Updated March 19, 2017 12:56:09

Photo: An outdoor hub on the Torrens riverbank provided colourful activities for festival-goers. (ABC News: Malcolm Sutton)

As the Adelaide Festival draws to a close, organisers say record ticket sales and attendance numbers have made the 2017 event the most successful in its 57-year history.

More than $4 million was collected in box office takings this year, a 44 per cent increase on last year and a 25 per cent improvement from the record set in 1992.

First-time festival co-director Rachel Healy said she had been overwhelmed by the support.

"This has surpassed even our most vivid hopes for the event," she said.

"We had a high level of confidence in the quality of the work but you're never completely sure [about] your own interest and belief in it is personal idiosyncrasy or if it's something that's going to connect with large numbers of people.

"I've been heartened and a little bit surprised, I guess, with how unanimous the support has been for not just the large scale works but everything across the program."

More than 284,000 people attended the 20-day arts festival, which featured three world and 17 Australian premieres, and 180 sold-out performances.

The announcement came one day after the Adelaide Fringe Festival announced a record-breaking 655,541 ticket sales, cementing the festival as the country's largest and Adelaide's overall Mad March festival season as a growing force.

Photo: Tickets for The Secret River, co-produced by the State Theatre and Sydney Theatre companies, sold fast. (Supplied: Adelaide Festival)

Ms Healy said the opportunity to see a major international opera like Saul connected with people all over the country as it sold out in late November.

"And going to see The Secret River in the Anstey Hill Quarry or Coral: Rekindling Venus at the Mawson Lakes Planetarium — these are the kinds of things that festival goers love to do. It's out of the ordinary," she said.

"According to the people who stopped me in the street to talk about the festival, those things have really connected."

The Secret River broke box office records for the State Theatre Company of SA as the highest grossing and fastest-selling show in the company's history.

The festivals within the Adelaide Festival also performed well with Adelaide Writers' Week attracting its biggest crowd of more than 134,000, and WOMADelaide drawing tens of thousands to Botanic Park.

The 2017 festival ends tonight with a free party on board the floating Riverbank Palais on River Torrens.

Festival co-directors Ms Healy and Neil Armfield will continue in the role for the next two years.

Topics: arts-and-entertainment, events, visual-art, adelaide-5000, sa

First posted March 19, 2017 12:06:55