Adelaide Fringe: A History

Meeting outside the ornate gates of Government House, we wonder about the connection between this grand building and the always-alternative image of Adelaide Fringe. Katina, our guide, explains how it was the site of one of the first information booths for the festival, then called the Focus Festival in 1976.

The group on the walking tour is made up of locals and interstate visitors, eager to understand where this enormous festival has come from. There is much debate on the current shape, size, and future of the festival that has many size-related taglines: the largest arts festival in the southern hemisphere, the second largest in the world, the first festival in Australia to sell a million tickets in a year.

Yet Katina tells us that it originated as a reaction to the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, to which artists from all over the world were invited, but not those who lived locally. She explains how when a local playwright’s work was rejected by the Arts Festival, the university’s Theatre Guild staged it, and the surrounding publicity helped to grow the Fringe.

The tour takes us through some key locations of Adelaide Fringe history: we see old posters (from Pro Hart and others), admire huge street art, and navigate the tremendous volume of people who are in town for this massive event. Even for someone that’s lived a lot of Fringe, Katina is a wealth of new information and great stories. Her enthusiasm and love of the event is infectious – and she’s inclusive too, conversing with everyone between stops.

We end the walking tour at the entrances to the two largest Fringe hubs – for many, these invasions of the Adelaide Parklands are the Fringe, but Katina is at pains to explain that this is such a small part of the event, and encourages us to explore smaller shows, at even smaller venues, and take a risk – to push ourselves to our fringe.

Review by Mark Wickett

To check out our round-up of Adelaide Fringe reviews, click here.