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Steam rising from dumpling baskets, packed tables across the riverbank and live music carrying through Elder Park, the Lucky Dumpling Market has become one of those unmistakable signs that spring has arrived in Adelaide.
And while OzAsia Festival will take its final bow this year, the food-filled favourite it helped create has confirmed it isn’t going anywhere.
The Lucky Dumpling Market will return alongside OzAsia Festival from October 9 to November 1, bringing 27 food vendors, including 6 new additions and 21 returning favourites, live performances and plenty of food to Elder Park. The new additions will include Shobosho x ShoSho, Noodle Oriental, Prahok, Thirsty Tiger and Toriok.
The market is also sticking around a little longer this year, expanding from two weeks and three weekends to four weekends. After welcoming over 145,000 attendees last year, organisers are also making sure there’s enough food to go around, keeping an eye on which stalls can handle the crowds and swapping out slower vendors so no one misses out.
From where the market began in 2017, when just seven vendors set up as part of a free outdoor space attached to the festival. Now, almost a decade later, it has grown into an event with an identity of its own, and one that will continue beyond OzAsia.
The market is set to return to Elder Park in 2027, with organisers expecting the same location and familiar format, although exactly what partnerships and programming will look like beyond this year is still being worked through
Not everything will stay the same this year, though.
In a Lucky Dumpling Market first, the event will open from midday every Friday, giving city workers a new excuse to stretch their lunch break. Lucky Dumpling Market Event Director Daniel Michael said the idea came from something his own team already loves doing at the end of the working week.
“We thought we’d offer Friday lunch so people, work groups in particular, can come down and enjoy a meal.”
Also making its Lucky Dumpling Market debut is Pitch Karaoke, Adelaide’s private pop-up karaoke bar, bringing plenty of energy and passion to the event.
Daniel said it was sad to farewell a festival the team had worked so closely alongside for almost a decade.
“We loved working with them … we are an organisation that has grown out of the Adelaide Fringe, so an arts festival is a place we’re really comfortable being in.”
Lucky Dumpling Market’s growth since those early days has been huge, and the proof is in the pudding (or dumplings). Everything from the number of food stalls to the crowds arriving before the gates even open.
“Over time people got more and more excited about it and it’s been a gathering space for people. We’ve seen on opening night, for example, we’ll open the gates and there’ll be hundreds of people waiting for us to open.”
Keeping that mix fresh is part of the challenge each year, with organisers balancing returning favourites with new vendors. Food, Daniel believes, has also become an increasingly important part of the way people choose to socialise.
With younger generations drinking less and looking for different ways to spend time together, shared food experiences have become an easy meeting point for groups of friends, families and colleagues.
Entertainment will remain a major part of the experience too, with organisers planning to continue involving local cultural and community groups on the Lucky Dumpling Market stage beyond OzAsia. Australian alternative rock favourites Regurgitator will be among the major acts performing at Lucky Dumpling Market, taking to the OzAsia Festival Stage on Friday, October 16.
And although Daniel is disappointed to see OzAsia end, he believes the arts and the shared experiences festivals create remain vital to Adelaide. Without music, performances, cinema, festivals and other forms of creative expression, he said, “you’d end up with a boring cultural wasteland”.
So while Adelaide will be saying goodbye to OzAsia this spring, there’s no need to farewell the dumplings just yet.
Lucky Dumpling Market 2026
Where: Elder Park, Adelaide
Date: October 9 – November 1 2026
Time: 4.30pm Tuesday – Thursday, 12pm Friday – Sunday
Cost: Free entry
