Future Sport Lab 01 · Participant Experience
Design sporting experiences
people choose to return to.
Bring one real participant challenge.
Over six weeks, work with evidence, participant voices, Future Fellows, AI and peers from across Victorian sport to understand it, redesign it and test something real. Leave with something you can implement — not another set of workshop notes.
- START
- STAY
- CONTRIBUTE
The challenge
How might we design sporting experiences that are easier to start, more worth staying for and more natural to contribute to?
Easy to start
Discovery · joining · confidence · welcome · friction
The distance between wanting to take part and actually taking part.
Worth staying
Enjoyment · belonging · progress · voice · ease · recognition
What makes the second, tenth and fiftieth time worth turning up for.
Natural to contribute
Identity · connection · advocacy · volunteering · leadership
When taking part turns into giving back without being asked twice.
The Lab will help each organisation identify one participant, one experience challenge and one moment worth improving.
Why participant experience?
Sporting experiences are shaped by
far more than the activity itself.
How people are welcomed, communicated with, recognised, supported, included and able to see progress can influence whether participation becomes something they try once — or something they want to return to.
The 2026 State of Victorian Sport & Recreation identified strong aspects of participant experience alongside practical opportunities around progress, ease and recognition. It also identified experience measurement as a significant organisational capability gap.
The opportunity is therefore not simply to tell organisations that experience matters. It is to build their ability to understand it, intentionally design it, test improvements and measure what changes.
The capability gap
4.37
Experience measurement — the lowest-rated organisational capability in the sector.
Experience drivers, 0–10
| Enjoyment | 7.33 strength |
| Belonging | 7.04 strength |
| Progress | 6.44 opportunity |
| Ease | 6.13 opportunity |
| Recognition | 5.98 opportunity |
Source: State of Victorian Sport & Recreation 2026.
The participant promise
Bring one real challenge.
Leave with something you can test.
During the Lab you will develop:
A defined challenge
One participant problem worth solving.
An Experience Journey
See where value is being created or lost.
A Moment That Matters
Identify the place where change could matter most.
A prototype
Build something real enough for participants to experience.
Evidence from testing
Learn what happened when you put it in front of real people.
A 90-Day Improvement Plan
Turn the learning into action inside your organisation.
How the Lab works
Three focused sessions. Six weeks.
Real application between them.
Session 1
SEE — See the experience through their eyes.
Understand the evidence, the participant and the current journey.
You leave with: target participant · current experience · Moment That Matters · design challenge.
Fieldwork
LOOK
Talk to participants. Observe. Walk the journey. Test your assumptions.
Session 2
IMAGINE & MAKE — Design the experience you wish existed.
Generate possibilities, challenge assumptions and make the strongest response tangible.
You leave with: future experience · prototype · test plan.
Fieldwork
TEST
Put the prototype in front of real participants.
Session 3
LEARN & COMMIT — Make it better. Make it happen.
Use evidence from testing to improve the prototype and create a 90-day implementation plan.
You leave with: prototype v1.0 · evidence · owner · measures · first action.
What you'll use
A practical Participant Experience Field Guide.
Participants work through eight tools.
The Match
Who is it for? What is it for?
Participant Lens
See the person, not the demographic.
Start · Stay · Contribute
What behaviour are we influencing?
Experience Journey
Map the moments, not the programme.
Pink / Green Moments
Where is value created or lost?
Future Experience Canvas
What should happen instead?
Prototype & Experiment Card
Make it real enough to learn.
90-Day Improvement Plan
Turn learning into practice.
The Field Guide is a working artefact — not a textbook.
Who should apply?
Organisations with a real challenge
and the ability to test within 90 days.
The Lab is designed for Victorian sport organisations with a real participant experience challenge. Relevant roles may include:
- Participation and development
- Club development
- Member experience
- Program and competition management
- Coach development
- Community and inclusion
- Workforce and volunteering
- Communications
- Senior leadership
We encourage organisations to nominate two people where practical: one able to influence decisions, and one close to participant delivery.
The cohort
Small enough to work.
Diverse enough to learn.
12–16
organisations
18–24
participants
The cohort will be curated rather than selected first-come-first-served. Selection will consider:
- Challenge quality
- Readiness
- Cohort diversity
- Implementation potential
- Willingness to share learning
What we ask of you
| Bring | One real organisational challenge. |
| Attend | All three sessions. |
| Prepare | Complete short fieldwork between sessions. |
| Engage | Speak to or test something with real participants. |
| Implement | A small experiment inside your organisation. |
| Share | What you learn, with the cohort and the wider sector. |
This Lab is designed for people ready to work on a challenge — not passive attendees.
Future Fellows
Specialist expertise when you need it.
Participants will work alongside Future Fellows across areas including:
- Sport Experience Design
- Participation and behaviour
- Participant voice
- Design and innovation
- Evidence and evaluation
- AI and technology
- Implementation
Confirmed Fellows: announced as they are confirmed.
AI in the Lab
Human-led. AI-accelerated.
AI will be used practically throughout the Sprint to help participants:
- Interrogate evidence
- Challenge assumptions
- Explore perspectives
- Generate alternatives
- Prototype ideas
- Stress-test inclusion and accessibility
No prior AI expertise is required. The emphasis is on human judgement and practical application.
Time commitment
Three focused sessions over approximately six weeks,
plus short preparation and applied work between them.
~6¼
hours live, across three sessions
2–3
hours of preparation and fieldwork
Indicative commitment; final timings will be confirmed with session dates.
What happens after Session 3?
Implementation is part of the Lab.
30 days
VicSport checks in
We check in on implementation and help unblock progress.
90 days
Learning Showcase
The cohort reconvenes: we tried… what happened… what we learned… what we'll do next.
Selected opportunities may progress into:
- Guiding Sport implementation
- Sector case studies and patterns
- Future Communities of Practice
- VicHealth Participation Innovation pathway
The VicHealth pathway applies where a fundamentally different participation model is required.
Cost
Supported participation.
Participation is supported through Together More Active. VicSport members participate at no cost; non-members pay $100 per person. Places are deliberately limited.
Key dates
| Applications open | To be confirmed |
| Applications close | To be confirmed |
| Applicants notified | To be confirmed |
| Session dates | To be confirmed |
| Venue | Melbourne — venue to be confirmed |
Apply
Bring us a participant experience
worth improving.
Applications should take approximately five to ten minutes.