When thousands of rock fans came to Moore Park in Sydney on January 25th, 1992, to see Nirvana, nobody of them could have guessed that the Big Day Out would develop into the biggest into the biggest festival tour on the southern hemisphere. Because nobody had anticipated the pretensions of Vivian Lees and Ken West. When they tried to promote their first concert with the band Hunters & Collectors, they even landed in jail for sticking posters at a catholic church.  Eleven years later, during their liaison with Nirvana, they benefited from the rising star of Kurt Cobain, Chris Novoselic and Dave Grohl.

After a successful premiere, they expanded. In 1993, over 40.000 people came to the shows in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne. A year later, they Australian Gold Coast and the New Zealand Auckland were added to the tour. Despite an compulsory break in 1998, a music scene in Australia and New Zealand without Big Day Out is nowadays not imaginable. According to the official homepage of Big Day Out, 290.000 people came to the six festivals in 2008.

However, catastrophes can happen everywhere: In 2001, the 15-year-old Jessica Michalik was crushed to death in front of the stage by the crowd during the performance of Limp Bizkit in Sydney.