The City of Onkaparinga will retain its five existing annual major events and will expand its Tour Down Under event to host a women's stage.

The November council meeting also decided to boost the budget of the Onkaparinga Christmas Pageant and to rotate the locations of some events.

This followed an extensive review and community consultation on the council’s major events program.

The Beachside Food and Wine Festival and Trucks on Tour will each rotate through multiple locations, in co-ordination with the Summer Activation Program and as additional suitable venues can be found. 

All major events budgets will be indexed annually in line with CPI to help address increasing costs, but the Christmas Pageant was granted an extra $13,000 to $40,000 in 2024-25.

The local TDU women’s stage will start in the 2025 race, with an annual budget allocation of $25,000.

On 14 November 2023 Council approved the continuation of all of our major events including retaining the Beachside Food & Wine Festival at Christies Beach, and added hosting a women's stage of the Santos Tour Down Under annually. 

The council noted that the community had shown interest in adding a multicultural event to the major events program and this could be considered in future.

The major events program consists of:

• Trucks on Tour  in October.
• Onkaparinga Christmas Pageant in late November.
• Tour Down Under stage(s) – in partnership with Events South Australia  in January.
• Australia Day Bush Fair in January.
• Beachside Food and Wine Festival in February/March.

The Australia Day Bush Fair will be renamed The Australia Day Family Fair, in line with community feedback.