Behind the Magic: What It’s Really Like to Be Part of Adelaide’s Christmas Pageant

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at the National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant? One of our reviewers joined the fun this year, sharing her journey from clown school to the big day.

Review by Carla Caruso

My childhood dream was to be chosen as a princess to ride on Nimble – not Nipper, specifically Nimble! – in Adelaide’s historic Christmas Pageant.

So, when the opportunity arose to apply for a role in the National Pharmacies-sponsored pageant, I jumped at it, although I didn’t think I stood much chance.

Then, lo and behold, an email arrived telling me I’d been selected. Not as a pageant princess, alas (I’m a little too old for that), but as a clown!

I’d be one of 300 clowns and elves, joining around 66 floats and 170 moving sets in the pageant’s 94th edition – a tradition dating back to 1933.

What an honour! After all, can you really call yourself an Adelaidean if you haven’t been part of the pageant at least once?

The costume fitting

Do pageant participants just turn up on the day, get handed a costume and have their faces painted? Not quite.

Weeks beforehand, you attend a costume fitting at the rather unassuming pageant headquarters in Adelaide’s inner north-west – perhaps deliberately low-key to keep the magic under wraps.

This isn’t your chance to declare your personal colour palette – autumn or spring – and be assigned an outfit to suit! Your costume is already chosen. The fitting is simply to check the size, make sure the Velcro fastenings work and everything is in order.

Some costumes, like mine, have a distinctly retro feel.

I was advised to wear bike shorts underneath, giving me somewhere to stash my phone – the only valuable I should bring on pageant morning – as my outfit had no pockets. Bobby pins were also recommended to tuck my hair under my wig and avoid a rather unfortunate mullet look.

Seeing myself dressed as a wannabe clown for the first time was a tad confronting. (I’ll admit, I usually prefer fancy-dress costumes that make me look glam rather than silly!) But surely a little makeup magic will pull the whole look together.

The fitting also offered a first glimpse inside pageant headquarters, complete with its magical Christmassy decorations.

Off to Elf and Clown School

A month later, I returned to pageant headquarters for Elf and Clown School, venturing further inside to indulge my inner child with a close-up look at some of the floats ahead of the big day. Possum Magic! Bruto (the pink, fanged monster)! Pogo (the pageant’s tallest clown)!

Then it was time to meet the other three newbie clowns in my group.

Clowns and elves are the roaming entertainers who fill the gaps between floats, keeping the crowds amused and the festive energy going along the route.

We’d been assigned to walk near the front of the pageant, between the Magic Fairyland and Cinderella floats – pretty exciting!

Each of us was given a prop (mine was a watering can) and tasked with improvising a group act to perform on a loop during the session. I had to overcome my shyness as we settled on a do-si-do dance.

After our not-quite-Oscar-worthy performance, it was time for a briefing with long-time pageant director Brian Gilbertson (who’s also an opera singer and voice and acting mentor).

He talked us through everything, from what to do if a float breaks down to what to wear – including tips for the Channel 9 broadcast (hint: wear a smile and avoid reflective items such as sunnies and watches).

It really brought home just how much goes into organising an event of this scale.

As Brian explained, our KPI was simple: make one person’s day. Appropriately, this year’s pageant theme is “Share the Magic”.

A week before the pageant, I received a training video to watch, which included two quizzes, and was awarded a certificate of achievement upon completion.

What was next for me? An extremely early start on Saturday morning!

Pageant Day

The 5am alarm was a shock to the system, but I needed to be at Pulteney Grammar School by 6.30am for makeup, costume and prop collection. (And hey, some families had camped out overnight just to watch the pageant, so who was I to complain?)

After queuing for clown makeup and grabbing a quick breakfast (a gluten-free cupcake for me!), I just made it to my float for the 9am call on South Terrace.

Our group was lucky to be near the front, so by 9.30am we were on the move. No more waiting!

Seeing the crowds, with children ten rows deep, was a little daunting at first, but soon I was smiling, waving and giving fist bumps to kids in the front row.

There were plenty of coordinated festive family outfits to admire along the way (even if my own costume got a little hot at times!). We also had to maintain a safe distance from the float ahead and the dancers behind.

The entire 50-minute experience passed in a blur. After travelling along King William, Wakefield and Pulteney streets and North Terrace, we were back where we started. Just like that, it was over.

We were bussed back to Pulteney Grammar to change and remove our makeup, with a welcome Zooper Dooper along the way. (The only water available en route was from shared emergency bottles, which you weren’t supposed to drink from directly.)

I left tired but buzzing, grateful to have had this experience at least once in my life!

Some fun facts about the Adelaide Christmas Pageant

• The first pageant took place on 18 November 1933, during the Great Depression, after being conceived by Sir Edward Hayward, chairman of John Martin’s department store.
• Hayward was inspired by Toronto’s Eaton’s Santa Claus Parade, which he saw during a visit to Canada.
• The pageant was suspended between 1941 and 1944 due to World War II, returning in November 1945.
• Traditionally, the pageant ended outside the John Martin’s (later David Jones) building on North Terrace, where Father Christmas would visit the Magic Cave. In 2019, the finish moved to Adelaide Town Hall.
• The South Australian Government acquired the pageant in 1995. Credit unions became naming rights sponsors in 1996, before National Pharmacies took over the sponsorship in 2019.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, the pageant moved to Adelaide Oval for two years, in 2020 and 2021. Attendance was limited, with tickets allocated through a ballot in 2020, before the pageant returned to Adelaide’s streets in 2022.
• The Christmas Tree float, which debuted in 2004, represents the SA tradition of putting up the family Christmas tree on Pageant weekend.

See our Top Parks & Playgrounds Around Adelaide

For more information and all enquiries, please visit the National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant website.

All photos by Carla Caruso for Play & Go Adelaide.

At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.

As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post and our review is done completely independently. All photos are by Play & Go (2026).

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