The oldest children’s festival in the world, DreamBIG is celebrating its 50th anniversary, with boosted funding from the Department for Education helping to ensure access for young South Australians to this important arts event.

With festival expenses surging since the COVID-19 pandemic, the most recent $200,000 grant has supported festival organisers to keep prices down at a time where families are dealing with cost of living pressures.

The biennial funding, up from $70,000, has also enabled an expansion of accessibility to support children with disabilities, created more opportunities for artists to hold in-school programs, and supported regional engagement.

More than 2.5 million children have participated in the biennial event since its introduction as the ‘Come Out Festival’ in 1974.

This year’s golden jubilee, being held at the Adelaide Festival Centre, features a packed program with more than 50 multi-genre arts experiences for the 22,000 students attending.

Starting with today’s opening event and birthday parade, involving more than 1200 students from 13 schools across SA, the festival also features theatre, music, circus and multi-media performances, interactive workshops, exhibitions and installations.

The 10-day festival provides diverse experiences for preschool, primary and secondary learners. The program is curated in line with the 50th anniversary theme, ‘I was, I am, I will be’ – which invites young people to celebrate the festival’s legacy and consider the person they dream of becoming.

The festival helps young people to develop an understanding of the arts while simultaneously providing teachers with the confidence to bring the arts into their classrooms, by providing an array of teacher resources to support learning, specifically aligned with the South Australian Curriculum.