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Hi there!

Welcome to part three of my analysis of all things fan engagement at the 2026 Australian Grand Prix. If you missed it, I shared part one (fan zones and driver appearances) and part two (recapping the run clubs) over the past two weeks.

In this edition, I’ll be covering everything that’s left: the pop-ups, the public parties and the miscellaneous collabs.

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. 

I visited Daniel Ricciardo’s Enchante Pop-up in 2025 and left feeling underwhelmed by what I found (although the tote bag I picked up has become one of my favourites – I was so sad they didn’t have an updated version this year so I could grab another one!). I’m pleased to say that an elevated effort was made for the store in 2026 where it felt more like a destination than just a shop.

The theme of the 2026 collection was “Backyard Grand Prix”, and the store featured a lot of imagery and references to grassroots motorsport. There was also a heavy focus on Danny’s current partnership with Ford.

I loved that they had introduced some extra interactivity to the space this year, with fans able to write a message for Danny that then got stuck on a wall. It was so sweet to read all of the messages, and it allowed the space to reflect a true sense of community. Stores can often feel overly branded and corporate, so allowing fan messages to become a core part of the decoration was an excellent move.

I grabbed a couple of pins – which I forgot to take a picture of and are now at my parents house as I’m in the middle of a move – and was pleasantly surprised when I was also offered my choice of themed stickers as a bonus. At the price point, none of the apparel was jumping out at me, and I knew I wouldn’t get as much use out of the duffels they were selling as I have out of the aforementioned tote. But the clothes were flying off the shelves while I was there, and there was still a queue to get in during my visit on Friday afternoon!

They also offered cans of speciality alcohol-free beer, which felt like a great example of brand building and a unique gift with purchase (I love caffeine, but after all of the Celsius/Red Bull/Monster/coffee on offer throughout the week, a different sort of drink does really stand out!).

I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked at the Quad Lock pop-up, simply because I ran out of time. I had a million and one things on while I was down in Melbourne, including my regular full-time job, and it felt like I blinked and it was time to get on the train back home.

When I did get the chance to swing by, they were in the process of preparing for a private event, and while they were technically open, you could tell they didn’t really want a tonne of fans wandering around while they were trying to get drinks tables set up and everything cleaned and organised.

I didn’t get to make it to the upstairs area where all of the Oscar memorabilia was housed, but I did get to see the giant helmet that Oscar had signed during his appearance at the store earlier in the week.

While I didn’t get to check out everything, I do really love the approach of turning the store into a mini-Oscar museum. Authentic memorabilia is like catnip for fans who want to get as close to their favourite celebrity and their history as they can. Becoming the “owner” of this content during Oscar’s home race was an extremely smart way to activate their partnership. I also loved their “golden ticket” approach to prizes-with-purchase, and the limited edition trading cards they had on offer.

I just wish I’d had more time!

The third of the pop-up stores around town was hosted by Quadrant, Lando Norris’ motorsport lifestyle brand. Their store was located in Chapel Street, in a similar spot to where Enchante activated last year.

The actual store was quite small, and by the time I got there on Friday they had sold out of a lot of items (impressive, considering they had only opened on Thursday!). They had some of Lando’s helmets on display, as well as two racing sim rigs (with a competition for the fan who got the fastest time), and lots of St Ali iced coffee.

They had run out of the shirts I was looking to purchase, so I ended up just getting some keychains. As mentioned above, I’m about to move house, so it’ll be a cute accessory for my new keys (and also helped my budget vs some of their pricier items!).

The store wasn’t too exciting in and of itself – although Quadrant superfans would have appreciated being able to spot some key personalities from their content. However, in addition to the regular store, they also offered a morning coffee meet and greet with Max Fewtrell on the Saturday morning. Because I’m me, I was watching my inbox for the chance to attend, and was able to grab one of the limited spots for the event.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but it exceeded all of my expectations, and then some. As I wrote on LinkedIn on the day of the event, unlike a majority of meet and greet events, this one felt genuinely community-first. There was no rushing, no formal lines and rules, just fans mixing with some of the key folks behind Quadrant - and importantly - with each other.

I talk a lot of shit on the prevalence of racing sims at every single Formula 1 adjacent activation, but I had never actually sat down and given one a go. The small group size at the meet and greet meant I had the chance to try without joining a super long queue, so I thought I’d give it a shot. However, clearly, the network of racing sims had heard my comments in the universe and decided to punish me, because there’s no other explanation for how absolutely atrocious I was. Their staff gave an extremely good attempt at coaching us…but I think I’m genuinely uncoachable. There goes my future career in sim racing!

I have a special case study on Quadrant that was going to be subscriber-locked as part of this issue, but it’s going to be a little bit longer until it’s ready to share. That case study will go a lot more in-depth on their Melbourne activation and pivots (and re-pivots) in the community space, so stay tuned.

Much like the Aston Martin run club I discussed in Part Two, the VCARB Garage Session could have done with a hearty trim to the invitation list. The event started at 6pm. So, after finishing work a bit before 5pm, I swung by Melbourne Central to see Gabriel Bortoleto’s appearance, and then headed around the corner to Her, the event venue. It was probably 5:45 by the time I arrived, and the queue was already down the entire block. It took close to 45mins before I was able to get into the venue, which wasn’t really an issue, but the problems with the event’s popularity soon reared their head.

