DreamBIG 2023 launches family program featuring The BIGGEST BIG Family Weekend yet to celebrate Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th year

DreamBIG 2023, the world’s longest running children’s festival, will return to Adelaide Festival Centre this May 17-27. The family program, launched today, focuses on the theme ‘Our World,’ and features more than 50 shows, activities, and exhibitions for audiences from babies to teenagers across 10 days.

Audiences can expect giant life-like dinosaurs, interactive light installations, thought provoking theatre and more from the family program which includes eight world premieres, one Australian premiere and seven Adelaide premieres.

To celebrate Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th year the 2023 festival will feature The BIGGEST BIG Family Weekend yet from 20-21 May across Adelaide Festival Centre and Festival Plaza, including free events for children of all ages, performances, exhibitions, workshops, installations, markets, food trucks by Fork in the Road, and the Big Family Weekend Gala – a variety hour celebrating some of SA’s best young performers.

Paint your way across the seas in Patch Theatre’s Sea of Light, learn to dance like an animal and be still like a tree with Guru Dudu’s Mysteries of Nature Silent Disco Walking Tour, unleash your inner musician with Wallabeats’ handmade instruments, let your imagination run wild in Massive Maker Space, play amongst 200kg of swirling, shredded recycled paper in Fluffy and join the Tutti Choir as they sing all your favourite tunes in Tutti’s Big Singalong. More activities to be announced.

Adelaide Festival Centre CEO & Artistic Director Douglas Gautier AM: “We welcome children and their families to Our World, a place of celebration, joy, and wonder.

“The world’s first children’s festival has been delighting young South Australians for generations and we can’t wait to celebrate Adelaide Festival Centre’s 50th Anniversary with our youngest audiences over a fun-filled 10 days.”

DreamBIG’s Co-Creative Producers Susannah Sweeney and Georgi Paech: “We hope that participating in
DreamBIG will encourage young people to become creative, compassionate, and thoughtful citizens by inspiring them to look at and learn from the world around them – from the prehistoric to the future, from Afghanistan to Ireland, from the natural world to the imagined.”

International shows include North Ireland’s Removed, a funny, moving, and critically acclaimed story of a young man’s experiences in a state authority system, and Norway’s We Come from Far, Far Away, an epic story of people, places, survival and friendship, following two boys from Aleppo.

Two of Mem Fox’s classic Australian stories will come to life on stage with Monkey Baa’s award-winning
adaptation of Possum Magic featuring live action, magic, puppetry and animation, and Australian Chamber Orchestra’s immersive and intimate performance of Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge weaving together captivating storytelling and mesmerising music.