John Pinder (comedy producer)

John Pinder (6 January 1945 – 26 May 2015) was a New Zealand-born Australian comedy producer and festival director who produced band performances, ran live venues and co-founded three Australian comedy festivals, including Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Circus Oz.

Pinder was born in Timaru on the South Island of New Zealand and raised 80 kilometres (50 mi) further south in Oamaru, North Otago. His greatest influences while growing up were the circus and comedy. Pinder lived next door to a "circus lot" as a child, where Bullens Circus and Ashtons Circus regularly performed. Although his household didn’t have a television set, they used to sit down to listen to the radio as a family; when The Goon Show began being broadcast in New Zealand as Pinder hit puberty, he was the perfect age to enjoy the new form of comedy that his parents loathed. His subsequent career has included a great deal of work with comedians and circus performers.

During the late 1960s Pinder was a partner in a band management company called Let It Be – inspired by the Beatles' song of the same name. This "rather hippie-esque business", as Pinder referred to it, managed Australian bands like Daddy Cool and Spectrum. His role was largely producing live shows, which led to the establishment of the T. F. Much Ballroom as a live venue. It was so successful that it established a brand that was taken on the road as The T. F. Much Rock Circus, touring with Ashtons Circus as part of the Aquarius Festival in Canberra.

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