Known throughout the industry as "Chuggie," manager and concert promoter Michael Chugg has been a leading figure in the Australian music industry for more than 25 years. He has promoted some of the biggest concert tours in Australia and New Zealand, but he is also a tireless promoter of Australian music to the rest of the world.

Chugg's career in the music industry began in Tasmania, where he ran dances and managed acts. The first gig he organised was for his cycling club in Launceston, at the age of 15.

"... we ran a rock dance at the Trades Hall in Launceston. And it was a huge success. We had about 300 people there. And we made £80. Which in those days was just incredible ... Mind you, it was the last 80 quid I saw for a few years.

Chugg moved to Melbourne in the late 60s where he scored a job with Consolidated Rock Agency, run by budding Melbourne entrepreneur Michael Gudinski and his partner Michael Browning. In 1972 Chugg was one of the main organisers of the now-legendary Sunbury Rock Festival.

"My first job was poster boy for Browning & Gudinsksi's Consolidated Rock Agency. I ended up being sent to Sydney to open an office there. They started a newspaper, the Daily Planet, which sent the business broke. I opened a new agency, Sunrise, with Roger Davies in 1971. It became the first national agency when we brought in Let It Be, a Melbourne company that handled Daddy Cool and Spectrum. Through this, I formed a relationship with [Let It Be owner] Phillip Jacobsen, and when Roger left in 1975 to start a very successful career in the U.S., Phillip Jacobsen and I joined Gudinski's agency, Premier Artists, in 1977. We opened The Harbour Agency in 1976. At the same time I was managing acts and a director of the agencies, I was a freelance tour coordinator with (Paul) Dainty from 1972-80 and did all the big tours. From 1977-80 I spent a lot of time overseas with my management acts, Kevin Borich and Richard Clapton.

"In 1978 or 79, Kevin took me to the Lyceum in London to see a new band - The Police. I was blown away, and back in Australia, I suggested we tour all these new U.K. acts that Dainty didn't want to know. At the same time, Gudinski came back from the U.K. He had signed the publishing of 90 percent of the punk explosion and we decided to start a touring company. We borrowed Ian Copeland's name, Frontier, and The Frontier Touring Company was born. Our first two tours were Ian's flagship acts -- Squeeze and The Police."

In 1983, Chugg had success internationally with The Church and The Sunnyboys, but he decided to give up management to concentrate on Frontier. While general manager of Frontier Touring Chugg organised and promoted more than 135 of the biggest international tours of the last twenty years including The Police, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr, R.E.M., Bon Jovi, Kylie Minogue, Elton John, Billy Joel, Madonna's "Girlie" tour, Vans Warped Tour, Sting, John Fogerty, Guns 'N Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Garbage, KISS, Pearl Jam, Tom Jones and The Cure -- . In 1997, he produced the first Pacific Circle Music Convention, now named Australian Music Week.

Chuggie also has for many years donated his time and talents to many charitable events and has raised more than $20 million for charity. He is a board member of the Prince Of Wales Children's Foundation and the New South Wales Arts Council Advisory Board. He is also a 12-year veteran and Trustee of the music industry charity, the Golden Stave Foundation, with which he has helped raise $2 million for the Paraquad Association, the Camperdown Children's Hospital, The Shepard Centre, Nordoff-Robins and the Starlight Foundation. Among the many benefit events his name has been associated with are Ash Wednesday Bushfire Appeal (1983), Rock The Way To L.A Olympic Appeal (1983), Australian coordinator for Bob Geldof's Live Aid concert (1985), Newcastle Earthquake Appeal concert raising $941,000 (1990), Turn Back The Tide concert - to save Bondi Beach (1998), The National Drug Offensive Concerts, and The Odyssey House Drug Rehab Program.

In 1992, along with actors Brian Brown, Rachel Ward and Doug Mulray, Chugg organized 'Bush Bash' for the Sydney City Mission, raising half a million dollars. In 1994, he coordinated the Bushfire concert at Sydney Football Stadium, featuring Sting, Bryan Adams and Jimmy Barnes, that raised $700,000 for Ian Kiernan's Clean Up Australia, The National Parks & Wildlife Foundation, and the Community Disaster Relief Fund. That was followed by the 1996 Crowded House 'Farewell to the World' Concert on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House, which raised over $500,000 for the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick and which was the biggest free concert ever held in Sydney, with over 300,000 people. His charitable work led to him being honoured with an Order of Australia in 1998 and he was named Australian 'Father of the Year'.

In 1999, after 25 years with the company he co-founded, Chugg was finding Frontier an increasingly difficult place to work. Gudinski's attention was elsewhere, focussed on his numerous other business ventures and (as it turned out) the imminent sale of his controlling share of Mushroom Records to News Ltd. Chugg was apparently also finding it increasingly difficult to work with his other partner, Phil Jacobsen, so he decided to leave Frontier and go out his own.

"Frontier Touring was a very proud time in my life. Myself, Michael Gudinkski and Philip Jacobsen built that company to be the biggest company in Australia and New Zealand. I think the last couple of years, the company was losing focus on what was going on. I felt we weren't keeping up with technology. Also, I felt we weren't doing enough with young acts and building a client base like we had done back in the early '80s with acts like The Police, Bon Jovi, Bob Dylan, Bryan Adams, and we weren't really getting on top of the new breed of acts. I was getting frustrated with that and thought I'd like to give it a try on my own, which I did and started Michael Chugg Entertainment."

After leaving Frontier Chugg founded Michael Chugg Entertainment. Initially it had backing from the Packer family's Consolidated Press Entertainment, but according to Stuart Coupe this arrangement was terminated because of CPE's unwillingness to back some of the tours Chugg was promoting, notably their refusal to back Bob Dylan's acclaimed 2001 tour.

In 2000 Chugg was co-producer of the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Paralympic Games in Sydney. He was named International Promoter of the Year, 1997, by Performance magazine readers, and Promoter of the Year 2000 by Pollstar. MCE also manages Billy Thorpe and Eskimo Joe. In 2001 Chugg was instrumental in organising the "Gimme Ted" bebfit concerts in Sydney, which raised a great deal of money for the late Ted Mulry and his family. In 2002, with Kevin Jacobsen, he co-promoted the hugely successful 'Long Way To The Top' concert tour featuring many top Australian acts of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.

"'Long Way To The Top' is, for me, is probably the most exciting thing I've ever done. Because I've taken all the heroes from my youth in this industry and we're touring Australia to 140,000 people. I've got to tell you, watching these 40 to 60-year-olds having the time of their lives is just so rewarding."

Chugg is one of five major Australian promoters whose careers are examined in Stuart Coupe's 2003 book The Promoters. An extract from the book concerning Chugg's battle with the Packer family can be read

Footnote
One particularly interesting comment from Cohen and Grossweiner's interview with Chugg was his anxiety over what he described as "radio's demographic-driven narrow programming":

"SFX/Clear Channel Entertainment's monopolization of American music is terrifying and as an outsider looking in with a lot of close friends in the business -- my knowledge of which is pretty good -- is doing a lot of damage to the American music scene and I hope it's kept out of our part of the world."