Gather Round unpacked: Where it started and where it could eventually go
South Australia’s festival of football has quickly become one of the biggest weeks on the Australian sporting calendar. Ahead of its third instalment, Matt Turner unpacks the event’s future.
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Eddie McGuire likens it to the Super Bowl.
“That’s the vibe you’ve been able to create,” the media personality and former Collingwood president tells this masthead.
McGuire is, of course, talking about Gather Round.
The festival of football has quickly become one of the biggest weeks on the AFL and South Australian events calendars.
Its third instalment officially begins with the Crows taking on Geelong at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night.
But the AFL spotlight is already on South Australia and fans are already streaming in for of the 18-club, nine-game extravaganza.
“I find travelling around the world, there’s no better time to be in a town or city than when there’s a major festival on, in particular a sporting event,” McGuire says.
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“The city is up and going, everyone’s got a smile on their face and you have a wonderful experience.
“This weekend, the feel in South Australia is the same as a Super Bowl week in America in a major city.
“For South Australia, such a proud and deserving football state, it is rolling out the red carpet.”
When the AFL sought to have its own version of the NRL’s Magic Round, McGuire was right behind SA’s pitch instead of backing the favourite, New South Wales.
“I was one of the first non-South Australians who jumped on and said ‘Adelaide’s the place’,” says McGuire, a board member of state tourism company Visit Victoria.
“I’d been here for the bicentennial carnival (in 1988) and attended the Grand Prix in Adelaide.
“I think cities of Adelaide’s population worldwide do these sorts of events really well because they care about it and it’s not just jammed in a full calendar.”
In late 2022, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas was able to convince the league the football festival belonged in a traditional Aussie rules heartland.
The state made such a strong impression hosting the initial Gather Round, the government locked in what was meant to be a rotating event until the end of 2026.
“For (SA-born AFL chief executive at the time) Gill McLachlan, it was a hard one because in his heart I know he thought Adelaide was the place to be,” McGuire says.
“But because of his strong Adelaide connections there’s always that ‘oh, is there a conflict?’
“Clearly in the AFL’s determination to expand, particularly to the northern states and the pressure coming from one of South Australia’s finest in Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham, there was the whole ‘why don’t we do this in New South Wales?’
“But the power of the (Daily) Telegraph and (NRL boss) Peter V’landys would mean you’re up there fighting in a battle.
“Whereas you come here, everyone wants it to happen, you’re amongst football family and the fun of the activities become the focus.
“If we tried to build a ground in the middle of nowhere in New South Wales or Queensland, the place would be empty.
“You do it in the Barossa Valley and we’re doing a two-hour television show on Channel 9 (on Tuesday night) in prime time as the non-rights holders.”
The Barossa is the jewel in the crown of this year’s Gather Round, which Malinauskas is promising will be bigger and better.
Only two games across the event – the Saturday fixtures at Adelaide Oval – are not sold out.
Hotels were about 12 per cent fuller than last year as of a week ago, per Co Star figures.
An extra 33 per cent more people are expected to fly in this weekend compared to 2024.
Ninety flights have been added to cater for that demand.
The South Australian clubs will bookend the festival, culminating with a much-anticipated semi-final rematch of Port Adelaide-Hawthorn on Sunday evening.
In between, the AFL’s newest venue, Barossa Park in Lyndoch, will host for the first time.
It is there Malinauskas’s vision will come to life when two games are played against a picturesque backdrop of ranges and vineyards that will be televised across Australia.
“We’re trying to innovate and evolve Gather Round, so we’re taking it to a different location and one that’s such an iconic South Australian destination,” says Tristan Salter, the AFL’s general manager of operations and Tasmania who leads a team that oversees the footy festival.
McGuire says Malinauskas and his government are not only using football to bring an army of people to South Australia, a legacy is being left in regional areas.
“They become storied tales in communities of the day the big time came to Mount Barker or the Barossa Valley and played,” he says.
“If I’m around long enough in 20-odd years, there’ll be some kid who’ll win the Brownlow whose first AFL game he attended was in the Barossa Valley.”
The AFL and state government are intent on making the round about more than what happens on the field.
First, came the return of the Norwood Food and Wine Festival last year, which attracted 70,000 people along The Parade to end the weekend.
The 2025 version is Bounce Around the Barossa, a free shuttle service for Gather Round ticket holders that will stops in local towns, wineries and businesses.
Tanunda will also host a street festival after the SANFL faces the VFL there on Saturday.
Playing in the Barossa Valley has brought excitement while creating challenges for organisers, namely a lack of large-scale accommodation and getting people to the games.
The AFL is urging fans to arrive early to avoid delays – the secondary oval at Barossa Park opens at 9.30am and gates at 10am – as well as use public transport.
“One of the biggest things we wanted to do was make the Barossa accessible for Adelaide,” Salter says.
“We’ve created park and rides so people can drive to the surrounding areas then get a bus into the ground because it’s still one road in, one road out.
“There’s also the Gawler train, which will connect with a shuttle to the ground.”
Crows chairman John Olsen says the proximity of Barossa Park – a 50-minute drive from Adelaide Oval – is one example of what makes South Australia the best fit for Gather Round.
As the Liberal Party’s federal president and a former SA Premier, Crows chairman John Olsen sits on the opposite side of politics to state Labor leader Malinauskas.
But Olsen and the club have been strong backers of Gather Round, uniting for the state’s cause with Port Adelaide, the SANFL, Adelaide Oval and SA Football Commission to help lure it.
