Illuminate lights up city with life-size arcade and woolly mammoths
Illuminate festival will light up the city again this July, with a new interactive game to rouse players’ competitive spirit and two returning music festivals.
In an Australia-first, the Adelaide showgrounds’ Ridley Centre will become an arcade battleground for this year’s Illuminate festival headline event, the Augmented Games.
Players become the controller in eight multiplayer games that merge bright technology with physical skill for the Augmented Games, created by Canadian creative studio Moment Factory.
With no screens and no headsets, visitors would use their own bodies as the controller in immersive games that test agility, memory and reflexes.
Organisers say the games are suitable for everyone to play, including seniors, people with disabilities, kids and adults, as individuals or groups.
It is one of 11 world premieres the festival has in store for July in a lineup of 100 experiences, including two music festivals.
Creative Directors and co-founders Lee Cumberlidge and Rachael Azzopardi said their sixth program of the light-driven festival is their biggest yet.
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“We are immensely proud to deliver both ticketed and free experiences that invite the public to explore, play and interact with the work of some of the world’s most exciting artists and creative studios all pushing the boundaries of creativity and technology,” the duo said.
Cult experimental music festival Unsound will return to the city’s west end for the Illuminate program. The two-night festival held across three venues hosts local talent alongside international Grammy-nominees.
Hania Rani – a Polish electronic keyboardist who got her start recording classically-inspired rock covers – will headline Saturday at Hindley Street Music Hall.
She will be joined by UK DJ, actress, and Grammy-nominated composer Suzanne Ciani in an Adelaide exclusive collaboration called Concrete Waves.
Further down Hindley Street at the Ancient World Afterparty, UK DJs Lauren Duffus and Shannon SP, Polish DJ 2K88 and Adelaide music scene stalwarts DJ Cookie and Elsie Craig will spin late into the morning.
The following weekend, on July 18, South-Sudanese and Brisbane-based DJ Skin on Skin will headline Supersonic at Hindley Street Music Hall.
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Supersonic was introduced to the Illuminate festival last year, with a focus on Australian artists and reviving the late-night energy of the city’s west end, which has seen several music venue closures and record-high vacancy rates since 2023.
Skin on Skin – who broke through the scene in 2019 with his debut Steel City Dance Discs – is joined on the lineup by Sydney-based DJ moktar, and Victoria’s Stev Zar and Soju Gang.
Adelaide-based DJ and producer Khuevo will also join the lineup, which is curated by Motez, who has previously curated the AdeLOUD festival lineup and is a regular in CityMag‘s Best New Music column.
Also returning on the broader Illuminate program is Night Visions, an exhibition of light and sound in the Botanic Gardens, and Universal Kingdom: Ice Age, an after-dark experience at the Adelaide Zoo featuring puppetry and light installations like woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers.
The festival, known for lighting up North Terrace buildings, will do the same again for its City Lights free portion of the program, and go further into the east end, including Rundle Street and Rymill Park light installations, including illuminated swans swimming in the Rymill Park lake.
This year’s food program is the most ambitious yet, the directors say, with immersive dining experiences including Ocean to Plate, a collaboration with the Adelaide Convention Centre that celebrates SA seafood with ocean-inspired projections and soundscapes illuminating the tables.
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will perform live at the Sofitel in a special event called Symphony of the Senses in a candlelit scene of canapes and drinks.
Illuminate After Dark will include a cheese and caviar masterclass in the Adelaide Central Market, while over 30 restaurants across the city will offer exclusive menus, offers and experiences.
Illuminate runs from July 1 to July 19 and the full program is available on the Illuminate website.
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