Announcing the 2026 Program

The 41st Adelaide Festival program, the first directed by Artistic Director Matthew Lutton OAM, is now on sale, featuring 17 days of art created by some of the most cutting edge minds in the world, crossing genres, eras and experiences with 59 events that truly make Adelaide Festival Australia’s international festival and one of the greatest arts festivals in the world. 

Opening night will see celebrated rock band Pulp revel in Elder Park in a completely free concert. Bring your dancing shoes and feel the adrenaline rush as Jarvis Cocker and his longtime bandmates blend their trademark on-stage spectacle and unique mix of glam rock, disco, new wave and British indie styles. Audiences can expect a mix of longtime favourites (Common People and Disco 2000) and new tracks from More, their eighth studio album and first release in over 20 years.

In addition to the free opening event, audience members aged under 40 can purchase $40 tickets to the majority of ticketed performances in the program, as part of Adelaide Festival’s commitment to making art financially accessible to as many people as possible. 

Adelaide Festival Artistic Director Matthew Lutton OAM says: “The 2026 Festival program invites you to lower your guard and throw yourself into an ecstatic 17 days of exploration. It does not seek to narrow to a specific theme, instead, it elevates Australian and international artists who push boundaries and embody virtuosity. Yet, if you ask me about the preoccupations you might witness, you will find narratives focused on the need for love, belonging and a sense of self; the brutal barriers – some strong, some crumbling – the world hurls at us and the determination for hope, eccentricity, humanity and art.”

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas MP says: "Since coming to Government, we are proud to have invested an additional $4.3 million in the Adelaide Festival to deliver major international drawcards and events. Adelaide Festival delivers real and lasting benefits to our state. It fuels imagination, creativity, and stimulates critical thinking. It drives local employment and visitation to our city and regions, strengthening our economy and reinforcing our proud identity as the Festival State. In a thrilling return to the large-scale concerts that are part of Adelaide Festival’s legacy, global icons Pulp will perform live - and free - at Elder Park on opening night.”

Minister for Arts Andrea Michaels MP says: “It’s very exciting to be announcing the 2026 Adelaide Festival program, kicking off with the free concert in Elder Park headlined by legendary rock band Pulp! Adelaide Festival is beloved in South Australia and we want to make sure that as many people as possible can experience its magic. A free concert on our magnificent riverbank is the perfect way to open what is sure to be an unmissable event.”

Captivating Adelaide Festival audiences in 2025 with his unforgettable operatic production Innocence, and previously with his reimagined contemporary productions of classic works Medea and Thyestes, this time Australian director Simon Stone has set his sights on present-day South Korea with his new take on Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Keeping with the play’s timeless themes of social change and the battle between tradition and modernity, Stone’s fast-paced production stars award-winning actors Doyeon Jeon (Cannes Best Actress) and Haesoo Park (Emmy-nominated star of Squid Game) alongside an all-Korean ensemble and on a stunning multi-level set.

Two productions place enigmatic women of history at their core, with spellbinding French actress Isabelle Huppert’s unmissable portrayal of Mary Queen of Scots in the visionary Mary Said What She Said; and brilliant, Grammy Award-winning American soprano Julia Bullock paying tribute to legendary 1920s singer and activist Joséphine Baker in Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine. In addition, Perle Noire’s composer (2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music winner Tyshawn Sorey), will perform a one-night-only piano concert Alone at Her Majesty’s Theatre, and Julia will appear in chamber masterpiece El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered, featuring composer John Adams’ soaring oratorio and bringing the voices of women and Latin American poets to the fore.

Reimaged classics are explored by groundbreaking American theatre company Elevator Repair Service, who set their globally acclaimed production of The Great Gatsby in a modern office. Beginning with an employee finding a copy of the novel in his desk, the action then unfolds over eight hours (yes, there are breaks!). Gatz breathes new life into Jay, Daisy, Nick and the rest by an ensemble of twelve actors who gradually transform from work colleagues to fellow characters as the iconic story progresses. Adelaide company Slingsby completes their fairytale trilogy over three consecutive Adelaide Festivals with A Concise Compendium of Wonder, re-interpreting Hansel and Gretel, The Selfish Giant and The Little Match Girl in their purpose-built, secret-filled building, The Wandering Hall of Possibility on Adelaide Botanic Garden’s Plane Tree Lawn.

New in 2026 is Tryp, taking place over three separate events on the Festival opening weekend in a celebration of progressive contemporary music and featuring some of the most daring electronica and sound artists from Japan, the USA, Ireland, Finland and Australia.

In between shows, drop into CODA, the new destination Adelaide Festival bar on Festival Plaza, at the heart of the Festival’s main performing arts programming at Adelaide Festival Centre. Open from 5pm until late and with free entry, delicious food and drinks, it’s the perfect spot to discuss and debate after a show, meet festival artists, or get the night started.