“It’s been a wholly collaborative approach from the Aussie rules industry in South Australia,” he says.
“Our responsibility is to keep the pedal to the metal and always deliver outstanding events.”
Gold Coast chief executive Mark Evans is very complimentary of the way the AFL and the state have put Gather Round together, calling it an incredible success.
“It was only for one year but it received glowing endorsement from the CEOs,” Evans says.
“Year two was better again.”
AFL Players’ Association chief executive Paul Marsh says the concept of playing nine games in one location is something his organisation pushed to the AFL at the end of the Covid-affected 2020 season.
“We’ve liked it since the start,” Marsh tells this masthead.
“The players feed off the energy that comes out of the state.”
AFL teams will be even more visible and accessible this year, according to Salter.
Open trainings will again be held across SANFL grounds.
Free clinics will target 3000 junior participants at schools, SANFL clubs and in the Barossa.
About 900 youngsters will be involved in Auskick, mini-league, guards of honour or change room visits during the round.
SANFL staff have also travelled to more than 20 regional towns, including remote Indigenous communities in the APY Lands, as part of a Gather Round community footy roadshow, donating 2000 Sherrins to junior clubs.
The AFL will measure the success of this week, Salter says, by attendance at games, the Elder Park footy festival and in the Barossa, an economic study and customer survey to help determine people’s habits and how much fans enjoyed the event, as well as “the buzz to feel like you’re a part of something”.
Australian Hotels Association SA branch chief executive Anna Moeller says this year’s occupancy rates trend is people coming across earlier and staying for longer, leading to an uplift on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday night stays.
“I think we’ve probably got repeat people coming back and realising how much there is to do here,” Moeller says.
Difficulties finding enough rooms has been among the few Gather Round gripes from interstaters, including some clubs.
Flight fares to Adelaide almost doubling as soon as the fixture dates were locked in was another complaint.
Salter says the number of interstate travellers will be the highest of the three years, including more than 40 per cent of ticket purchases coming from outside SA.
“We work closely with our airline partners to try to make things affordable,” he says.
“We can always improve how we make things accessible to our fans.
“We feel really comfortable given the number that have come in that we’ve reached a reasonable point on that.”
Last year, more than 265,000 people attended the nine matches, comprising more than 45,000 visitors from interstate.
Splitting what was an Adelaide Oval double-header the past two years into two separate tickets could add an extra 30,000 to the weekend attendance figures.
The state’s central location is a big part of its appeal as a Gather Round host.
“Our proximity to Victoria gives us a distinct advantage,” Olsen says.
“There’ll be others that look at the opportunity but I don’t see any other location having the assets and capability we’ve got of hosting an event of this magnitude.”
Western Australia is widely considered too far and therefore too expensive for interstaters to travel for a Gather Round.
Figures around the league believed having nine games in one weekend would get “lost” in NRL stronghold Sydney.
The Suns would like something similar held in Queensland, which successfully staged hubs during Covid in 2020.
Tasmania is keen to host from 2028 as part of the Devils’ slated entry into the AFL.
But it does not have grounds anywhere near the 53,500 capacity of Adelaide Oval.
Macquarie Point is scheduled to be completed in 2029 for 23,000 people.
Bellerive has a capacity of 19,500.
An extension on SA hosting may happen as soon as Sunday and the state government is optimistic it can broker an extension before the end of the deal.
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon strongly hinted the event would stay in South Australia, saying on Wednesday the league liked long-term partnerships.
Asked by this masthead during that same press conference whether it Gather Round would work in any other state, Dillon was very coy, smiling, saying “good question” and then walking away from the microphone without answering it.
McGuire, a proud Victorian, thinks Gather Round should stay in South Australia “until people get bored with it”.
He says the biggest hosting threat will not come from another state.
“At some stage somebody will be screaming ‘we’re paying too much to the AFL, we want to do something else’ and that’s when you’ll lose it,” he says.
“You’ll lose it from within, it won’t be from outside.
“The trick is don’t get jaded, keep reinventing.”
Moving games to other parts of South Australia seems unlikely for 2026 unless things get rolling quickly.
Two Barossa games are all but locked in, given the significant investment at Lyndoch. Adelaide Oval would be positioned to again stage five matches.
A key issue for other SANFL clubs trying to securing games – such as North Adelaide (Prospect Oval), South Adelaide (Noarlunga) and Glenelg – is getting the 1200 lux broadcast quality lighting that Norwood has and the AFL requires to play in the twilight slot.
The Barossa does not have them so its games start just after midday.
McGuire says as long as there is something fresh each Gather Round and it remains exciting, people will want to keep coming to SA.
He has this advice for any states trying to secure the event: “Come up with something new”.
“There’s plenty of ways to do these things without saying ‘South Australia has put all the time, all the effort, all the intellectual capital, all the money and all the money, it works, let’s move it somewhere else’,” he says.
“Don’t do that, that’s dumb, stay here.”
Malinauskas says Gather Round has become a bucket-list event.
AFL Fans Association president Ron Issko, who is coming across from Melbourne for his third edition, recalls being in an Adelaide pub during the first one, seeing supporters from almost every AFL team and thinking ‘how good is this?’
“Anyone who goes to Gather Round and doesn’t like it, I’m not sure they’re really an AFL fan,” Issko says.
Originally published as Gather Round unpacked: Where it started and where it could eventually go
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