Extra funding for international shows planned for future Adelaide Festivals in wake of record $4 million result

EXTRA funding for future international Adelaide Festival attractions is already being discussed in the wake of this year’s record $4 million box office result.

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EXTRA funding for future international Adelaide Festival attractions is already being discussed in the wake of this year’s record $4 million box office result.

Artistic directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy have also promised to keep surprising audiences with bombshell announcements for their 2018 and 2019 programs.

Sold-out shows including Barrie Kosky’s UK opera Saul and an outdoor production of The Secret River at Anstey Hill Quarry helped push this Festival to the highest box office result in the event’s 57-year-history.

Arts Minister Jack Snelling said the State Government, which contributed an extra $700,000 to bring the Glyndebourne opera production of Saul to Adelaide, had already begun talks about funding for next year’s event.

“On the back of the success of Saul we would look very, very favourably on any similar proposals the Festival comes to us with,’’ Mr Snelling said.

Nathaniel Dean, Ningali Lawford Wolf and Stephen Goldsmith during a performance of The Secret River, which played at the Adelaide Festival. Picture: Shane Reid

“I can’t say much at the moment, but certainly we have been talking between the Festival and government about projects they have got and how we can support it.’’

Mr Armfield said that he and Ms Healy did not intend to stick to a formula for their future programs.

“We want to continue to surprise and throw in major bombs, really, to upset expectations,’’ Mr Armfield said.

Their debut program included 180 sellout performances and 10 completely sold out seasons, including Canadian dance-theatre work Betroffenheit, Lynette Wallworth’s film Coral: Rekindling Venus, Writers’ Week event The Drunken Botanist and the Long Lunches series.

Stuart Jackson during Saul, which also played at Adelaide Festival. Picture: Tony Lewis

The $4 million result was up by 44 per cent and more than $1.2 million on last year, and is almost 25 per cent larger than the previous box office record of $3.1 million set in 1992.

Ms Healy said that major attractions such as the opening weekend line-up of Saul, Betroffenheit, The Secret River and Berlin’s Schaubuhne production of Richard III, were drawcards around which visitors and local audiences planned other attendances.

“A successful festival’s DNA in this day and age depends on … central events that become the anchor,’’ Ms Healy said.

“If there’s a cluster of extraordinary events and people can come — as they did in their tens of thousands — to see four incredible shows in three days, then they do it.’’

Ticketed Festival attendances were up by 8.6 per cent on last year, with audiences of more than 86,400 across 41 paid events, compared to 79,500 in 2016.

The increase was on par with the Adelaide Fringe’s result, announced on Saturday, which was up 8.5 per cent on 2016 with a total 655,541 tickets sold, worth $16.2 million.

Attendances across free Festival events were also up this year, with audiences of more than 198,000 taking in exhibitions at the Art Gallery and Samstag Museum, as well as the daily program on board the Riverbank Palais and the surrounding Parc Palais, including a near-capacity crowd of 14,900 for the opening weekend Neil Finn concert.

That included a record 134,000 combined attendances at Writers’ Week in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens at 102 free sessions over six days.

Free and ticketed attendances totalled more than 284,400 across all Festival events, a seven per cent increase on last year.

The Festival box office figures do not include umbrella event Womadelaide, which achieved just under 90,000 attendances over its four days.