More than 4.7 million people visited Rundle Mall during this year’s Adelaide Fringe, as the Mall’s curated entertainment program MallFest helped grow customer spending during the five-week festival.
Approximately $133 million was spent in Rundle Mall during this year’s Adelaide Fringe, up 9% compared to 2024’s festival.
Adelaide Fringe – the largest arts festival in the southern hemisphere – ran from Friday 21 February to Sunday 23 March 2025.
Helping drive the strong growth in spending were Rundle Mall’s food and drinks traders, with restaurants seeing a 52% increase in spending during the festival.
Additionally, with the strong footfall of festival season and many other sport and events happening around the City of Adelaide, spending in Rundle Mall in March 2024 was the highest for any March on record.
To bring the fun and frivolity of the Adelaide Fringe into the Mall, and drive economic uplift for retailers, Adelaide Economic Development Agency brought back its curated entertainment program MallFest.
Shoppers and visitors bopped along to their favourite tracks on Festival Fridays, with DJs stationed at the Gawler Place Canopy, and live street performers entertained crowds daily throughout the festival.
Each Friday through Sunday, the MallFest Bar & Pizzeria also opened under the Canopy, featuring Mollydooker Wines and Svago Cucina’s mouth-watering pizzas.
To capitalise on the increased foot traffic during the Adelaide Fringe, Rundle Mall retailers could extend their opening hours until 6pm each Saturday, after the State Government approved a regulatory exemption requested by AEDA with support from the retail workers union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA).
“MallFest embodies our commitment to creating compelling experiences for shoppers and visitors,” said Andrew White, Adelaide Economic Development Agency’s Executive Manager, Rundle Mall.
“What’s on in Rundle Mall is an extension of the world-class events and festivals happening in the city, on the Mall’s doorstep.
“With DJs, street performers, and extended shopping hours, hundreds of thousands of Fringe-goers added to our already strong footfall by coming into the Mall before or after seeing a show in the city.
“This is an incredible amount of foot traffic which provides significant economic benefits to Rundle Mall’s traders.
“Visitors during the Fringe shopped in stores, they explored, and they had something to eat or drink at one of our restaurants, pubs, bars and cafes.
“Rundle Mall is just hundreds of metres away from two of the Adelaide Fringe’s biggest and busiest hubs of activity, making MallFest an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
“South Australians have a strong appetite to enjoy Rundle Mall for longer and later when there are events and festivals happening in the city.
“We see that every time there’s extended trading hours in the Mall and it’s evidenced by particularly strong night-time spending during this year’s festival season.”
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