"I am happy as Larry, the staff had a never-say-die attitude from day one, they just worked their butts off," said artistic director Brett Sheehy.
Barring unexpected troubles, Sheehy predicts the annual arts event will be back in the black, even though its budget of more than $4.5 million is smaller than last year.
It comes as arts festivals are struggling with increased production costs and audiences cutting back on spending.
He's prepared to call the surplus just as the festival wraps the centrepiece of its program, the contemporary opera Innocence.
By Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and directed by Australian Simon Stone, Innocence was originally programmed for Adelaide by previous festival directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield.
Billed as one of the most important operas written this century, it has played at the Festival Theatre to standing ovations and five star reviews, directly before its New York debut at the Metropolitan Opera.
Yet Innocence was always risk, says Sheehy: a contemporary opera with a modern, dark story by a composer very few Australians have heard of.
And during a cost-of-living crisis, he is keenly aware that arts spending is discretionary, leading to arts festivals and companies tending towards safer fare.
Yet it seems Sheehy doesn't mind taking a risk himself - having previously run the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide festivals over a long career, he was brought on board at short notice to program the Adelaide event in 2025.
Previous artistic director Ruth Mackenzie departed in August 2024 to oversee the South Australian government's culture strategy.
The landmark policy had been due in mid-2024 and will be released at the end of March.
Last year's box office fell short of expectations at $4.3 million, leading to a deficit of $825,000 for 2023-24.
About a dozen ticketed shows had been locked in for 2025, but twice as many were needed to fill the program, explained Sheehy, who credits Womadelaide director Ian Scobie with helping him attract world-class shows at the last minute.
Would he do it all again?
"Hell yes, I love this stuff, it's what gets me up in the morning, solving things," says Sheehy.
On Monday, the festival board announced Malthouse Theatre's Matthew Lutton as artistic director from 2026-28.
Sheehy, who was 40 when he first took the reins at the Adelaide festival in 2005, is pleased to see generational change - and to be handing over the leadership of a festival operating in the black.
"Imagine handing over an unhealthy company, I couldn't stand it," he said.
AAP travelled with the assistance of the Adelaide Festival.
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