Lisa Bishop

For film producer and co-founder of Never Too Late Productions, Lisa Bishop, festivals are essential to Adelaide and its people.

‘They are part of our fabric; they are part of our culture,’ and having worked for more than 20 years in tourism, events, film/TV and the arts, she’s long held sway in how we Adelaideans maintain that core component of our identity.

In a family house large enough for seven children growing up in metropolitan Adelaide, art always played a role in Lisa’s homelife.

Her father used to listen to opera records and her mother was a writer and visual artist, and though Lisa was forever singing in bands and acting in musical theatre, she ended up studying accounting at university.

She admits it seems an odd choice for someone as humanities-driven as herself, but in fact the highly practical numbers-based degree not only led to a job before she even graduated, but also positioned her on arts boards as treasurer.

From VitalStatistix to Urban Myth and the Media Resource Centre, board work then set her up for arts management: ‘I went from figures to people.’

As the former CEO of Music SA, Lisa set up the Umbrella live music festival, which invigorates the local music industry during the month of July, when winter tends to slow things down.

What she loves most about the festival is the way it showcases Adelaide’s built heritage of brick-and-mortar venues, by bringing gigs to them and to generations of punters.

For Lisa, successful festivals like the Umbrella focus on place, and the city of Adelaide is prime for such attention.

‘When somebody comes to a festival in Adelaide from somewhere else, they get to experience something that’s uniquely Adelaidean.

So, for example, the city of Adelaide is surrounded by parklands and so we have WOMAD in Botanic Park, celebrating that strength.

Adelaide is very much an accessible city. The Kaurna Adelaide Plains are quite flat. And so festivals like the Fringe and Illuminate and SALA, to my mind, are walking festivals.

’Further afield are the wine festivals that proudly stamp Adelaide and its surrounds as the Wine Capital of Australia, like the Barossa Vintage Festival to the north, the McLaren Vale Sea & Vines Festival to the south, or the Winter Reds Festival in the Adelaide Hills to the east.’

‘Even our festivals that bring to us some of the best work from across the globe – so the Festival of Arts or the Adelaide Film Festival – they still have a component where they are commissioning local artists to make local new work.

So there’s always something about those festivals that you can experience that’s uniquely Adelaidean.’

From her unique perspective as an arts board member, manager and director, Lisa’s quick to point out that most of our festivals developed from the ground up, having been created by the artists who didn’t buy into the idea that art happens on the east coast.

They either stayed and proved their point, or they’ve come back to their roots to get in on the action.

She says with an ‘of course’ shrug to her shoulders that festivals are in our DNA.

Also on the board of South Australian Motor Sport, Lisa will tell you that Adelaide 500 is more than a race, it’s a festival, and now that it’s moved away from Mad March, it’s exemplary of Adelaide’s shift to four solid seasons of festivals.

‘It’s a year-round offering now, and it’s irresistible. Like, why would you want to go and live anywhere else in the world when you’ve got all this art and culture year round?’

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This article is part of the Festival City Stories series, a collection of reflections about Adelaide made by the people who make this a festival place. The project was funded through the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Arts South Australia, Arts Recovery Fund, and delivered in partnership with the State Library of South Australia. 

Written by: Heather Johnson

Photography by: Alex van de Loo