What happened to Earthcore founder Spiro Boursine?

Spiro Boursine has a lot of fun on the brink of collapse, a mob of angry creditors and a legacy in Melbourne's party scene that will not be forgotten.

The 11th-hour comedy was the latest in two decades of controversial Earthcore bush doofs, days-long festivals with a hippie vibe, set to a dance music beat that attracted to rural rentals. Earthcore has been run since 1993, most of which have collapsed.

Mr Boursine has been known to have not paid for it and has not paid for it.

Associates described him as a frenetic, flawed and talented impresario who was instrumental in the creation of a global cultural phenomenon.

He was also known in the electronic music scene everyone loved to hate. Few of Boursine's friends or colleagues would speak on the record about him.

Rumors flew about it to sabotage other festivals and attacking rival organizers under online pseudonyms, though Mr Boursine believed there was a conspiracy against him to cripple his own events.

Some said Mr Boursine had been made aware of the fact that they had been online.

Boursine's mother, Christine Boursinos, said though her had worked 24 hours a day to organize Earthcore festivals over the years, he had never made any money and was living with her at the time of his death.

"He wants to make everything for anyone else. He never makes any money, he never married, he gives all his life to organize whatever he organizes. In the end he had so many enemies, so many jealous people, and they push him to the edge.

"He's got a lot of jealousy … like he was a millionaire. He was always in debt.

"He's a lovely boy … he's not a violent person.

"He sleeps here, next to my room. I give him breakfast. He never had a car to drive. "

Mrs Boursinos said hundreds of her friends had visited and left her flowers.

She asked for a full investigation into his death, saying an ambulance should have been called earlier.

"Why did they let him die on the floor in that place? He was only 45 years old.

"They let him die like a dog on the floor."

The owners of the Antique Bar said they could not care about the matter.

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Boursine helped create Earthcore after hosting a party for his 21st birthday Victorian bush in 1993 featuring psytrance, a new style of electronic music created by DJs in the hippie mecca of Goa, India.

The party was a hit, and Earthcore expanded over the coming decades, with expectations topping 10,000 by the early 2000s.

It was weathered with controversies over the years but Mr Boursin had always managed to rise from the ashes.

Before his death, Mr. Boursine's business affairs had been spun out of control.

Mr Boursine's company Yellow Sunshine Pty Limited was wound up in December last year, just a month after he was forced to cancel Earthcore events in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia after more than a dozen international acts withdrew.

It blamed that collapse on the sudden.

According to a liquidator's report by Ferrier Hodgson, more than 80 creditors were owed about $ 700,000 – last month's claims. The business's two bank accounts were overdrawn by almost $ 90,000. The story was a familiar one to those who'd had earlier dealings with Mr Boursine.

In 2011 The Age Reported after the wash-up of a shambolic Earthcore in 2008, Mr. Boursine's various companies had run up debts of more than $ 1 million. A photo widely circulated around the time of the debacle showed him bloodied and battered, his right eye welded shut by a monster shiner.

Up to 32 international artists did not turn up, claiming non-payment. There have been reportedly only 16 toilets for several thousand people.

In 2001, Earthcore Productions, of which Mr Boursin was a director, had also collapsed owing creditors almost $ 120,000. Shortly before its failure, the Earthcore website has been handed over to Mr Boursine, Good Trix.

Good Trix lasted until 2007, when it went into administration owing creditors about $ 832,000. One creditor folded in August 2008 owing $ 180,000 – including $ 105,000 claimed by Mr Boursine as director 's fees and loans.

The Earthcore brand went into a five-year hiatus until the event's 20th anniversary in 2013.

Bad debts aside, Mr Boursine was instrumental in creating a unprecedented festival phenomenon. By all accounts, he gives you time of their lives. Many forged lifelong friendships. Not everyone got it done, and not everyone got paid but the show mostly went on.

"Spiro created a subculture in Australia that got closer to him," close friend and former Earthcore general manager Gary "Binaural" Neal said this week.

"It created dance, it created fashion … it became a lifestyle for many, many people."

The fate of this year's event, slated to be held November 22 to 25, is unknown. Organizers posted this week that "the show must go on", but did not respond to requests for comment.

Boursin had been previously treated of the stresses of his line of work. Few events make it beyond the first year or two and it takes a certain amount of hustle to corral of artists and alternative-thinking volunteers.

In 2008 he told The Age: "I have not exactly got a book on how to get on Earth in my brain – or what's left of my brain … Any festival that goes for multi days in the middle of nowhere, where you need to create a city of the ground, will be a nightmare to do.

"There is a lot of politics and bitchiness." I've had a lot of attention and I've had serious ups and downs – personal stuff, like commitment to break-ups and family fall-outs. will testify that it is a seriously rough ride. "