Feast celebrates liberation in biggest festival in a decade
Feast Festival reveals its largest program for November since 2013 – its artwork featuring a rainbow megaphone heralding 50 years since Adelaide’s significant LGBTQIA+ reforms.
The 2025 edition of the queer arts & culture festival will double its number of regional shows, increase its venues by 60 per cent and feature over 1500 artists, producers and volunteers.
Its jam-packed program launched at Sky City on Thursday night, unveiling cover art by Oscar Arrais and revealing the theme: Liberation.
Oscar said the cover art, featuring a megaphone, represents the symbol of protest and presence – something that resonates with the coming out journey of finding your voice.
“For me, this piece is the megaphone I never had growing up, a declaration that I’m no longer hiding,” Oscar says.
“It’s my voice, my love, and my joy stitched into form.”
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This year’s festival theme of liberation aligns with the 50th anniversary since Don Dunstan’s Labor government decriminalising male homosexuality in 1975.
Feast CEO Tish Naughton says although SA was the first to do so nationally, being a pioneer in same-sex rights, it’s more recent record showed that liberation was ongoing.
In 2020, South Australia became the last state to repeal the “gay panic” defence – a legal defence used by a heterosexual person charged with a violent crime against an LGBTQIA+ person who could claim it was justified because they were responding to an unwanted sexual advance.
“At a time where society appears increasingly fractured and intolerant, Feast’s role in bringing together in a safe and joyful celebration of diversity and individuality is more important than ever,” Tish says.
The milestone will be explored in exhibitions, community forums and a special dinner party, dubbed Don’s Table.
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Don’s Table reimagines a Feast dinner party held in its first year, 1997, at Don Dunstan’s restaurant and called the Erotic Feast.
This year, with only 40 coveted spots up for grabs, the original Don’s Table chef Steven Cheng will pair fine dining and matched wine at SkyCity’s Attic at The Kitchen – and feature plenty of salacious storytelling from prominent Adelaideans.
The Don Dunstan Foundation will also hold a special performance from the Adelaide Chamber Singers of Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan, alongside a conversation with journalist Simon Royal.
The festival will celebrate diversity in its broad program, with events including workshops, performances, trivia nights, film, fashion, and food.
Pop culture staples like the Rocky Horror Picture Show will be celebrated in the Australian premiere of a documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror in the Queer Film Festival held at North Adelaide’s Piccadilly cinema.
While the Adelaide City Council is supporting Picnic in the Park, Feast is expanding beyond the CBD this year, with support from Port Adelaide Enfield, Charles Sturt, Campbelltown and Prospect councils.
Prospect will host this year’s Feast Hub, which includes a variety show Feast Festival Gayla, hosted by SBS’ Celebrity Letters & Numbers and ABC evenings AJ Lamarque.
Performer Milo Hartill will bring the SA premier of her cabaret Black, Fat and F**gy to the Hub.
The hub will also feature immersive visual art installations, including a life-sized rideable pink pony and host workshops including erotic pottery.
“Bringing the Hub to Payinthi in Prospect lets us activate a true community meeting place,” Tish says.
“It’s a space where creativity, connection and culture can spill into the street – and it sets us up for future growth, including laneway activations.”
Feast is on from November 1–23 and the full program is available on the Feast website.
