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The Adelaide Festival of Arts and Womadelaide
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The
Adelaide Festival of Arts
, which takes over the city for three weeks at the beginning of March in even-numbered years, is a huge event, attracting an extraordinary range of international and Australian theatre companies, performers, musicians, writers and artists. Around the main festival has grown an avant-garde and experimental
Fringe
, which for many is more exciting than the main event. The official festival began in 1960 and since 1973 has been based at the purpose-built
Festival Centre
; there's late-night cabaret here after the evening's events. There are also free outdoor concerts and opera - even films. Other venues around town host
Artists' Week
, exploring the visual arts, and a small
film festival
.
Writers' Week
, the free literary festival, is held under marquees in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens, across King William Road from Elder Park (
www.adelaidefestival.org.au
).
The Fringe Festival begins with a wild street parade on Rundle Street a week before the mainstream Festival of Arts. Based at the Lion Arts Centre , on the corner of North Terrace and Morphett Street, and at venues all over town, it also unleashes buskers en masse onto Rundle Mall. Twenty-four hour licensing laws are taken advantage of, as the Sydney and Melbourne arts scenes join the locals for some serious partying: late through the hot night the Fringe Club has bands, cabaret and comedy, and there are free outdoor shows and activities ( www.adelaidefringe.com.au ). Advance programmes for both the main and the fringe festival and further information is available from the offices of Tourism South Australia, or from all Bass outlets.
Womadelaide
is an outdoor world music weekend that began in 1992 as part of the Arts Festival. It has now developed its own successful identity, attracts over 30,000 people and is held every alternate (odd-numbered) year to the festival, although organizers are considering making it an annual event. Womadelaide takes place in late February under the trees and night skies of Botanic Park - four stages, two workshop areas, multicultural food stalls and visual arts - and is typically laid back. This is a great event to sample some of Australia's local talent with a broad selection of Aboriginal musicians as well as internationally acclaimed contemporary and traditional artists from around the world. The full weekend (Fri night-Sun night) costs $150, but day and session passes are also available. Bass (tel 13 1246,
www.bass.sa.com.au
) are the official store selling Womad tickets in Adelaide. For advance information check out the websites of Womadelaide (
www.womadelaide.ozemail.com.au
) or Advance Tours and Travel (
www.advancetravel.com.au
). Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Australia,
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