Instead, Martin Mahoney has been ordered to 100 hours community service as part of a community corrections order.

The 37-year-old faced the County Court on Wednesday for sentencing after being caught with a car full of drugs at a service station at Warrenheip in 2018.

The former Melbourne 'glamping' business operator was found with 122 grams of cocaine, 13.7 grams of MDMA, 78.9 grams of Ketamine, 40 milligrams of LSD, 18.3 grams of tetrahydrocannabinol and $10,705 cash stored in his twin-cab utility.

Festival organisers had contracted Mahoney to provide tents during the five-day festival, which attracted more than 14,000 people in 2018.

In sentencing, Judge Phillip Coish ordered Mahoney spend 69 days in prison, which he had already served two years ago.

Judge Coish said had it not been for Mahoney's actions since his arrest and his early guilty plea, there would have been definitive jail time.

Mahoney has since left the festival industry, gained employment on the Metro Tunnel project in Melbourne and completed voluntary community work.

As a result of his job in the tunnel, he is earning between $200,000 and $250,000 per year, the court heard.

Had Mahoney not plead guilty, he would have been jailed for more than four years, according to the judge.

"You have excellent prospects of ongoing rehabilitation, I also accept that a return to prison will have a detrimental effect on your ongoing rehabilitation," the judge said.

Judge Coish said he had also factored in Mahoney's mother's evidence in sentencing.

"She confirmed the traumatic impact your time in custody had upon you," he said.

"She described the manner in which you had matured and returned to something like what she described as your old self (since being released from custody).

"It is only now you are emerging as the man she hoped you would be, as you are starting to act your age."

The Rainbow Serpent Festival is known for drug-related incidents in recent years, including deaths, drug-driving, drug trafficking and sexual assaults.

A reveller died in 2012 while another lost his life in 2017 from drug-related causes.

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