Your Ultimate Guide to Adelaide's Festival Season

• Experience fine dining, with a unique Aussie twist
• Celebrate the festival’s birthday at a huge free concert
• Laugh until your stomach hurts with $10 comedy sessions at the Fringe

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL

The main festival that surrounds all the other festivals, get your culture hit and see some of the best artists and musicians in Aus over three weeks of incredible, immersive experiences.

South Australian Tourism Commission

• Adelaide Festival’s 60^th Birthday Concert, 29 February

Rally your crew for a picnic and a free show courtesy of legend Tim Minchin! Bring a picnic rug and plenty of snacks to keep even the hangriest person laughing along to a hilarious night of music. This is a booze-free event, so keep your drinking to the hostel so you don’t lose your tinnies.

• A Doll’s House, 28 February – 15 March

Australia’s public art elder, John Kaldor, has been forming stunning interactive artworks for decades, and he does not disappoint with this custom made doll house. If you’ve ever dreamed of a life-sized dolls house, make sure to head to Rundle Mall to wonder in awe at this strange and surreal home.

• Adelaide//International, 28 February – 15 March

Immerse yourself in this exploration of how architecture shapes our experience throughout this cluster of exhibitions. You’ll find yourself caught up in the smells of the bush exploring Somewhere Other while you explore mysterious passages and discover unexpected views along the way in Olympia.

FRINGE FESTIVAL

The funky sister to the main event, fringe is where you’ll find up-and-coming artists, cheap as chips tickets, and everything strange, magical and wonderful.

South Australian Tourism Commission

• De'GOON'station Dinner, 13 March

Truly a staple of the Australian diet, goon has been a companion in the best of times and the worst of times. Get boozy in the Tea Tree Gully Library with a ‘low-rent’ degustation dinner for just $35, with multiple courses of classic Aussie food paired with the perfect goon to match. 

• Luminarium: Daedalum

Missed the Dodecalis Lumarium in Sydney Festival? Experience Adelaide’s answer! The incredible inflatable dome will transport you to a place where time and colours shift and change meaning the longer you spend inside. Running the duration of the festival, the Luminarium is the perfect way to fill some spare time for a truly immersive experience. 

• 80 Days: A Real World Adventure

A fully immersive and interactive race against time across the city, 80 Days gives you 80 minutes to solve puzzles, meet strange and exciting character, and race to meet the train before it departs with the final solution to the puzzle! You can play alone or with a group to follow the clues left across the Adelaide Rundle Mall with only your phone and a sense of adventure to guide you.

If you have an ISIC Card or a student card, you’ll get discounted tickets at this event, so make sure to have some ID on you to save that $$$ for a bevvy later!

WRITER’S WEEK

Just in case two festivals running at the same time wasn’t enough to fill your schedule, the Adelaide Writer’s Week runs from 29 February – 5 March with some of the best writers in the country offering free activities across the city!

• Festival Forums, 2-6 March and 10-13 March, join commentator and journalist David Marr interview a new artist each day at the festival lunch hour, all for free! 
• Being Human, 5 March. This free panel discusses the theme of the week. What makes us so uniquely human, and why is that important? The closing address of the festival, it’s guaranteed to leave you with plenty to ponder!
• Chernobyl: A History of Tragedy, 29 February. Ukrainian author Serhii Plokhy gives even more depth to the Chernobyl disaster. If you were left wanting more after binge-watching the docuseries last year, make sure to stop by to hear from this incredible speaker
• Authorial Voice with Benjamin Law, 2 & 4 March. Part of the Twilight Talks, held every evening of the festival, warm and hilariously engaging author Ben Law has convinced a crew of writers to join him on the couch to chat life, the universe and everything. This is guaranteed to be unpredictable, so be ready for anything!

WOMADELAIDE

Arts Project Australia 

If you haven’t heard of WOMADelaide, where have you been?! This iconic festival has a great line-up, as always, celebrating music arts and dance. Catch Aldous Harding, Briggs, Odette, Kate Miller-Heidke and so many more stunning acts over four stunning, inspiring days, and just a short trip from our Adelaide Central YHA.

Get ahead of the crowds and call first dibs on the best beds for the festival at our Adelaide Central YHA.

 Image Credits: SATC, Arts Project Australia