Adelaide Fringe 2025: Garden of Unearthly Delights legal dispute with Made for a Goddess owner Constance Manos

The business woman says she was kicked out of Adelaide’s most popular Fringe venue in humiliating scenes amid a row over her stall’s location.

Connie Manos has taken action against the Garden of Unearthly Delights after she claimed she was dumped as a storeholder for asking to have her stall moved. Picture RoyVPhotography

A popular Adelaide Fringe venue “kicked out” a retailer after she pleaded to move to shade to help cope with dust and heat, an untested legal claim alleges.

Constance Manos, 54, paid almost $10,000 to rent her Made for a Goddess clothing store over 37 days at the Garden of Unearthly Delights, where she had traded for seven years.

But the businesswoman, known as Connie, alleges she was “kicked out” of this year’s city event after repeated refusals to have her stall, near North Tce, moved into shade.

Ms Manos, a mother-of-two of Pasadena, has threatened magistrates civil action, claiming the court’s $100,000 limit for breach of contract, lost earnings, rents and other “loss and damages”.

Connie Manos has threatened legal action against the Garden of Unearthly Delights after she claimed she was dumped as a storeholder for asking to have her stall moved. Picture: RoyVPhotography

She also claimed rent was deducted from her account despite the termination.

The Eastern Parklands-based Garden, billed to be “unrivalled as Australia’s most vibrant and dynamic festival precinct” for the past 24 years, disputes the claim.

Legal documents assert a lack of shade, due to Garden failures, created “unreasonable and unsafe conditions” for workers, who suffered “infections caused by airborne dust and dirt”.

The Garden of Unearthly Delights has been one of the Fringe’s most successful sites for the past 24 years. Picture: Matt Loxton

A “pre-action claim” asserts Ms Manos, who has Hyde Park and Stepney workshops, made a “number of reasonable requests” since November 2023 to move from “converted ship containers”.

She said her Fringe exposure, for an annual $9,250.50 fee, gave “crucial” marketing and promotion to her online store she founded in 2016.

She enjoyed “significant online trade for months” after being located in the same spot for the past three years.

She claimed the row erupted at 9.25am on Wednesday, 12 February after a Garden representative – who organisers asked not be named – “terminated” their agreement “without cause or legal basis” during a compulsory induction.

“Ms Manos acting in a polite and respectful manner towards (the representative) raised the issue of the (stall) … which was again in a location without any shade,” her papers state.

After telling the representative her location without an awning was “not overly ideal for me”, she claimed they replied in what she thought was an “inappropriate, dismissive and unacceptable” manner.

“(Their) response was: ‘If you don’t like it, you can leave, better still, I am kicking you out of the event’,” her letter states.

A Garden of Unearthly Delights opening night in the Eastern Parklands. Picture Dean Martin

Attempts to calm the dispute failed before she claimed be to “further humiliated” after security escorted her out “in clear view of other stallholders and employees, many known to her”.

Ms Manos’ husband tried to resolve the dispute at 2.45pm that day but guards took issue with him not “wearing a high vis jacket”.

Another interstate Garden representative emailed at 7.09pm on Saturday, February 15 raising “simply risible” issues, she alleged, and made an “ill-conceived” attempt to distance organisers from the original “conduct”.

In a statement on Sunday night, a Garden spokeswoman said: “We disagree with Ms Manos’ claim.

“The Garden places the highest priority on providing the best possible environment for everyone on site including our artists, stallholders, suppliers, patrons and personnel.

“This matter is between Ms Manos and The Garden and we will not be commenting further at this time.”

The Garden, which began with a Spiegeltent in 2000, promotes itself as a “unique festival playground” with performance venues, bars, carnival rides as well as food and market stalls.

A settlement meeting is due later this month.