Artist Applications
Artist Applications
Important - please read before applying.
The next WOMADelaide will be held from Friday 6 - Monday 9 March 2026 in Botanic Park / Tainmuntilla, in inner city Adelaide, South Australia.
The festival began in 1992 and features 7 open-air stages with around 90 music and dance performances plus street theatre/site installation artists, workshops, the Taste the World cooking program, The Planet Talks environmental discussions, a KidZone and more.
The lineup of 70+ groups from across Australia and the world is curated by the festival’s programming team in Adelaide. Most decisions are made between July and October.
Visit our archive to get an idea of the scope of previous lineups. Broadly speaking, each year we aim to program a brand new, diverse mix of traditional and contemporary, original music (not covers) of a very high standard.
Commercial rock, opera and R&B are not usually featured, and a strong live show is important. The vast majority of performances are with live instrumentation, not ‘playback’ DJ + vox format.
If you are selected/invited to perform, we provide a performance fee, local hotel accommodation, production/technical requirements including backline, marketing/publicity and ground transport hotel-venue-airport etc. We also book and pay for/arrange the relevant travel (return flights, excess baggage and temporary entertainment visas).
Where an Australia-based or international promoter is producing a wider Australia-NZ tour, and we are buying in the Adelaide/NZ show/s we provide a delivered/landed fee to the promoter, plus local accommodation, production/technical, marketing/publicity and ground transport. In this instance, the promoter is responsible for all travel arrangements and the delivered fee is a pro rata per city share of the performance fee, international and domestic flights, visa arrangement and per diems (meals expenses).
WOMADelaide also produces the international artist lineup for WOMAD AOTEAROA (New Zealand), which is held the weekend after WOMADelaide (Friday 13 - Sunday 15 March 2026) in New Plymouth, Taranaki, NZ.
The lineup announcements for both festivals are usually in mid October and late November.
Please note:
- If you performed at the most recent festival, you will not be considered.
- Return/repeat artists usually have a few years between visits.
- 400+ applications are received via this online portal and other approaches, in addition to the invitations/proposals developed and pursued directly by the programming team.
- You will receive acknowledgment of your application. After that, no further emails will be sent unless more information is needed, or an invitation is forthcoming.
- Unfortunately, there is not enough time to service ongoing enquiries, or advise if you have not been successful.
- We do not take applications for workshops, Taste the World, The Planet Talks or KidZone.
- Links to download files via Dropbox/WeTransfer (or similar) will not be opened.
Thank you for your understanding.