Unconventional and Unmissable Delights During Adelaide Fringe
The largest annual arts event in the Southern Hemisphere is back with a whopping lineup for 2024.
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Loading up the end of summer with eclectic fun comes easy with the next instalment of Adelaide Fringe. Over the last 60-plus years, the much-loved event has continuously grown to encompass hundreds of venues across the state. The 2024 edition will host over 1300 shows featuring the best arts, comedy, theatre, circus and cabaret talent.
Recognised as the largest annual arts event in the southern hemisphere — and the second-largest in the world after the Edinburgh Fringe — the festival has an open-access format, which means the artists, curators, and venues determine the program themselves. This welcoming approach guarantees an even more experimental lineup of weird and wonderful events.
Running from Friday, February 16 to Sunday, March 17, this extravaganza will see thousands of local and international artists flock to South Australia. Sound good? Here are eight unmissable events so you can start planning.
INFLATABLE CHURCH
Sure, getting married or renewing your vows beneath a historic church steeple is bound to make your grandparents happy. But if you're partial to the unconventional or even a little extreme, confessing your everlasting love through "unholy matrimony" might just be the best way to mark your special day.
Enter the Inflatable Church: a bouncing chapel featuring an irreverent vicar ready to lead the vows, speeches, ring exchange and dance-offs. Not sure what to wear? You'll find over 300 outfits for the bride, groom and the wedding party, ensuring everyone in your unruly congregation looks the part.
PRISON BREAK
The best escape rooms do an incredible job of immersing players in the puzzle. It only improves when first-rate storytelling and cryptic clues blend with an authentic setting — where not-so-fictional tales are embedded in the walls. This merging makes Prison Break a captivating event at Adelaide Fringe.
Amid the historic cells of the Migration Museum, you'll have 45 minutes to escape a life sentence in prison for a crime you didn't commit. Surrounded by reinforced doors and iron gates, the dimly lit passageways are a thrilling locale for your team to solve the puzzle and find freedom.
AFRIQUE EN CIRQUE
Celebrate the culture and vitality of Africa through Afrique en Cirque — a vibrant live performance created by Guinean artist Yamoussa Bangoura. Inspired by the colours, sounds and movements of daily life in his home country, Bangoura set out to showcase the strength and joy found within African youth.
Getting wrapped up in irresistible fun, you'll encounter mind-blowing acrobatics, contemporary Afro-Jazz tunes and vivid costumes. Set to the peaceful tones of the kora — a West African string instrument similar to the harp — a kaleidoscopic performance bursting with life-affirming energy will undoubtedly charm audiences.
DUPANG PANGARI (COORONG SPIRIT) FESTIVAL
Combining camping and corroboree, the Dupang Pangari (Coorong Spirit) Festival, led by Tal-Kin-Jeri director Major 'Moogy' Sumner, will help strengthen your connection to Country. You're invited to soak up Coorong's incredible coastal scenery through group workshops, dances, storytelling and marketplaces.
Setting up camp on Friday afternoon, the festival begins with a welcome smoking ceremony at sunset before it's time to gaze up at the night sky. Then, Saturday brings a myriad of workshops ranging from basket weaving to clapstick carving and boomerang throwing. To close it all out, there'll be a corrobboree around a sacred fire at dusk.
ISAAC HUMPHRIES — UNEARTHED
Catch another side of an elite sportsperson with professional basketballer Isaac Humphries in his one-man show, Unearthed. Humphries has long dabbled with a music career, having grown up performing on stages across Sydney. But when his talents on the court became impossible to ignore, his creative career had to take a backseat.
Following a stint in the NBA and now playing for the Adelaide 36ers, Humphries made global headlines in 2022 when he came out as the only gay male professional basketballer active at the highest level. As one of the headline acts at Adelaide Fringe, Humphries takes audiences on a musical journey through his life's remarkable ups and downs.
DANE SIMPSON: ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS WILL BE... FUNNY
It doesn't matter which fringe event you attend around the globe — no visit is complete without hitting up a stand-up comedy show. While there's no shortage of wisecracking performers to consider in Adelaide, Dane Simpson is bound to be one of the most original in his show, Always Was, Always Will Be...Funny.
Taking to the stage at the Rhino Room in Adelaide CBD, the Gamilaraay performer delves into 60,000 years of laughs. From a slideshow that finds the funny side of changing the Australia Day date to imagining a millennia-old First Nations comedy skit, Dane Simpson knows what it takes to spin a hilarious yarn.
SWAMPELSQUE AND THE STRIPSONS
Adelaide Fringe's colour and eccentricities mean it's ripe for burlesque performances. Lovers of Shrek should make a beeline for Swamplesque — an ogre-inspired burlesque and drag show parodying the beloved fairytale film in raunchy, side-splitting detail.
If that's not enough, The Stripsons is another surreal burlesque and drag parody featuring America's favourite cartoon family. Created by the same risque team behind Swamplesque, this adults-only show lampoons numerous hilarious moments from the long-running television series.
The world is full of digital distractions, and balancing our online lives with the physical world has become increasingly complicated. Someday We'll Find It is an experimental, reflective look at writing a play through today's precariously short attention spans and endless pages of online search results.
Created by award-winning theatre-makers Karla Livingstone-Pardy and Zachary Sheridan, the show's script has been generated using Google searches, while being presented through a spellbinding combination of live performance and multimedia. Head along for an absurd look at the modern world.
Book your FringeTIX now at the Adelaide Fringe website.
