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Hello! I’m writing this on the train home from Melbourne after a very busy week checking out everything fan-related at the 2026 Melbourne Grand Prix.

This year was bigger and better than ever in terms of things happening outside the Albert Park gates. In the interests of attention spans, I’m going to split my analysis into three parts across the next week: the fan zones and driver appearances (you’re currently reading this one!), the run clubs, and the pop-ups, which is also going to include a subscriber-only deep dive into the world of Quadrant. Unlike past years, I’m not going to really cover anything from the actual Grand Prix. I’ll discuss some of my (evergreen) thoughts on Melbourne Walk and the Fan Forum in my section on driver appearances later in this edition, but the other activations were pretty standard brand appearances that just involved a lot of queuing. It’s not particularly interesting for you to read about the Kit Kat photo ops or the Doritos viewing tower, and nobody did anything as interesting inside the gates as Quad Lock pulled off in 2025. 

So, Part One. Fan Zones and public driver appearances

As always, a caveat: these analyses are based on my experiences attending the activations at a snapshot moment in time. They do not account for every moment that took place during the time the activation was live. Additionally, my aim in writing these reports is to discuss the attendance experience as an average fan, overlayed with my theoretical knowledge and professional understanding. Often, we see a “highlight reel” of an event or activation on social media that doesn’t match the reality of the fan who has to queue and wait in packed crowds. I aim to write from that perspective, as it’s the experience of the vast majority and can reveal the nitty-gritty. 

The F1 Fan Festival returned to Melbourne for its second year in 2026. In 2025, they held the event in Melbourne Park, but this year they made a central move to Fed Square. 

I visited on Friday morning, and was a bit underwhelmed (note - I was there just a few hours after they opened so things may have pumped up across the weekend). They had a podium for photo ops, a virtual driver selfie photo booth, two food trucks, and – of course – some racing sims. They also had a whole bunch of deck chairs and bean bags for fans to enjoy live-streamed content from Albert Park. 

I deliberately timed my visit to catch FP1, and managed to snag a seat under an umbrella (very important for a 12:30 session under the Aussie sun!). I grabbed some loaded fries from one of the food trucks (delish) and settled in to enjoy.

It was a pretty convenient way to enjoy the session, even though they did have a DJ start playing music halfway through the practice which made it a bit hard to hear the commentary at times. Most seats were full, primarily with workers from local office buildings making the most of their lunch break, but there were some families and fans like myself who had specifically come to watch the session. From what I’ve seen on social media, there were huge crowds there for the race on Sunday.

It was a shame they cut the exclusive driver appearances that were featured in 2025, as they were a great way to allow fans who couldn’t get tickets to the actual Grand Prix to see some high-interest Q&As. Logistically, I get that drivers are busier than ever, and that huge crowds are harder to manage at Fed Square than they were in the space at Melbourne Park. However, well-managed additional touch-points of access can make a huge difference in developing fandom, especially in family-oriented spaces. A family might not be able to afford tickets to the race weekend, or might have tickets, but can’t queue up for hours before the gates open to get a decent spot at the Fan Forum. But they can take their kids to a free Q&A where that kid might see a driver and decide to become a diehard fan. Or maybe they just convince their parents to buy them tickets for next year.

This was my biggest disappointment out of the three team fan zones. It honestly felt like they hadn’t really had fans in mind when pulling it together, and the space was mainly just the regular restaurant with a bit of extra branding. It didn’t help that when I visited they were hosting an influencer lunch and had blocked off a large area of the space. Many fans that were there at the same time as me were unsure if some areas were open, or if everything was just for the influencers.

The actual fan activation area was extremely small and not very well managed. The staff at the entry weren’t too interested in explaining how anything worked, leaving fans to wander slightly confused, and again, I overheard multiple groups asking if this was all there was. 

It was an excellent location and the show car looked great on display (and was visible from some of the bridges as you walk through Southbank), but it didn’t make me feel connected to Audi in any way, and really didn’t make me feel welcome or valued as a (potential) fan. 

I’ll discuss some of the other activities Audi got up to in parts two and three!