Life’s reels, deals and wheels are explored in the world premiere season of Mama Does Derby, presented by Adelaide’s own Windmill Production Company, a company renowned for its original works for young audiences and families, Mama Does Derby is co-created by their Artistic Director, Claire Watson, and Virginia Gay. Featuring a stellar acting cast alongside real-life local roller derby members and a live band onstage, take a seat trackside for this hilarious and heartfelt story of a mother and daughter who move to a new regional town and need to make their own fun.

Young, queer male relationships are explored in Édouard Louis’ unflinching autobiographical work, History of Violence, in the hands of one of the world’s most provocative and influential directors, Schaubühne Berlin’s Thomas Ostermeier; and between teenage boys Ty of the River Mob and Neddy of the Mountain Mob in Griffin Theatre Company’s beautiful and powerful work Whitefella Yella Tree.

The inevitability of change takes pride of place in several works. Belgium’s FC Bergman, last seen in Adelaide in 2023 in the company of live sheep onstage, brings another wordless work to the Dunstan Playhouse stage in Works and Days, seeing eight highly physical performers embody the rituals of toil, tradition and transformation from ancient tools to modern machinery and even AI, set to a live musical score. No two nights are the same in POV, a theatre production in which two unrehearsed local actors play parents, under the guidance of an eleven-year-old obsessed with documentary filmmaking and exploring the breakdown of her family.

The newest work by heralded Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake combines twelve of the country’s top contemporary dancers with an electro-acoustic score and the tender tones of Young Adelaide Voices in The Chronicles, and the electronic beats continue to hum in Re-shaping Identity which unites five international dancers from different ethnic backgrounds including Tibetan, Yao, Uyghur and Han to share and transform their traditional dances from regional China into contemporary expressions of liberation.

Performances delving deep into the subconscious and dreamlike worlds include the UK’s Hofesh Shechter Company in Theatre of Dreams; Adelaide’s Australian Dance Theatre’s reverie about the shadows we must all evade in Faraway; and well-known post-punk and dark cabaret superstars The Tiger Lillies with a new concert inspired by London’s seedy Soho district in the 1980s, celebrating the weird and the macabre.

Two of the world’s best classical musicians – UK virtuoso violinist Anthony Marwood and Helsinki-born pianist Olli Mustonen – will hold artistic residencies during the Festival. Marwood will perform two separate concerts with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and Mustonen will play an intimate, weekend-long cycle of thirteen of Beethoven’s spellbinding Piano Sonatas, culminating in an exclusive duo performance that sees Marwood and Mustonen share the stage for the very first time, with Shostakovich’s mysterious Sonata for Violin and Piano. Ensemble Pygmalion also makes its long-awaited Australian debut with three programs over six concerts featuring the music of Bach, Monteverdi and Rossi and directed by its founder Raphaël Pichon.

Additional classical offerings pair Italian-based violinist Sergej Krylov with Australian-based Russian pianist Konstantin Shamray for an exquisite afternoon of French sonatas and compositions; and Shamray with Australia’s Alma Moodie Quartet and double bass master Robert Nairn for Alma’s World, dedicated to music inspiring and influencing the Quartet’s Queensland-born namesake, one of Europe’s pre-eminent violin soloists in the early 20th century. Master yidaki artist William Barton joins the legendary Brodsky Quartet, traversing time and cultures to blend First Nations wisdom with the rich textures of European chamber music.

The Art Gallery of South Australia will host the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, with the theme of Yield Strength a demonstration of how materials, selfhood and society are tested, and transformed, under pressure. Two additional world premiere exhibitions explore the ongoing survival of two vastly different cultures. Commissioned Ngarrindjeri and Buandig artist Sandra Saunders retells the story and tribulations of the building of the bridge to Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) through painting and wireworks, alongside major new works by twelve Indigenous female artists at ACE Gallery; and at Light Square’s ILA Gallery, Manifest Destiny documents photographer Alex Frayne’s recent journey across America’s West, Deep South and Bible Belt, accompanied by moving images by video artist and cinematographer Capital Waste, set to an electro-pop soundtrack by Empire of the Sun’s Donnie Sloan.

Beloved Festival staple events WOMADelaide and Adelaide Writers’ Week return, in Botanic Park and at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens respectively. In her fourth year as Director, Louise Adler AM’s Adelaide Writers’ Week program continues to offer a majority of free events over six days, with authors including Percival Everett, Trent Dalton, A.C. Grayling and Kathy Lette, and dedicated days for young readers and secondary students.

Ticketed author events take place at Adelaide Town Hall, Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide University’s Bonython Hall and the Drill Hall, with confirmed authors including former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Tina Brown, Emily Maitlis, Christiane Amanpour and M Gessen. 

Discount ticket schemes for those facing a financial barrier include continuing established Festival initiatives Tix for Next to Nix and Pay What You Can, and inclusive equity program for category 1 – 4 schools, Festival Connect, thanks to the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation, Waternish and Adelaide Festival Benefactors.

Become a Festival Friend for access to the best seats in the house, a 15% discount on applicable adult tickets, and a range of special offers.