If you want to understand what it means for Adelaide to hold a UNESCO City of Music designation, the level of international activity generated during our summer festival season tells the story better than any bi-line or catch phrase ever could.
Adelaide comes alive during our much-loved festival season, drawing locals and visitors to performances, venues, and makeshift stages across the city and the state. It also attracts a different kind of visitor: international venue and event curators searching for the next standout act, artists ready to demonstrate exactly why they deserve a global platform, and increasingly, visitors from across the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
Adelaide City of Music (ACOM) works to promote South Australia and its diverse music culture on the world stage and to build meaningful, lasting relationships across the network that can generate real opportunities for local artists and the state’s diverse music community.
This festival season, that work was on full display.
A cornerstone of ACOM’s activity during the season was its continued partnership with the Adelaide Fringe’s Honey Pot program. Honey Pot is the Fringe Festival’s dedicated industry marketplace, connecting artists with presenters, festivals, and curators from around the world, offering clear career pathways and access to international markets that can be genuinely transformative for emerging and established artists alike.
ACOM has been working alongside the Fringe to encourage more South Australian musicians to recognise the level of creative potential and diversity of opportunities the Fringe Festival offers, and to explore, experiment, and participate in the festival, engage and connect with Honey Pot delegates, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), and other international partners.
This year, ACOM facilitated the involvement of two significant new partners in the program: the International Indigenous Music Summit, based in Toronto, and SunFest, a major free, world music festival in London, Ontario (another UNESCO City of Music). Both organisations came to Adelaide to better understand South Australia’s creative and cultural landscape, meet local artists and arts and culture organisations, and share insight into how cities can build meaningful development pathways and infrastructure for artists.
As a direct result of their visit, both organisations have committed to and are partnering to build stronger, sustainable connections with South Australian artists and cultural organisations.
Through Honey Pot, ACOM was also able to connect with a range of other visiting festival and event organisers. Among them were Jodhpur RIFF, an internationally celebrated roots and folk music festival in India; a folk music trade delegation from Denmark, keen to explore cultural and economic exchanges; and Mumbai-based festival organisers, blown away by the level of talent emerging from South Australia and keen to collaborate.
Another significant visitor during the festival season came from New Orleans, one of the world’s most iconic cities of music and, surprisingly, a relatively new addition to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. ACOM played a direct role in supporting New Orleans’ successful membership application, and the city chose Adelaide’s festival season as the moment to make their first visit and begin building the relationship in earnest.
New Orleans arrived with specific questions. They were keenly interested in how Adelaide has developed and spread its festival season across the calendar year, how festivals and events are used to activate the city and connect communities, and how music is leveraged as both a cultural and economic driver. Music tourism provides a huge economic contribution to New Orleans, and they were keen to share the benefits of their experience in leveraging music and the arts for economic and tourism outcomes.
Adelaide’s SALA Festival was a particular point of interest, with its model of connecting local artists and activating precincts across an extended period being the kind of community-embedded programming New Orleans is looking to develop. New Orleans visit included meetings with Adelaide’s Music Development Office and tourism representatives to discuss practical mechanisms for supporting artists and growing cultural visitation.
It is a notable moment: one of the great music cities in the world, looking to Adelaide as a model worth learning from.
While the festival season generates an intensity of activity that is hard to match, ACOM’s work building international connections continues year-round. Earlier in the year, ACOM facilitated an artist residency in Mexico through Routes to Roots, a Glasgow-based arts organisation and UNESCO partner. ACOM has since facilitated new introductions, connecting them with Nexus Arts, Adelaide’s own multicultural arts hub, to create a meaningful exchange between kindred organisations on opposite sides of the world.
ACOM followed this up, facilitating an invitation for a local artist to travel, participate and perform at the Tongyeong Music Festival and Fringe Festival in South Korea. An active UNESCO City of Music, Tongyeong joins Daegu as an engaged partner eager to build new relationships and opportunities between our cities.
ACOM was also able to facilitate productive introductions for the Australian String Quartet with Tallinn, Estonia, the Adelaide Jazz Festival with the Montreux City of Music and Montreux Jazz Festival, and deliver its annual International Jazz Day program of initiatives that saw the Elder Conservatorium’s Jazz School once again contribute to the International Jazz Relay along with UNESCO Cities of Music from around the world. ACOM also partnered with the Adelaide Festival Centre to deliver its annual homage to International Jazz Day with performances from the Elder Conservatorium’s Jazz Relay band, COMA, and The Exhibits.
Each of these connections represents something ACOM is deliberate about building: working-level relationships with genuine depth, capable of generating sustained and meaningful outcomes for South Australian artists and organisations. These are not one-off exchanges, but the beginning of ongoing creative partnerships.
Australia’s first and only UNESCO City of Music is now a decade into its designation, and the ambition is only growing. In 2026, ACOM will continue to develop the strategies, resources, and relationships needed to better connect South Australian artists, music professionals, and organisations to international opportunities, and to ensure Adelaide’s place within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network continues to work hard for the people and the music culture it was designed to serve.
For South Australian artists, the message is clear: the doors are open, the networks are active, and Adelaide City of Music is working to ensure more of them can walk through and take advantage.