What’s on This Month in Adelaide: “Mad March”, Sauce Day, Womad, Food Festivals and Theatre From International A-Listers

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Mad March. It’s the busiest time of the year to be in Adelaide, with Adelaide Fringe, Womad, Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Biennial all converging in one hectic month.

And it’s our duty to make the most of it. So, before we lock into “hibernation April”, (we’re hoping that takes off), here are 15 things to do this month in Adelaide – as well as all the latest food news you might have missed.

Jump to:

• Festivals

• Theatre

• Art

• Food and drink news

Festivals and events in March 2026

• Adelaide Fringe, February 20 to March 22: Adelaide Fringe is one of Australia’s largest arts festivals, presenting cabaret, comedy, circus, music, interactive experiences and installations. Fringe’s hubs – Gluttony and The Garden of Unearthly Delights – take over the parks along East Terrace. It’s hard not to give into temptation at Gluttony, with 31 food vendors and pop-up restaurants including the return of Andre’s Cucina. Rundle Street also gets in on the action, closing to traffic on weekends as restaurants and bars spill out into the street with al fresco dining. Tickets are available online.

• Riverland Food & Wine Festival, March 7: Head out of town for free tastings and stalls from Walle and Freestone Estates, 23rd Street Distillery, Woolshed Brewery, Jachmann’s Cider and more at Riverland Food & Wine Festival.

• Womadelaide, March 6 to 9: Womad is a truly special event in the Adelaide cultural calendar. Bringing together over 600 artists from nearly 40 countries, Womad celebrates music, dance and art. This year’s line-up includes local artists like Baker Boy and Barkaa, New Zealand’s Marlon Williams, hip-hop trailblazers Arrested Development, and art-pop legend Grace Jones. We spoke to the festival’s co-founder about what to expect.

• Sauce Day at the Adelaide Central Market, March 13 & 14: Roll up those sleeves, Sauce Day is back at the Central Market. There are five hands-on sessions to attend (a ticket includes your own bottle of sauce), cooking demonstrations by local Italian chefs, music courtesy of roving piano accordion players and a live broadcast from Radio Italiana.

• Adelaide Festival, February 27 to March 15: This year’s festival includes international theatre, opera, dance performances, talks from cultural icons like the Academy Award-nominated Isabelle Huppert and plenty of art. What more would you expect from the Festival State?

Theatre in March 2026

There’s a great collection of theatre and musicals coming to Adelaide in 2026. These are the shows you can check out this month.

• POV: There’s no dress rehearsal for becoming a parent. This show uses that anxiety-inducing premise to put two unrehearsed actors through their paces with one camera-wielding pre-teen. In its Adelaide Festival iteration, 11-year-old Bub is played by alternating actors. Her parents, two adults drawn from a roster of actors, have only one task: to react in real time. It might be funny, it might be sad, but as the grown-ups are unprepared, no two shows could possibly be the same. Runs from March 4 to 7 at Space Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

• Mama Does Derby:  Adelaide Roller Derby League skaters circle a track-like stage in a show created by Clare Watson and Virginia Gay. The story follows teenage Billie and her mum on their move to regional Australia. It’s about failing and getting back on your feet, being alive and free, and finding your community. Runs until March 8 at Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

• Mary Said What She Said: Legendary actor Isabelle Huppert transports us to 1587 in a one-woman production – performed in French, with English surtitles – about the final moments in the life of Mary Queen of Scots. The 90-minute show, directed and designed by the late American playwright Robert Wilson, is an Adelaide Festival exclusive. It garnered rave reviews in London and New York for its fragmented, avant-garde style, and for composer Ludovico Einaudi’s original score. Runs from March 6 to 8 at Festival Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

• Whitefella Yella Tree: Ty and Neddy – teenage boys from different mobs – meet for the first time under the branches of a lemon tree to talk about the recently arrived whitefellas. Slowly they become friends, then lovers. Over various meetings they respond to the sudden and violent changes brought on by colonisation. This Griffin Theatre Company production features Pertame and Tiwi actor Joseph Althouse as Ty and Barrd, Yamatji, Noongar, Bunuba and Ngadju actor Danny Howard as Neddy. Runs from March 12 to 15 at Space Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.

Art in March 2026

The Adelaide art scene this year is chock-full of great exhibitions. Here’s what you can see this month.

• Kumarangk: As part of a project looking at the Ngarrindjeri women who resisted the construction of the Hindmarsh Island bridge, Kumarangk brings together work by Ngarrindjeri artists, including Aunty Ellen Trevorrow and Aunty Betty Sumner, to honour their fight and the survival of culture. Kumarangk runs until April 4 at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.

• Golshad Asami: Rhythms of Home: Ceramic artist Golshad Asami has made a series of beautiful plates that explore her connection with her birthplace, Iran. Asami moved to Adelaide in 2019, and her delicate, circular ceramics tell the story of living between two worlds. Golshad Asami: Rhythms of Home runs until April 12 at the Jam Factory.

• Make Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design: Cinnamon Lee won this year’s Make Award for her metal sculpture that she describes as a lamp, a piece of jewellery and a theatrical work of art. It’s currently on display at the Jam Factory, alongside a sofa made of 3744 golf balls, and other quirky design items. Make Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design runs until April 12 at the Jam Factory.

• Touching the Divine: Love and devotion in Asian art: AGSA curators have pulled out paintings and ceramics from the gallery’s collection to explore how artists across Asia have interpreted Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic stories over the centuries. There are Hindu goddesses, Sufi subjects and many depictions of Krishna spread around the Lower Melrose Wing, each one expressing the concept of love and devotion. Touching the Divine runs until April 26 at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

• 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength: We know the idiom “pressure creates diamonds”, but does pressure really transform something for the better? Curator Ellie Buttrose has called this year’s Biennial Yield Strength, which asks 24 artists to explore how materials and people change under pressure. The line-up includes Venice Biennale winner Archie Moore, Melbourne-based painter Prudence Flint, Ngapa Jukurrpa painter Julie Nangala Robertson, and sculptor and video artist Charlie Sofo. Yield Strength runs until June 8 at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Samstag Museum of Art and Adelaide Botanic Garden. 

• Beginnings: Imagine if, when you shopped for groceries, you could see the whole cost of buying, say, a punnet of blueberries. Not just the dollar amount, but the labour of growing and picking them, the environmental costs of transporting them, preserving them and keeping them cool until they reach your basket. Adelaide University’s Mod gallery has created a convenience store where you can do just that. Beginnings runs until November 20 at Mod.

Food news and new Openings:

What we’ve covered recently:

• Idle Hands, a new bakery from a Loc alum, opened last month, serving sourdough, cake, baguettes and Brid-inspired cookies.

• Jewels of Thought opened in Ebenezer Place. It’s a hybrid cafe-record store-wine bar from DJ and musician Anthony Wendt.

• Andre’s Cucina & Polenta Bar is back for a good time, not a long time.

• The Barone siblings’ pizza comes to North Adelaide with takeaway-focused pizzeria Falcone.

You might have missed:

• It’s the most important meal of the day. Here are the best breakfast spots in Adelaide.

• March marks the start of autumn. Take a look back at the nine new Adelaide venues Broadsheet got excited about this summer.

• Our "Supper Partying" columnist Becca Wang has started a new series teaching us how to host a dinner party for four for $50 or less. Here are her recipes and recs for a izakaya-inspired party. 

Reporting by Emma Joyce and Nadia Luksich.