Police refused to comment on whether the death was suspicious but earlier said it was being investigated by the homicide squad and overseen by Professional Standards Command. A spokeswoman confirmed a post-mortem has been conducted. Spiro Boursine has left behind him a festival on the brink of collapse, a mob of angry creditors and a legacy in Melbourne's party scene that will not be soon forgotten. The 11th-hour venue switch was the latest in two decades of controversy surrounding Earthcore bush doofs, days-long festivals with a hippie vibe, set to a dance music beat that attracted thousands to rural locations. Earthcore has been run since 1993 under a series of different companies, most of which have collapsed. Earthcore festival in 2016. Mr Boursine was known to have clashed with many industry figures over the years due to alleged unpaid debts and not refunding tickets after headline acts didn’t turn up.

Associates described him as a frenetic, flawed and talented impresario who was instrumental in the creation of a global cultural phenomenon. Spiro Boursine. He was also known as the person in the electronic music scene everyone loved to hate. Few of Boursine’s friends or colleagues would speak on the record about him. Rumours flew about him trying to sabotage other festivals and attacking rival organisers under online pseudonyms, though Mr Boursine believed there was a conspiracy against him to cripple his own events. Some said Mr Boursine had received threats in the past year and that there were internet hate sites set up against him, though others claimed he was just as active in online skulduggery.

Boursine’s mother, Christine Boursinos, said though her son had worked “24 hours a day” to organise Earthcore festivals over the years, he had never made any money out of them 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 give all his life to organise whatever he organised. 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 even had a car to drive.”

Mrs Boursinos said hundreds of her son’s friends had visited and left her flowers. She demanded 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. Earthcore in 2001. “They let him die like a dog on the floor.”

The owners of Antique Bar said they could not comment because the matter was under police investigation. Loading Mr Boursine helped create Earthcore after hosting a party for his 21st birthday in the northern 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 next decades into dozens of ever larger events, with attendances topping 10,000 by the early 2000s. It has weathered a slew of controversies over the years but Mr Boursine had always managed to rise from the ashes.

Before his death, not for the first time, Mr Boursine’s business affairs had 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. He blamed that collapse on the sudden dropouts but the acts’ managers claim they cancelled because up-front payments had not been made. Earthcore organiser Spiro Boursine in an undated picture circulated online in late 2008. According to a liquidator's report by Ferrier Hodgson, more than 80 creditors were owed about $700,000 – amid claims the business was trading while insolvent from around July last year. The business' 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 that 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 were reportedly only 16 toilets for several thousand people. In 2001, Earthcore Productions, of which Mr Boursine was a director, had also collapsed owing creditors almost $120,000. Shortly before its failure, the Earthcore website was handed on to another company associated with Mr Boursine, Good Trix. Up to 32 acts did not turn up to the Earthcore festival in 2008. 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 an unprecedented festival phenomenon. By all accounts, he gave tens of thousands of people the time of their lives. Many forged lifelong friendships. Not everyone got what was promised, and not everyone got paid but the show mostly went on. "Spiro created a subculture in Australia that turned in to one of the biggest alternative community followings that I think Australia's got," 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. Organisers posted this week that “the show must go on”, but did not respond to requests for comment.

Boursine had spoken previously 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 hundreds of artists and alternative-thinking volunteers. Spiro Boursine with English producer and DJ Paul Oakenfold. In 2008 he told The Age: "I haven't exactly got a book on how to put on Earthcore 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 out of the ground, will be a nightmare to do. "There is a lot of politics and bitchiness. I cop a lot of attention personally … I've had serious ups and downs – personal stuff, like engagement break-ups and family fall-outs. Any promoter that's been doing it for as long will testify that it is a seriously rough ride."