Feast Festival

Feast Festival is a LGBTI Festival held annually in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. The event is one of Australia's four major queer festivals, alongside Perth's Pride Festival, Melbourne's Midsumma and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Feast was founded in 1997 a by group of arts and community cultural workers. Margie Fischer, Damien Carey, Helen Bock and Luke Cutler worked together to create a community arts festival for the lesbian and gay community in Adelaide.

Celebrating 16 consecutive years in 2012, Feast is now ranked in the top three major festivals in Australia that celebrate diverse sexuality, standing proud alongside Sydney’s Mardi Gras and Melbourne’s Midsumma.

Feast is cherished by the community and features an extensive program of theatre, cabaret, comedy, film, forums, literature, visual arts, sporting and community events. Boasting a national profile with editorial and promotions in the interstate press and attracting visitors and artists from interstate and overseas, Feast has a high profile location right in the middle of the Adelaide CBD.

The festival hub in Light Square sets Feast apart from other arts festivals by creating a safe space for gay and lesbian audiences and artists, and their family and friends – a space to explore cutting edge creativity in the company of their peers – a “queer space”. For the broader festival going public the hub provides an unrivalled opportunity to experience an alternative to the mainstream.

The messages of Feast are strong: • Diversity, acceptance and inclusion; • Positively showcasing the community - gay, lesbian and queer community; • HIV Prevention. And the statistics prove the way in which the Festival delivers these messages are well received.

In 2011 approximately 48,000 people attended Feast events, with another 40,000 tuning in to the live radio broadcast from Picnic in the Park with Joy 94.9. Overall our broadcast exposure reached hundreds of thousands through radio and television exposure. Feast currently averages 5,000 visits to its website each month, increasing dramatically during September - November each year (15,000+ per month).

Major events like Opening Night and Picnic in the Park, consistently attract large audiences with literally thousands of festival goers turning out each year. Each year sees a bigger turnout than the previous year!

The Festival aims to keep a balance between government funding, business sponsorship, earned income, individual giving and fundraising in supporting its revenue needs for each Festival and currently receives funding support from government as follows:

• South Australian Government through Arts SA and the SA Tourism Commission.
• Local Government through the Adelaide City Council.

A range of loyal sponsors and partners also contribute on an annual basis to ensure the Festival’s on-going success.

Feast Festival will celebrate turning sweet 16 in 2012, with resounding energy and passion this year. The hub in Light Square will be party central and Feast invites artists, performers, festival-goers and the people of Adelaide to join the celebrations.

Feast are founder members of the newly formed Festivals Adelaide, taking their place alongside Adelaide’s internationally acclaimed festivals and continue cementing the Festival as a major Adelaide event - bringing even more visitors and vibrancy to our city during November every year.

The Feast Festival is sponsored by, amongst others, the Adelaide City Council, South Australian Tourism Commission, Coopers Brewery, Arts SA, Blaze Magazine and Aids Council of South Australia (ACSA).