aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Robert Grimshaw (QLD Dept of Innovation, Tourism Industry Development and the Commonwealth Games)

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games™ (GC2018) were held from 4 to 15 April 2018 – they represented the largest sporting event Australia will see this decade and the biggest sporting spectacular the Gold Coast has ever seen. But GC2018 is about more than a spectacular sporting event. In what has now been coined the ‘Games of Firsts’, GC2018 was the first regional Australian city to ever host a Commonwealth Games, the first major event of its kind to commit to a Reconciliation Action Plan for First Nations peoples, the first to have equal number of medal events for men and women and the largest ever fully-integrated para-sports program seen in Commonwealth or world sport. It is also about the opportunities and benefits that hosting the Commonwealth Games bring to the Gold Coast and all of Queensland before, during and after the event.

The presentation will cover the innovative design and implementation of the Evaluation and Monitoring Framework and how data visualisation technology has been used to track progress towards realising and maximising positive legacy benefits from GC2018 for Queensland communities. The will include a summary of particular elements of the evaluation framework that sought to engage the broad range of participants and stakeholders and capture the economic, social and cultural benefits. These approaches ranged from highly-technical economic modelling to face-to-face consultations.

The Evaluation and Monitoring Framework for the Embracing 2018 Legacy Program was awarded the 2018 AES Award for Excellence in Evaluation – project or study.