Ignition Beach was an interesting concept, however, venue staff again negatively impacted the experience. 

The venue was split into two areas: the fan zone, and the restaurant/viewing area. The fan zone was pretty typical. A bunch of racing sims, some replica driver suits and helmets (I reckon they could have managed to bring the real things!), team merch, and some spaces for photo ops. 

The restaurant area was where they were let down by the staff. Information as simple as “where can we sit” was met with confusion, and waiters had no idea where tables were, meaning drinks ordered via QR code took forever to arrive as they wound their way through a maze trying to find you.

I arrived to watch FP2, which aligned with the Friday evening of a long weekend. I have no idea if it was a similar vibe all weekend or I just caught the local post-work excited for the weekend crowd, but there really wasn’t a fan vibe. Other than the fact everything was Papaya and Mastercard branded, I would have had no idea I was somewhere that was advertised as a fan space. There were plenty of screens playing the live coverage around the restaurant, and for the most part people were interested in watching. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of it being a lifestyle space that was reluctantly showing racing, rather than somewhere for a fan community to come together. 

The Williams Fan Zone was the only one of the team fan zones that actually felt like a space created with fans in mind.

Once again held in the Atrium at Fed Square, they had a range of activities and sponsor activations, a full merch shop including exclusive items for Melbourne (not just the official team kit), eight different virtual badges to collect in the app (aka clever data collection for their sponsors), and most creatively, a daily live show hosted by James Lorenzo that got fans involved and offered the chance for prizes. I have sung James Lorenzo’s praises before, but he truly elevates the fan zones and creates a community atmosphere, even when you’re standing in a crowd with thousands of fans.

I visited twice, once on Tuesday evening to check everything out, and once on Thursday evening for the Luke Browning and James Vowles Q&As (I would have loved to stick around for the Alex Albon appearance but I had to dash to a basketball game). Both visits were excellent, and the fan zone was filled with fans of all ages having lots of fun. There was a group of small boys with their dads who were there on both Tuesday and Thursday, having the time of their lives decked out in Williams gear and participating with huge excitement in everything. Giving fans a space where they can have fun and feel like they can be fans is so important, but it’s something that’s often forgotten when trying to keep sponsors happy.

As always, the Q&As were excellent. While crowded, the space was set up in a way that everyone could see and hear. I also loved that the team added interactive games in between each session this year to keep fans entertained while waiting for the next person to arrive on stage. It’s an excellent way to keep morale high while stuck in a crowd and made a big difference vs. last year. I also loved that they had a countdown timer on the big screens to the next appearance, clearly communicating what was coming next and how long there was to go.

The night-and-day difference between this fan space and the other two really emphasised the importance of understanding who your fans are, not just who you maybe hope they’ll be. Unlike the other two fan zones that felt designed for influencers or regular restaurant customers, Williams clearly put their fans at the heart of what they’re creating.

Unfortunately, I ran out of time to properly check out the Red Bull Fan Zone this year, but when I did go past during set up (and what I saw in online descriptions) made it seem much like what we saw in 2025.

They did offer driver appearances throughout the week, however, all were during my working days and I couldn’t spare a couple of hours for a chance to queue to see them.

As long-term followers would know, I’m a huge advocate for public appearances and “access” to drivers. However, I am also a huge fan of them being done well and with proper safety and logistics in place. And that is not what we saw in Melbourne this year.

While I’ll discuss Quad Lock’s full pop-up store in part three of this newsletter series, their Oscar Piastri “appearance” was a mess. A full overview of the saga would take an entire newsletter, but the tl;dr is they advertised a public Q&A, only to reveal 24hrs before the event that Oscar would actually be appearing at a private party and fans would have the chance to see him from the street outside. Fans began queuing 10hrs in advance, meaning anyone who had to do things like work were stuck at the back of a very large crowd. While they can’t control Oscar’s schedule, he was also heavily advertised as appearing at 7:30pm. I arrived at 6:55pm, after doing a few other things after work, and completely missed the Q&A portion of the evening, as did many others who took the messaging from both Quad Lock and Oscar’s own fan marketing accounts as accurate.

