Adelaide Festival Centre’s DreamBIG Children’s Festival’s 50th Anniversary Programme

In 2025, Adelaide Festival Centre’s DreamBIG Children’s Festival offered an inspiring opportunity for over 30,000 students and teachers from 200 schools across South Australia to engage with the arts.

The world’s longest-running curated children’s festival opened with a statewide celebration of DreamBIG’s 50^th anniversary with DreamBIG’s Birthday Parade on site at Adelaide Festival Centre, and numerous parades hosted by regional schools.

Families, students and teachers enjoyed 10 days of exciting events for young people at Adelaide Festival Centre and surrounds, featuring 350 artists in over 700 performances, workshops, installations and other activities.

DreamBIG Children’s Festival Director Georgi Paech: “It was a joy to witness the enthusiasm with which teachers, students and families engaged with the 2025 DreamBIG programme. Our 50^th Anniversary focused on accessibility, ensuring young people across the state had the opportunity to partake in this milestone.”

Big Family Weekend returned to Festival Plaza from 10-11 May, with more than 50 free events for children of all ages, and performances from Play School presenter Zindzi Okenyo with a hip hop show for kids, award-winning performer Jens Altheimer’s solo show Whalebone and a musical adaptation of Alison Lester’s beloved book in IMAGINE LIVE.

Extending its footprint across the CBD, DreamBIG presented three shows at State Library South Australia, including international show The Bookbinder from New Zealand’s award-winning Trick of the Light Theatre, a contemporary take on Japanese folklore with Little Bozu and Kon Kon, and nonverbal performance for preschoolers, the Boy & the Ball from local performer Stephen Noonan.

For the first time, DreamBIG Children’s Festival held performances for patients at Flinders Medical Centre and Women’s and Children’s Hospital – with Restless Dance Theatre’s The Lensical.

DreamBIG embarked on an extensive regional school tour, with in-school workshops presented by artists in Streaky Bay, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Tarlee, Riverton, Blyth, Orroroo, Yorketown, Wallaroo, Karoonda, Lameroo, Pinnaroo and Coomandook. Other regional events for children delivered by DreamBIG in 2025 included Saltbush, The Frog Prince, Moss Piglet, Glow & Tell and Nunga Screen.

With a focus on accessibility for all children, DreamBIG included Mini SPIN, a dance rave hosted by three deaf hosts, Sensorium Theatre’s interactive, multi-sensory Oddysea for children with disability and Rachel Burke’s Fancy Long Legs, a musical exploring neurodivergence. Thanks to funding from Department for Education South Australia and Adelaide Festival Centre Foundation, Adelaide Festival Centre’s centrED supported over 1900 students with subsidised travel to attend DreamBIG.

The festival concluded with Australian Chamber Orchestra’s The Princess, The Pea (and The Brave Escapee) and a free, all ages concert on Festival Plaza – with 13 young South Australian bands performing at Garageband Tarntanya.   

More than 2.5 million children, families and teachers have participated in the festival since its inception in 1974 (as Come Out Festival), and it remains an intrinsic part of growing up in South Australia, placing young audiences at the centre of fresh, inventive, imaginative, and inspiring arts experiences.