been spending too much time on his side hustles.
"Rather than feeling depressed about it, I thought, well the upside of being redundant is you've got a pocket full of money and in my case, probably around $300,000," he says.
It was time for Greg to "revisit this music thing", up the ante, and bring some great acts to Birdsville.
"I thought, well the biggest name in Aussie rock is Jimmy Barnes. Let's see if Jimmy might want to come out and play the bash".
Laura thought her dad was "crazy yet again". She worried he'd "blow the whole redundancy payout" with no return.
Greg's former colleague David Turner says he thought the gamble was "really far from sensible".
"I would have advised Greg to put his redundancy money to his retirement plan, not take a high risk," he says.
His financial adviser echoed this recommendation.
"I thought well super, or Jimmy Barnes – Jimmy Barnes [is a] better investment any day of the week," Greg says.
Jimmy Barnes' manager John Watson had no clue that Greg was punting his redundancy payout on the show.
"I'd never heard of Greg Donovan when we received the approach from Birdsville," John says.
"But the fact that it was in Birdsville. There's something about the tone of the approach that just made it stand out from the hundreds of others that come across the transom."
When word spread that Jimmy was coming, Greg was ecstatic. The Big Red Bash "took off" in 2015.
"We got 3,200 people and we basically covered our costs. It was the start of the journey," Greg says.
The crazy idea that paid off
In 2018, when it became obvious more people preferred to listen to music in the desert rather than run 250 kilometres through it, Greg dropped the Big Red Run.
In the words of John Watson, "the Big Red Bash is now established as one of Australia's iconic music events.
"I think it's proof yet again that a crazy person with an idea will always be able to find a place in showbiz," he says.
The event has become a full-time commitment for the family, but Stephen says it's all been for the best.
"We're building something together," he says.
Side stage, on the first night of the event, the family continues their ritual of stopping for a quiet moment of reflection to remember where it all began.
"It's a really emotional time," Greg says.
With their arms wrapped around each other, Greg tells Stephen, "this is what you've created, and we've created together as a family. "[It's] a proud moment."
The family's epic project, turned professional enterprise, has allowed Stephen to come to terms with his type 1 diabetes. "We found such an amazing thing out of it," Stephen says.
The event, held on Adria Downs Station outside Birdsville, now raises money for the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service.
An accidental music promoter
Beloved Australian acts, including Jimmy Barnes, Missy Higgins, Kasey Chambers, Jon Stevens, Kate Ceberano and Chocolate Starfish, played the 2022 Big Red Bash.
"It's nice and refreshing to come across somebody who's almost gotten here by accident but has done it so incredibly well," Missy Higgins says.
Talking to a handful of punters in the sea of people who have made the pilgrimage to "Bashville", it's obvious music isn't the only attraction.
"There's just something iconic about it. The location, the vibe," a five-time volunteer says.
On the edge of the desert, with no water, no power, no sewerage, and no communications, "so many different types of people come together".
There's a tangible community spirit beyond the plumes of red dust.
From burly blokes dressed in eyebrow raising drag, to a doggy desert fashion parade and a Nutbush dance world record attempt – the three-day festival has proven a massive success.
"I would describe Greg's journey from the insurance business to become a promoter as unfathomable," music promoter Marc Christowski says.
Despite Greg's upbringing amid the pub rock scene on Sydney's Northern Beaches, "there is not a musical bone" in his body.
Now 60, he says running "the most remote musical festival on the planet" just sort of happened.
"Call me the accidental music promoter, but really I'm probably the world's oldest teenager," he says.
"I mean this is just a party out here, really. [It's] so cool to have all these people, they're just having the time of their lives, having a party in the desert."
Standing atop the 40-metre big red sand dune overlooking the main stage, and "the second largest city west of the Great Divide in Queensland", Greg knows he's made the right decision.
"Follow your heart and you take those chances and you follow your passion," he says.
"What I've done is the best investment I've ever made. I'm my own boss, I'm my own man, and I just love what I do."
Watch Australian Story's If You Build It on ABC iview and Youtube.
