II Commonwealth Youth Games

Delivering twelve venues and a Village

In late 2004 the City of Greater Bendigo played host to the youth of the Commonwealth for the II Commonwealth Youth Games. Building on the success of the first games in Scotland, the event brought together over one thousand (1000+) athletes and officials from twenty-seven (27) Commonwealth nations.

Key EPG personnel were engaged by the organising committee and given the responsiblity for the operational planning, operational readiness, event delivery & event closure for the event overlay & infrastructure for the event. Twelve (12) competition venues were utilised across the City of Greater Bendigo and the La Trobe University Bendigo Campus was converted into the Games Village.

Our team initially planned all of the event overlay & infrastructure requirements for the competition venues and then managed the procurement of all overlay and temporary structures for the organising committee. Efficient management of the procurement process and cost savings obtained through relationships previously built with preferred suppliers ensured a positive result was obtained within restrictive budget conditions.

Additionally, we managed a team of both local government employees and volunteers to install overlay such as marquee structures, temporary grandstands, wayfinding and field of play signage at the venues. We also planned and executed the bump in of furniture, fixtures and fittings of the Games Village, which involved consolidating existing University resources and the integration of additional resources from suppliers and Value-In-Kind (VIK sponsors) to increase the accommodation capacity of the campus for the event period. Our team also procured and oversaw the addition of temporary amenities structures at the Village to cater for the increase in traffic on the site that complied with Commonwealth Games Federation minimum requirements.