The Aquarius Festival was a counter-cultural arts and music festival organised by the Australian Union of Students and sponsored by Peter Stuyvesant. The first festival was held in Canberra in 1971, while the second, and last, was held in Nimbin, New South Wales in 1973.

The Aquarius Festival aimed to celebrate alternative thinking and sustainable lifestyles. The ten day event was held from 12 to 23 May 1973 and co-directed by Johnny Allen and Graeme Dunstan. Vernon Treweeke also played a part in organising the event. It is often described as Australia’s equivalent to the Woodstock Festival and the birthplace for Australia’s hippie movement.
The festival had a permanent effect on the economy of Nimbin, as many Festival participants decided to remain in the district The area was previously a dairying and banana growing region in severe decline. Some of those that stayed might self-describe as hippies, but the larger mass came from all sorts of backgrounds and life experience, ranging from 18 to 80, and would resent that label.

One group pooled resources after the Nimbin Aquarius Festival and bought a then 1,200-acre (4.9 km2) property at Tuntable Falls in the next valley east, below Mount Nardi, and formed a community called the “Co-Ordination Co-Operative”. Other groups followed suit and formed communes that continue today. Examples include Paradise Valley Pastoral Company and Nmbngee.

While “Multiple Occupancy” was basically a cheap housing alternative, there were some self-described spiritual communities that shared particular values, like Bodhi Farm and Darmananda, but they tended to be closer to the neighbouring The Channon and Terania Creek than Nimbin.

Mullumbimby and Byron Bay attracted more of the moneyed “New Age” people, while Nimbin attracted impecunious wanderers and back-packers. Within a decade the “Aquarians” were outnumbered by the continuing flow of disaffected urbanites and tree-changers coming into the area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarius_Festival