Aussie Rules Football Festival Game at the Adelaide Oval

On our last day in Adelaide we attended the “Footie” Festival and an Australian Rules Football (AFL) game between the Collingwood Magpies and the Hawthorne Hawks. This game was the last game that was part of the week long footie festival that had all 18 teams in the AFL, the Australian professional football league, play one game against another league opponent. This festival was called the “Gather Round.” Meaning gather for football and a complete round of games involving all teams.

Collingwood is the most recent, 2023 champion of the Grand Final league championship (Australia’s equivalent of the US Super Bowl). The game we attended was won by Collingwood but it came down to the last play and ended with a final score of 77 - 72.

The Footie Festival had a weeklong celebration and the city of Adelaide was full of football fans all week. There was a festival grounds area that had music and fun activities for kids and food and beverages for kids and adults.

While we didn’t really even know all of the rules of the game, it was great fun. It is a action packed game on a large oval shaped field. The players bump and tackle, punch pass and kick the ball to teammates and at the goal and they wear no protective equipment whatsoever. The crowd was active with people cheering both sides, yelling at the referees and having fun throughout! We had a great time at the game and left the game with around 50,000 other fans and had no trouble getting the tram back to by our accommodation.

One other thing you will see in our pictures is that we were sitting well up in the grandstands! The tickets were very reasonably priced in spite of almost all tickets being sold out for the 9 Gather Round games. So you can also see groups of people being lead, as they were tethered, up a walkway that leads to the roof of the stadium! Presumably they paid extra for this high view of the game!

Here are some pictures and video related to the Footie Festival and that we took at the game we attended.