South Australia's iconic Christmas pageant returns to Rundle Mall after 50 years

Adelaide's beloved Christmas Pageant will make a change to this year's route, bringing Father Christmas to Rundle Mall for the first time since the 1970s. 

"From 1933 to 1974, the National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant would finish… in what was known as Rundle Street," pageant director Brian Gilbertson said.

Recently, it's travelled down King William Street and finished at Town Hall, but this year the pageant will come to an end at Beehive Corner, where Father Christmas will greet huge crowds at Rundle Mall.

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It's hoped pageant-goers will then head into the shops to buy their Christmas presents "and then stay, have a bit of lunch, do a bit of shopping, get those lists ticked off for Christmas," Gilbertson said.

The pageant, which is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, will once again take place in the first weekend of November to avoid clashing with the Adelaide 500 Supercars race, which starts on November 14.

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That's a repeat of the 2023 schedule, and organisers insist the date change proved popular, with last year's event drawing in a record-breaking crowd of 320,000.

"We have to accommodate for bumping in and bumping out, so the decision has been made to go for the first weekend in November," Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison said.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.