search			'Here's a Festival that actually delivers on the promise of something for everyone' The Advertiser The second annual Adelaide Cabaret Festival has come to an end, but as anyone who came down to the Adelaide Festival Centre in June will attest, this year's festival has firmly cemented the event into everybody's social calendar. With an estimated attendance of 45 000 people over the 17 days of the festival, it has become a landmark in the country's arts landscape, and another example of how South Australia is once again taking the lead in premier arts events on a national scale. Here is just a small selection of what the people have said about the event; '...the Adelaide Cabaret Festival can claim its place as the new must-see of the National Arts Calendar' The Australian 'Ultimately, it is the cumulative experience of the entire program that has made this such a brilliant festival...the result has been rich and rewarding' The Age 'Adelaide has done it again...there is nothing quite like [the Adelaide Cabaret Festival] on the planet!' Toni Lamond, cabaret star Director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Ms Julia Holt, said, 'The Adelaide Cabaret Festival has proven that audiences from around the country are keen to support events like this. Not only has it been enormously popular with both audiences and artists, but we have also gone a long way to realising the Festival's aim to revitalise the art form'. Ms Holt went on to say that one of the keys to this year's success was an average ticket price of $22 and targeted initiatives such as Bring a Friend Free on Wednesday. The Festival achieved its intention to develop new audiences for cabaret and to remain within everyone's reach. Frank Ford AM, Chair of the Cabaret Advisory Committee, endorsed Ms Julia Holt's comments, adding , 'When I first suggested the idea for a cabaret festival, it was enthusiastically received. I think it was in the back of everyone's minds that we might have a hit on our hands. But two years ago, no-one would have dreamed of the kind of immediate impact not only here in Adelaide, but around the country and even around the world'. 'People in Europe and America have now heard about what we're doing here in Adelaide and I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't a great deal of enthusiastic support for the festival.' Initiatives such as the Push Club, and the establishment of new venues such as the intimate Festival Theatre Stage and the Kool Kat Festival Club, which had an estimated 5,000 attendances, added to the festival's overall success, as did the inclusion of a number of local performers. So stay tuned to this site (or get onto the cabaret email list in the News section) for what's happening next year. From June 6 - 22, 2003, it all starts again ... hope to see you there.