The Birmingham Commonwealth Games closing ceremony will be Tuesday morning, which means Ballarat - and the rest of regional Victoria - is next up.
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The state government launched its official ad campaign for the 2026 Regional Victoria games on Friday, marking just under four years to go until the opening ceremony at the MCG.
So far, Ballarat is confirmed to be hosting the athletics and para-athletics, boxing, and at least one game of T20 cricket, with seating capacity upgrades sought for Mars Stadium and a village for about 2000 people as our major infrastructure needs, outside of a drastic rethink of our public transport system.
It's expected more sports will be announced soon - the City of Ballarat is bidding for the marathon, and in partnership with Hepburn Shire Council, mountain biking in Creswick.
The state government has been tight-lipped about when we'll hear more so far, but announcements are expected later this month.
In the meantime, one sporting events expert says Ballarat businesses should begin thinking ahead now - three years will go quickly.
Federation University's Dr Alana Thomson, from the institute of health and wellbeing, studies major sporting events.
Previously, she's worked as a policy advisor at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, focusing on legacy.
While the state government has appointed a minister for Commonwealth Games legacy, the work needs to begin now to ensure the event has tangible benefits for cities like Ballarat.
"I'm passionate about sporting events, I grew up in Sydney with the Olympics, it did fantastic things for the city," she said.
"Legacy doesn't happen without planning, without coordinated approaches across different levels of government and with government and the private sector, and the community as well - we can't sit on our laurels and think '(it's) going to have an economic impact, I'm going to see more people more active' - if we don't have plans in place to make that happen, it won't, the event's not a magic bullet.
"If you want legacy, there's a whole lot that needs to happen around the event to secure those benefits ... this is going to be a really different model, and it has the potential to be really beneficial for the regions, but it's going to require people working in different ways than they've worked before."
Dr Thomson gave an example from her childhood in Sydney, with her parents' construction business.
"My mum and dad decided that during the Olympics they'd scale back and run a skeleton staff, because there were predictions for traffic increases, and 80 per cent of their business is logistics and delivering stuff around the Sydney CBD, so it wasn't going to benefit them, it was probably going to cost them more time with drivers being stuck in traffic," she explained.
"So they made it a distinct objective, and it was actually the first time we ever took a mid-year holiday as a family - it was a completely different approach - my dad wasn't thinking 'how can I benefit from this?', it was 'this might have negative impacts', so he planned ahead for that.
"Sometimes, it's enough to say 'well, we're not the company or sector that's going to directly benefit from this' - it might be worth stepping back and saying, 'how are you going to approach this, what are the different scenarios, could we encourage our staff to volunteer for two weeks?'.
"Let's benefit in different ways, they'll get the training and professional development."
Business owners in particular should keep "three Is" in mind - be informed about the event and what it could mean, be intentional in forward planning, and be inspired by the event itself - to avoid a negative outcome from the Commonwealth Games when it arrives.
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"A lot of businesses came out after Gold Coast saying hey, we didn't get the benefits," Dr Thomson said.
"Some of them were more proactive than others - there's a quote in one of the papers, 'we just took the official advice, yes we attended the university seminar and they told us to have a balanced appraisal but we just took the official advice saying there'd be this many people and this much benefit'.
"What that meant was these guys brought in stock, increased inventory and staffing - it cost them money, and what actually happened is people moved around the event differently to what they expected to happen.
"As a participant, or spectator, I don't think we think about this enough in terms of event design and the customer journey.
"I got my tickets, I knew there'd be lines to get through security, so my whole plan was to get to the event, line up, get inside, then get food and drink once I'd found my seat, you're not stopping at the coffee shop.
"It's those practicalities that people didn't think through for that event.
"When we went back and worked with the businesses, I thought maybe from the event organiser's perspective, they said all these businesses should be ready for this, but no one had run those scenarios - 'what if the shuttle bus is held up? What if there's traffic on the way to the event? Are people really going to stop on their way?'.
"Let's be honest, if you attend sport events, the objective is to find your seat, settle in, grab a drink, and it contradicts the economic impact, it doesn't mean local businesses can't benefit, I just think we have to be a little more informed and have that critical appraisal."
The 2026 games' opening ceremony begins in 188 weeks.
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