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2018 First announce

On sale now

On sale now

  • Hamlet

    An internationally-acclaimed new opera by Brett Dean, directed by Neil Armfield. Exclusive to Adelaide.

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  • Richard Flanagan

    Richard Flanagan returns to Adelaide with his first novel since winning the Man Booker Prize, First Person. Join him for a conversation about young writers, naked ambition, and that slippery fish - the truth.

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  • Bernstein on Stage!

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The festival

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For more than 55 years Adelaide Festival audiences have delighted in an outstanding mix of internationally acclaimed theatre productions, an eclectic array of world-class musicians, breathtaking dance pieces, renowned writers and striking visual arts displays. Enjoyed amid warm March days and starry nights, Adelaide Festival’s celebration of creative excellence makes for an event of truly epic proportions.

2018 will mark the second Adelaide Festival presented by Co-Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy, following a record-breaking debut in 2017. Neil and Rachel will direct the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Adelaide Festivals.

Adelaide Festival has shared Australia’s best new work along with some of the world’s great companies and artists including Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Sylvie Guillem, John Zorn, Marlene Dietrich, Allen Ginsberg, James Thiérrée, Philip Glass, Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal, Isabelle Huppert, Schaubühne Berlin, Yehudi Menuhin, Isabella Rossellini, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Nina Simone, Jane Birkin and Malcolm McLaren. Check out the full list of past festival artists here.

Future festival dates
2018: 2 – 18 Mar | Writers' Week 3 – 8 Mar
2019: 1 – 17 Mar | Writers' Week 2 – 7 Mar

"A blaze of hope, skill, diversity and fun... Right from the start it was obvious the Festival program was a beautifully crafted objet d’art. It’s hard to pick out highlights from a highlight year."

The Conversation

Past festivals

Writers week

Adelaide Writers’ Week is Australia’s largest free literary festival, offering both writers and readers a unique opportunity to spend time sharing ideas and literary explorations in a garden setting in Adelaide’s city centre. Curated by Director Laura Kroetsch, each carefully selected program brings the world's most celebrated established and emerging writers together for a week that delights, surprises and enlightens audiences.

Each Adelaide Writers’ Week includes six days of free panel sessions that are presented live in the gardens, and made available online via podcast. The program also features a series of ticketed special events throughout the year, and the popular free Kids’ Weekend, which attracts hundreds of families for fun and engaging literary adventures.

Over the last 55 years, Adelaide Writers’ Week has seen some of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers in conversation about literature, politics, poetry, current events, biography, the short story and so much more. Take a look at the guest lists from 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Listen to the conversations as they happened with these podcasts from 2013, 2014 , 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Future Adelaide Writers' Week dates
2018: 3 – 8 Mar
2019: 2 – 7 Mar

A marvellously free six-day event in a shady spot on the edge of the Torrens River.

Sydney Morning Herald

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