Adelaide Fringe and Adelaide Festival

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for the Arts. Can the minister provide a summary of the outcomes of the Adelaide Fringe and the Adelaide Festival?

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (14:44): I want to thank the member for Adelaide for her question. It was wonderful seeing her out and about at both Fringe and Festival events over the last four weeks, really. It's fantastic to have the member for Adelaide be so supportive of the arts community not only in her local electorate but more broadly as well.

We did see a fantastic result. We saw South Australians as well as visitors from interstate and overseas come out in droves to support our festival season. I know, with the member for Adelaide, we both were encouraging our constituents to go to our local Fringe, Prospect Fringe, which had over 25 shows and events showcased at local venues around Prospect, which our electorates border on, so it was fantastic to have that so close to home for our constituents.

The Malinauskas government was very proud to fulfil another election commitment by providing an additional $2 million per year to the Adelaide Fringe to help it grow its impact. We know the Fringe is globally known and well regarded as the second-largest arts festival in the world, second only to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We made this commitment to enable the Fringe to effectively market itself interstate and overseas, and significant work was done along the eastern seaboard this year. That did result in bringing many more visitors here to South Australia, spending up big in our local venues, hospitality, hotels, etc.

I am proud to report that the investment has reflected overall in the wonderful ticket sales for the Adelaide Fringe. The Fringe sold 1,000,916 tickets, and the one-millionth ticket was sold on the last Sunday night at 10.01pm, which was an extraordinary effort. That resulted in a total box office value of $25.17 million, and about 30 per cent of those tickets were purchased by interstate buyers, so about 305,000 tickets purchased by about 45,000 visitors into the state.

Not only did that smash the Fringe's previous record that was set in 2020, it made the Fringe Festival the first-ever festival in Australia, I am advised, to ever sell over one million tickets, which is an incredible achievement for the Fringe and an almost 18 per cent increase on the 2020 record year as well. It's an extraordinary win for our state and an incredible achievement for all of those involved. Importantly, as an open access festival, it's money in the pockets of our artists and our venue owners, which is so critically important in getting over COVID.

Figures like this come as no surprise when you look at the world-class Fringe program. We had over 500 venues across the state, showcasing comedy, cabaret, theatre, circus and visual arts. There was something for everyone in this year's Fringe. We also had the showstopping headliner Electric Skies, which was partly funded by our additional investment, which was fantastically supported by Electric Fields in creating a soundtrack for it. My deep congratulations to Heather Croall and the Fringe board and the entire team on an amazing 2023 festival.

But we also had the exciting Adelaide Festival, which welcomed 893 artists from 18 countries for both ticketed and free events. It exceeded its box office target, hitting more than $5.9 million, with more than 85,000 tickets sold, which was an incredible achievement for them as well—242,000 ticketed attendances and non-ticketed attendances across the festival, which is extraordinary. We had Messa da Requiem. We had the fantastic Spinifex Gum at Elder Park, a great, free outdoor event. We had Lorde's performance at the Entertainment Centre last Thursday. There were incredible performances throughout the festival.

I also want to congratulate Judy Potter, Kath Mainland, Ruth Mackenzie and the Adelaide Festival team on an incredible 2023 Adelaide Festival.