Adelaide Fringe’s record results provide $105m economic benefit to SA, analysis finds

The review is in on this year’s running of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and there were some very interesting results.

The economic benefit of the 2023 Adelaide Fringe has been estimated at $105.5 million for the state, a 40 per cent increase on 2022.

Although one in every two South Australians took part, interstate and international tourism was the major contributor to the total, estimated at $84.3 million, which is a 68 per cent increase.

Adelaide Fringe director and chief executive Heather Croall said interstate and international visitors had been a major priority for 2023.

“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,” she said.

“A big part of our strategy in making Fringe as successful as possible and supporting artists and venues as best we could with new audiences, was to focus on increasing visitors from interstate and overseas, which has clearly paid off with more tourists and more tourism dollars to the state than ever before.”

Forty-five thousand visitors came to SA for the shows, and each spent an average of $3420 during their stay, up from $2258 the previous year.

That increase is because of longer stay times – there was a total of 230,000 bed nights in the state’s hotels, and more purchases.

Heather Croall with performers. The 2023 Fringe had an economic benefit of $105 million for the state. Photo kelly Barnes

The event, in February and March, created 9813 direct and indirect jobs.

Of $25.1 million in box office revenue, $24 million went directly to artists and venues.

The economic analysis was provided by Barry Burgan, of Economic Research Consultants.

Arts Minister Andrea Michaels said the state government commitment of $4 million included an increase brought about by an additional $8 million over four years.

The economic analysis showed the taxpayer funding was returned to the economy 25-fold.

“Adelaide Fringe is an iconic and much-loved event in South Australia and this year’s results well and truly cement our reputation as the arts capital of Australia,’’ she said.

“The Fringe’s incredible success in 2023 proves the value of the state government investment.”

BankSA state general manager David Firth said it had supported the Fringe for 18 years.

“BankSA was thrilled to have supported the Fringe in achieving this year’s success, with more than one million tickets sold,’’ he said.

“The digital BankSA MyFringe Planner helped over 223,000 people plan their Fringe experiences online.

“Our ever popular 25 per cent-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 via BankSA Support Act tickets.”