Illuminate Adelaide 2025 immersive program to transform venues and boost local tourism

Illuminate Adelaide has become one of South Australia’s most popular events with its fifth edition program in 2025, running from 2nd to 20th July, expected to attract locals and interstate guests driving the local tourism economy.

Two new Illuminate Adelaide productions - Night Visions at Adelaide Botanic Garden and Horizons at Adelaide Oval are included in the 2025 program

Over the years, the event has helped bring Adelaide to life during the traditionally quieter winter months, encouraging people to explore and experience the immersive magic of Illuminate Adelaide’s artistic installations.

In 2024, the festival welcomed more than 1.3 million attendees, helping entice visitors to discover South Australia in the cooler months and drive dollars into local businesses in a traditionally quiet season.

Illuminate Adelaide 2025 will present a widely accessible program of both free and ticketed light, art, music, and immersive experiences.

With nine world premieres and 23 Australian exclusives, 2025’s incarnation of Illuminate Adelaide offers 134 incredible opportunities for audiences to experience new and astonishing events, artists and creations.

Highlights include:

• Horizons – this Adelaide exclusive show will transform Adelaide Oval into a living, breathing canvas using drones, light, sound and sky.

• Night Visions – an extraordinary sensory journey at Adelaide Botanic Garden, a portal of parallel dimensions utilising cutting-edge light, lasers, projections and sound.

• City Lights – a free program with a stellar lineup of local, national, and international artists, bringing the bustling CBD to life during winter time.

• Offline Club - Australian premiere exclusive to Adelaide that invites guests to step away from their devices and rediscover the joy of real-world connection.

• Unsound Adelaide - an epic lineup of experimental music.

• Supersonic – a brand-new music event over 12 hours in the West End.

The popular late-night hub, Base Camp returns to fire up the chilly winter nights and is once again located in the Lot Fourteen on North Terrace. Base Camp is a free and family-friendly precinct, offering a curated selection of Adelaide’s most exciting food and beverage experiences, showcasing South Australia’s rich culinary talent.

Lee Cumberlidge and Rachael Azzopardi, Co-founders and Creative Directors Illuminate Adelaide, shared “In this, our fifth edition of Illuminate, we are excited to present world leading artists and creatives in art, light, music and technology to bring the city to life in July.

“We are forging new frontiers by producing and presenting two new Illuminate Adelaide productions in Night Visions at Adelaide Botanic Garden and Horizons at Adelaide Oval in conjunction with some visionary collaborators from all over the world.

“We continue to commission local artists to make new installations as well as inviting the best makers of immersive and interactive artworks from around the globe, and a new illuminated street performance element to light up our city in the depths of winter with another new and giant free program for City Lights.

“In music we feature a hugely diverse offering from international music legends like John Cale and Ólafur Arnalds to an array of incredibly talented South Australian and Australian artists across our Unsound and Supersonic programs.

“Together with Universal Kingdom at Adelaide Zoo, Offline Club and our foray into the world of Adelaide’s delicious food and wine offerings, and more, Illuminate 2025 is looking to be our best yet.”

Further information and ticket sales: www.illuminateadelaide.com 

Image. Horizons. Credit: Illuminate Adelaide