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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-26 Daily Xml
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ADELAIDE FESTIVALS

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (15:38): My question is to the Minister for the Arts. Will the minister update the house about the economic impact of South Australia's festivals?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:39): I thank the member for Reynell for her question and I acknowledge her very strong interest in arts festivals. I am very pleased to advise the house that the economic impact of three of South Australia's major festivals has topped $74 million in 2012, and each of them recorded an increase compared to the previous year.

The Adelaide Festival generated an estimated $14.7 million of visitor economic expenditure and a total box office income of more than $3 million. It attracted 13,950 interstate and overseas visitors, slightly more than the previous Festival in 2010. The Adelaide Fringe had an economic impact of $48.2 million, based on ticket sales, overall attendances, food and beverage consumption, transportation and accommodation. There were an estimated 1.59 million Fringe event attendances. That is up 10 per cent on 2011. They generated about $9 million in ticket sales. Hotel bed nights were up 10 per cent too on 2011, to 44,000.

WOMAD attracted nearly 50 per cent of its 87,500 attendances from interstate and generated an economic benefit to the state of $11.1 million in 2012. It also generated the equivalent of 137 full-time jobs. This year's Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which finished last Saturday night, claimed the highest box office income in the event's 12-year history, smashing the previous year's record by 12 per cent.

All those festivals have done very well. At Cabaret there were more than 30 sold-out performances this year, and the event reached its targeted total box office income. The line-up included 110 international artists and 194 Australian, and that included 110 South Australians. These, I think, are outstanding results and demonstrate the importance that festivals play in our economy and how successful we are in South Australia, and in Adelaide in particular, at running festivals. This is to do, I guess, with the geography, our culture, our size and the expertise that we now have here.

That program of festivals, of course, will continue. The South Australian Living Arts Festival will be held from 3 to 26 August, and the program for this free event, which celebrates and promotes the diverse talents of our local artists in a whole range of places across the metropolitan and regional areas, will be distributed on 7 July. The Guitar Festival will be mounted from 9 to 12 August, and tomorrow night the Premier will launch the program for the 2012 OzAsia Festival, which will go from 14 to 30 September. This year the OzAsia Festival will focus on the cultural diversity of India.

All these festivals are obviously good for the vibrancy of our city. They are good for a whole range of artistic reasons, but importantly they are great for our local economy. I would like to thank in particular not only those who run the festivals but the support that we get, and they get, from the corporate sector, which has supported all these festivals very well.

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