There was very poor communication from the organisers during the evening, and this added to the poor behaviour of fans, who were pushing and shoving and generally behaving like they’ve never been in public. You wouldn’t be able to tell any of this from the shiny instagram videos they shared after the fact, but as someone in the middle of the crowd, the reality did not match how they presented the event.

There are a few simple ways they could have improved this event:

Oscar wasn’t the only driver appearing around town, nor was he the only one with huge queues. Gabriel Bortoleto and Valtteri Bottas both appeared in shopping centres on the Wednesday evening, and while you might have thought the clashing times would mean smaller crowds, in reality it just meant two giant ones.

I chose to go to the Gabriel appearance at Melbourne Central because I saw Valtteri last year. He was scheduled to appear at 5pm, and due to work, I only managed to arrive at 4:55pm. While I was expecting a crowd, I wasn’t quite expecting to have to go to the top floor of the shopping centre to try and get a glimpse, as fans had again been waiting for hours to be close to the front.

Thankfully, the glass barriers around each floor meant late-arriving fans could at least see and hear Gabriel, but the ground floor was a complete crowd-crush, despite the attempts of security to manage the flow.

After leaving Gabriel’s Q&A, I did head to my next event via the Emporium and the crowds were still huge for Valtteri. It’s not the greatest picture, but you can see in the below that the entire mezzanine level was packed with people, and there was overflow filling the ground floor hoping to see the honorary Aussie.

I fully understand the appeal of wanting a big public appearance and hyping up huge crowds, but again, I can’t help but feel like we are reaching the point where these need to be (free) ticketed events for a safety and fan enjoyment perspective. Yes, you will have fans who are disappointed that they miss out on tickets, but you currently have fans disappointed because they’re missing out by not being able to spend the whole day waiting for a driver to show up (people have work! and families! and general life!). I don’t know how many of the organisers have ever put themselves in the middle of a crowd trying to get a glimpse of someone, but I highly recommend the perspective to help realise that it’s not exactly an experience that makes fans feel affection for your brand.

If you’ve read my posts from 2024 and 2025, you would know I am not a fan of Melbourne Walk (aka the area where the drivers enter and fans can queue to get autographs and selfies). Fans queue from ungodly hours and then sprint from the gate to the zone. Which is excellent content for the social teams and news crews, but makes for a terrible experience for many fans.

I promised last year that I would write a longer piece on the area, and then life happened, but it is something I’m still working on and will release soon. While the fans who get the autographs are always happy and it looks great on social media, there’s other fans who feel unsafe in the rowdy crowds, or defeated because they can’t queue or run or ever have a shot.

Unlike in previous years, I didn’t have time to attend the Fan Forum stage. McLaren and Cadillac were on stage on Thursday night when I had a previous commitment, and while I took Friday off work, as it was my only day off in the week I prioritised visiting all of the different activations over making the Q&As. On Saturday, I was at a Quadrant M&G (more on this in part three) when most of the appearances were happening, and made it to the area just in time to see the end of the final session.

From everything I heard and saw on social media, the crowds were bigger than ever. This is another area where fans queue for hours (and from before sunrise!), and where I think we can have a rethink of the logistics and organisation. Just because huge crowds look great on social media and fans at the front have an excellent time, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best way to run things. Whether that involves banning fans from queuing before a certain time, making crowds rotate through so more people have a fairer shot at actually being able to see, or adding a ballot for spots in a priority location…there has to be something better than just expecting everyone to be happy with a crowd crush.

Okay, that’s it for part one! I’ll be sharing part two on Monday, and part three on Wednesday, so stay tuned if you’re keen to hear about how the run clubs and pop-ups played out.

Before you go, I’ve now turned on paid subscriptions for this newsletter. If you’re a free subscriber, nothing will change, but I will be creating some extra content that is behind a paywall moving forward. It takes me many, many hours to do the research for this project, and I’m often sharing a specialised point-of-view that organisations pay me a lot of money for. By giving you the option to pay less than a cup of coffee a month to receive some extra content, you’re helping me stay caffeinated to write, and acknowledging the value of my expertise.

‘til next time!