As an avid lover of our beautiful city, I love seeing Adelaide get recognised as the fantastic place it is. Everyone living here already knows it, but sometimes our distant neighbours across the country can take a while to catch on. As one of the world’s most liveable cities, South Australia’s capital is home to world-famous wine regions, award-winning restaurants, stunning natural wonders, and now, the coolest thing to do in all of Australia, according to Time Out magazine.
The Australian magazine has unveiled a list of their top 10 coolest things to do in Australia, and most readers can probably already pick which annual Adelaide event took home the top spot.
You guessed it: the Adelaide Fringe is the coolest thing to do in Australia. As travel and news editor Melissa Woodley puts it, “March is a magical time to be in Adelaide”, and we couldn’t agree more. Anticipation for the month-long fiesta is already growing feverishly around the streets of Adelaide, as more and more posters begin lining the walls of venues and pinboards around town.
Kicking off in just over a month, the Fringe is set to captivate audiences from February 21st to March 23rd. With over 1300 shows of comedy, theatre, music, cabaret visual arts, and interactive experiences to choose from, the festival is certain to once again prove itself as one of, if not the highlight of our cultural calendar, offering unique experiences in 500 venues throughout the city.
In response to this listing, Heather Croall, Director & Chief Executive at Adelaide Fringe, said “Everyone who lives in Adelaide has known it’s the coolest thing to do for a long time, so it’s fantastic to see interstates and overseas people recognising Fringe as one of the coolest destination festivals to have on their bucket list. In the last 12 months, we’ve been seeing more and more publications around the world and interstate listing the Fringe as a must-do experience.”
In the past decade, the Fringe has made significant advances in boosting its profile interstate and overseas, leading to a remarkable growth in tickets purchased by tourists. Ten years ago, the number of tourists coming to Adelaide for the Fringe hovered around 15,000, with many only staying one night and attending just one or two shows. But in 2024, over 300,000 tickets were purchased by around 50,000 tourists, contributing to a record-setting year of ticket sales for the Fringe.
As more tourists attend more shows and extend their stays, the festival continues to grow in popularity and renown, and interstate and overseas press are taking notice.
“It’s so exciting”, continued Croall. “People are saying ‘What is this amazing festival? Put it on your bucket list‘. There’s no other festival in Australia that transforms their entire city, suburbs and regions beyond for an entire month with 8000 artists and over a thousand shows. The only thing we can compare ourselves to is the Edinburgh fringe”.
“We strive to be the most inclusive festival in the world, where everyone can find something for them. We know that everyone in Adelaide knows about it, but it’s wonderful to see exponential growth in the number of tourists coming over the last decade. It’s really important to acknowledge the massive role of tourists in hitting a million ticket sales. They have a huge impact on the artists and venues, putting bums on seats at the shows. And hopefully, they’ll keep spreading the word.”
With a staple of South Australian culture in pole position, Time Out’s list also included activities like trekking around Hill Inlet in the Whitsundays, seeing the Wintjiri Wiru light show at Uluru, snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef, and visiting the Museum of New and Old Art (MONA) in Hobart.
It’s wonderful to see the headline event of Adelaide’s Mad March period recognised alongside these fantastic experiences, but like Heather Croall mentioned, anyone who’s ever been to the Fringe would’ve seen this honour coming.
As the second-largest annual arts festival in the world – the largest in the Southern Hemisphere – the Adelaide Fringe is an enormous open platform for expression and excitement, bringing thousands upon thousands of performing artists to South Australia. We can’t wait for the gates of the Adelaide Fringe to swing open into an ever-evolving world of action.
WHAT: The Adelaide Fringe: Australia’s no. 1 coolest thing
WHEN: February 21st to March 23rd
WHERE: 500 venues across Adelaide
For more information, click here.
