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Festivals and events, whether large or small, can bring with them the challenges of movement of large volumes of people – whether this is within the CBD or metro Adelaide, or festivals and events in the regions. Poor transportation planning for festivals can result in traffic and parking congestion as well as environmental pollution. Transportation options (or lack thereof) are reported as being one of the barriers for certain demographic groups to attend festivals or events. This extends to being a barrier to volunteers, a resource which our festivals are reliant upon.
Infrastructure is all around us – buildings, roads, outdoor spaces. The intersection of the arts and infrastructure accrues economic and social impacts through arts and cultural infrastructure, such as dedicated performing arts centres and public art pieces as well as through the activation of underutilised spaces and building – indoor, outdoor, public and private.
Responsibility for infrastructure and transport sits across multiple arms of the South Australian Government, including, but not limited to:
Arts South Australia and the nine statutory authorities responsible for our state’s major arts and cultural institutions and infrastructure. The Arts & Culture Plan South Australia 2019 – 2024 includes Goal 5: To enhance the physical and organisational arts and culture infrastructure in South Australia as one of its six pillars and includes a number of recommendations specific to arts and cultural infrastructure.
Festivals and events are critical activities for utilising and activating infrastructure around Adelaide, the suburbs and across our regions. From the Festival Centre and Riverbank Precincts, to our incredible parklands and Adelaide Oval, to smaller performing arts venues and outdoor spaces – festivals and events provide opportunity to activate and drive usage of this infrastructure.
Moreover, as drivers of visitors and tourism, festivals and events contribute to the utilisation of commercial infrastructure such as hotels, motels, the airport, which in turn, drives greater private investment in these assets across Adelaide and our regions. For example, the SATC reported on 13 March 2023 that Adelaide accommodation forward bookings were at an average of 90% for the Mad March long weekend (Friday 10th 90%, Saturday 11th 94% and Sunday 12th 86%). On 28 March, the SATC reported that Adelaide had its strongest week ever during Mad March with an average of 9,140 of the 10,521 rooms available sold each night.
While our festivals and events make use of the existing infrastructure, Adelaide lacks dedicated ‘festival infrastructure’ when compared with other global Festival Cities. For example, Edinburgh, Montreal and Krakow have vast ‘festival infrastructure’ including a number of 2000+ seat theatres, 500-700 seat theatres, experimental art spaces, music and concert halls, transformable outdoor venues and galleries.
Many of Adelaide’s festivals have seen year-on-year growth in recent times and have future growth ambitions. However, there are some natural constraints to growth, which will need to be addressed to facilitate the festivals increasing in size and attracting more attendances. Some festivals will begin to be constrained by venue size over the coming years.
WOMADelaide, for example, advised it is limited by the boundaries of Botanic Park. Although different configurations can increase its capacity — by, for example, moving non-essential services to other areas of the park — it is important that any increase in capacity is designed such that the nature of the festival does not change. This would require a design which distributes attendees across the festival geographically. While the Adelaide Festival will see an increase in available capacity with the re-opening of Her Majesty’s Theatre, it also noted that Adelaide lacks a venue of sufficient size and acoustics for orchestral and other music performances.
Festivals are becoming more aware of the role they can play in influencing how patrons travel to their events. For example:
Some festivals and major events have been successful in partnering with the state government to offer free or dedicated public transport options, however this is not consistent across festivals and major events and requires each event to negotiate separately. There is great opportunity for the South Australian government to develop a consistent approach and commitment to provide support for festivals through their public transport networks.
