Lights on for glowing Illuminate Adelaide 2024

World premieres, Australian exclusives, internationally renowned music acts, and immersive installations will light up Adelaide from today in the fourth edition of Illuminate Adelaide.

From 4 to 21 July, a showcase of art, light, music and technology will entice visitors to discover Adelaide, helping drive visitation in the traditionally quieter winter month of July.

Last year, the event recorded more than 1.3 million attendances, including 15,000 interstate and international visitors, and generated a record-breaking $54.3 million for South Australia’s visitor economy.

Illuminate Adelaide 2024 will shine a spotlight on the talents of almost 150 artists – including 62 leading lights from acclaimed international companies and homegrown luminaries – across a program of free and ticketed events, catering to every age, interest, and budget.

Illuminate Adelaide 2024 highlights include:

• Fire Gardens, Adelaide Botanic Garden – designed exclusively for Adelaide by French fire alchemists, Compagnie Carabosse, offers a natural wonderland of more than 7,000 giant fire pots, enchanting candlelit archways, captivating kinetic sculptures, and live music performances.
• EDEN, The Light Room at ILA – an Adelaide exclusive interactive digital garden celebrating both the beauty and importance of the planet, created by renowned Berlin studio flora&faunavisions.
• Universal Kingdom: Prehistoric Nights, Adelaide Zoo – a captivating world of after-dark puppetry and animation where ancient creatures return to roam the earth for the first time in millions of years.
• City Lights, Adelaide – transforming the cityscape from 5:30pm for 17 nights with a captivating new collection of free installations and projections.
• Music program – featuring Dutch pianist Joep Beving, British electronic artist Max Cooper, Australia’s own Helen Svoboda, and the return of Unsound Adelaide for its 11th year featuring Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, and another immersive Live @ The Lab line-up.

South Australia’s renowned food and beverage will be in the spotlight at the free to enter Base Camp in Lot Fourteen, offering live music, a unique lighting show, food trucks, and local beverages such as Alpha Box & Dice and 23rd Street Distillery.

The major event is one of the unique experiences inspiring locals and interstate visitors to ‘Winter. Our Way.’ as part of the South Australian Tourism Commission’s domestic campaign currently in market. The campaign is the next iteration of the SATC’s broader ‘Travel. Our Way.’ campaign which launched in September 2023, with a focus on the range of South Australian winter-based holiday experiences.

Minister for Tourism, Zoe Bettison said Illuminate Adelaide is a world-class event that has proven itself as a major tourism drawcard for both the city and the state – lighting up a traditionally quiet winter period with its epic displays of art, light, sound, and technology.

"Last year’s event generated $54.3 million in economic activity for the state – making it a new record-high for the event in its third year. More than 1.3 million attendances were recorded across the free and ticketed events, with more than 15,000 interstate and overseas visitors contributing to nearly 66,000 of those attendances. The month-long celebration of art, light, music and technology generated nearly 34,000 visitor nights and more than 4,000 employment opportunities," Minister Bettison said.

"This year’s program is another blockbuster of Adelaide exclusives and world premieres, with a welcome mix of free and ticketed events that gives everyone the chance to experience the magic. Plus, with school out and kids looking for things to do, the timing couldn’t be better!

"I look forward to seeing Illuminate Adelaide return this winter with another exciting celebration of art, light, music and technology."

Illuminate Adelaide Co-founders and Creative Directors, Lee Cumberlidge and Rachael Azzopardi said Illuminate Adeliade is giving the city’s leafy streets, hidden nooks, and historic landmarks a serious shimmer this winter, so there’s never been a better time to visit Adelaide or for locals to come out after-dark and explore their backyard in a whole new light.

"From epic visual spectacles like Fire Gardens in the Adelaide Botanic Garden and the blooming beauty of EDEN at ILA in Light Square to the sonic adventures of Unsound Adelaide and the free City Lights program, Illuminate Adelaide 2024 has something to entice everyone out of their winter cocoons," Mr Cumberlidge and Ms Azzopardi said.