Adelaide Fringe has once again cemented its status as one of the world’s leading arts festivals, generating $105.5 million in expenditure for the state of South Australia – a 40 per cent increase on 2022.
Interstate and international tourism was a massive contributor to the economic impact of the Adelaide Fringe, with new money to the state totaling $84.3 million, a 68 per cent increase from the previous year’s figure.
For the first time, Adelaide Fringe sold one million tickets – becoming the first Australian festival to achieve the milestone.
Adelaide Fringe Director and CEO Heather Croall said a big part of the Fringe’s strategy in making it as successful as possible and supporting artists and venues as best we could with new audiences, was to focus on interstate tourism, which has clearly paid off with more tourists and more tourism dollars to the state than ever before as a result of Fringe.
“Hitting the one million ticket milestone couldn’t have happened without the national awareness of Adelaide Fringe to drive new visitors to South Australia to experience our great festival and state”, Ms Croall said.
Adelaide Fringe saw 45,000 visitors descended on South Australia and Adelaide, with the spend per tourist significantly increasing on the previous year from $2,258 to $3,420 (51 per cent increase on 2022).
The spend per tourist has increased from $607 to $3420 since 2017, attributing to the average stay of Fringe visitors gradually increasing year on year and increased engagement with local businesses such as hotels and restaurants.
Additional economic and tourism outcomes of this year’s Adelaide Fringe include 230,000 visitor bed nights with local, interstate and international visitors and artists utilising South Australian accommodation.
In a local context, one in every two South Aussies are estimated to have attended an Adelaide Fringe event in 2023, signalling massive local love for Australia’s Biggest Arts Festival.
This year’s box office revenue soared to $25.1 million (21 per cent increase on 2022) with $24 million of this paid directly to artists and venues.
Adelaide Fringe receives 4 million in State Government funding each year from the Malinauskas Government, with the recent insights of Fringe’s economic impact report, this indicates a return on investment of $25 for every one dollar of State Government funding. No other festival in South Australia delivers this level of return on funding for the state economy.
In 2023 Fringe generated almost 10,000 direct and indirect jobs as a result of the festival, a 56 per cent increase on the previous year.
BankSA State General Manager, Consumer, David Firth said it is thrilling to have partnered with Adelaide Fringe for the 18th consecutive year.
“As the Principal Partner of Adelaide Fringe we take great pride in championing the event and couldn’t have been more excited for Fringe and South Australia to make history as the first Australian festival ever to sell one million tickets,” Mr Firth said.
“BankSA made it a breeze for people to attend while keeping shows affordable and supporting emerging artists. The new digital BankSA MyFringe Planner helped over $223,000 people plan their Fringe experiences online. Our ever popular 25 percent off ticket offer for cardholders supported over $763,000 worth of ticket sales, and we subsidised tickets to a range of shows by new artists with BankSA Support Act tickets. It was fantastic to see South Australians embrace this year’s Fringe.”
