The 2009 Adelaide Fringe ran from Friday 27 February - Sunday 22 March. There were over 4977 performances of 517 shows taking place in 259 venues.

The 2009 program included 115 comedy shows, 106 music events, 95 visual arts exhibitions, 68 theatre pieces, 44 cabaret shows, 40 events, 21 dance shows, 13 puppetry, 7 circus, 6 word-related shows and 2 film.

It would take 21 days to watch every show at Fringe 2009 back to back.The shortest show, Toys lasted 15 minutes. The smallest venue only had only 20 seats available for each performance of Scarborough. The largest venue, Thebarton Theatre, seated over 1000 people where Adam Hills and Dave Hughes performed.

There were 293 Australian Premieres at Fringe 2009 - well over 50% of events.

A crowd of approximately 80,000 attended the massive Opening Night Party on Friday 27 February, which also saw the return of the much loved Street Parade.

There were performers from: Algeria, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, UK and USA.

Over 100 shows sold out at least one performance and over 382 performances sold out in total. 21 shows entirely sold out every single performance during their run.

A total of 361 volunteers worked more than 1500 hours to bring the Fringe to life. When at their biggest, Fringe staff ranks included 82 staff members.

An estimated total expenditure of $27.2 million was associated with the event, attracting record attendances of 1,004,440 to free and ticketed events.

Fringe produced activities included:

• Lantern la Lumiere
• Adelaide Street Theatre
• Fringe Family Weekend
• Desert Fringe
• Playground
• Word
• Blueprint
• Fuse
• Format
• Upstart
• Miniart

And best of all, the Spirit of the Fringe Award went to our Biggest Fringe Fans, David and Karen Hyland who attend 80 2009 Fringe events between them.

Sources:
2009 Fringe Guide
2009 Media Release – Fringe Facts