Charles Touber

{{Short description|Australian businessman and tour promoter}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

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,[http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/tas/content/2003/s1004532.htm Falls Festival], Stateline Tasmania (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 5 December 2003. as well as the Southern Roots Festival in Hobart in 2007.Glaetzer, Sally: [http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2008/12/19/45205_tasmania-news.html Dollar threat to festival], The Mercury, 19 December 2008.

Touber was a candidate for the Australian Senate in the 1996 Australian federal election, but did not win a seat.Carr, Adam: [http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/1996/1996senatetas.txt COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA: LEGISLATIVE ELECTION OF 2 MARCH 1996], Psephos, 1996.

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.[http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s150361.htm One-hit-wonder band reforms after 25 years] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170725073505/http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s150361.htm |date=2017-07-25 }}, The 7.30 Report (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 10 July 2000.

In more recent years Touber has acted as a music promoter. 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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2008/12/19/45205_tasmania-news.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=4 February 2010 |archive-date=14 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514201351/http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2008/12/19/45205_tasmania-news.html |url-status=dead }} 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.http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/04/02/64971_music.html{{Dead link|date=November 2023}}

In 2011 Touber was appointed promoter of the cancelled 2012 MSFest, a fundraiser run for the MS Society of Tasmania in 2006, which had previously been funded and operated by promotions company Opcon from 2007 to 2011 delivering sellout events, and which at its peak had attracted an audience of 13,000.http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/09/14/261185_music.html{{Dead link|date=November 2023}} After the MS Society Of Tasmania's refusal to enter into a reasonable licensing agreement with its operating partner Opcon, Touber took over the event operation while the charity took up the funding and a new festival was established in Hobart under the MSFest brand. Despite best efforts there was no recovery for the event, which struggled to attract a satisfactory lineup along with the success of Opcon's rebranded Breath Of Life festival in Launceston. On 28 February 2012 - four days before the event - it was announced the MSFest 2012 was unviable, and was cancelled by the MS Society board with the charity accruing huge financial loses.https://www.facebook.com/MSFestTasmania {{User-generated source|certain=yes|date=March 2022}}