The event was held in a multi-story venue in central Melbourne, with the actual party split over two floors: a mid-level room and the rooftop.

I first checked out the mid-level room, for the simple reason that it was the first one I reached. There were canapes circulating the room (the fried chicken bao buns were delicious), and there was a bar where we could use the free drink token we had all received. Unfortunately, I don’t drink alcohol, and the idea of red bull after 6pm wasn’t super appealing to me (I love caffeine, but I also love being able to sleep, especially when I had a 4:45am alarm for the Gatorade run the next morning!), so I skipped the bar queue. Double unfortunately, however, the bar queue seemed to take up the entire room, so the vibes were a bit off, even with the DJ playing.

My biggest critique of the event is that other than standing around listening to the DJ (or the live music on the rooftop), there wasn’t anything to do. I’m all for music, but especially when it’s still sunny outside and people are coming straight from work, you should set up some other kind of interactivity or have something else going on. I get 100% dance vibes at a certain point of the evening, but 6:30pm wasn’t it.

I made it up to the rooftop soon after I arrived, but it was so packed at that point I could barely move. I figured I’d go back downstairs, where there was some more space, and head back up later in the evening. But that was a serious misjudgement as everyone on the lower floor was soon told that the rooftop was 100% at capacity and it could take between 30 mins and an hour before we’d have a chance to get up there. As thrilling as standing in the packed lower room with the bar queue, smoke machine and DJ was, I decided to call it a night at that point, as did a whole bunch of people around me.

From social media, it seemed like people up on the rooftop had a great time, but again, you need to keep all of your attendees in mind when planning an event. It’s great that some people are loving it, but when others are leaving because they can’t access where the primary fun is…that’s a bit of a problem.

In 2025, VCARB offered tickets to the Garage Session in Melbourne via a lottery, and also had driver appearances as an added perk. While they don’t necessarily need to bring back the lottery, they do need to put a better cap on how many fans can get tickets. Like I’ve said in both of my previous posts, bigger looks great on social media, but you need to consider the experiences of the fans stuck in the crowd. As mentioned above, I also think they needed to add something else for fans to do, especially in the lower-level room. A sign-making station for fans to create content for the race. Some photo booths. Even a bloody sim rig! Something was missing, and maybe some of the fans who were leaving at the same time as me (or earlier, as I also witnessed) would have stuck around for the whole event if it had been there.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of Audi’s Afloat fan zone experience, I did love the way they collaborated with other brands around the city during race week. Rather than just feeling like they were showing up in a specific location, it felt like they were integrating into the local community.

The first of these collabs was with Nico’s Deli, a local sandwich spot in Melbourne. Audi joined with Nico’s to have their drivers create two speciality sandwiches, which were then served in branded wrapping and bags (a nice touch I wasn’t expecting!).

I decided to try the #5 sandwich, which was described as “slow-cooked oxtail, mozzarella, fresh tomato and chimmi salsa”. I can’t remember exactly how much I paid, but it was around $25, which is on the expensive side for a sandwich without sides, but not completely unreasonable.

I wasn’t necessarily expecting much from the sandwich, but oh my god, it was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. It’s lucky I don’t live in Melbourne, as all of my money would be going to Nico’s (even if this specific sandwich wasn’t on the menu).

I ran out of time to check out the Axil coffee collab, but as with the sandwiches, I love that they found a way to build on an existing Melbourne institution (with an extremely fitting name) rather than try to launch something from the ground up.

Integration with the existing community helps demonstrate your understanding of the local culture. It also allows you to do something that is relatively low-effort as the team/brand, but that has quite a high impact. People need to eat lunch. They also need to drink coffee (especially in Melbourne!). Showing up in these spaces is an unexpected bonus for fans who are otherwise going about their daily routines. While I love a good fan zone, sometimes this kind of activation is where real brand building power lies.

I didn’t actually attend the Audi x Revolut Over Take After Party event because I’m much more of a morning person than a night owl. Paying for a party that began at 9pm when I was waking up pre-6am for running events multiple days during the week just wasn’t a good use of my money, or time. My friends will also tell you that I have less than zero interest in DJ music, so it was never going to be my kind of scene. While I do attempt to attend as many activations and events as I can, it doesn’t serve anyone for me to try and review something that I know I’m probably not going to enjoy. It seems like those who did attend had a good time - but I’m unsure how many of them were F1 fans, and what kind of impact it had in terms of community building.

And there you have it! We’ve officially reached the end of my Melbourne 2026 recaps. If you’ve read all 7,000+ words - thank you! I hope you found at least some of them useful. If you just skimmed, thank you all the same!

As I outlined at the outset of both this post, and this series, these recaps aim to fill a gap in discussions of fan engagement and on-the-ground fan activations. It’s easy to read the shiny announcements, watch the official highlights, and see the perspective of the influencers who get the VIP experience, but we need to understand what it’s like for everyone we’re reaching. I try to keep these posts as real as possible, while also knowing I’m often only experiencing the tiniest snapshot of an entire activation or event. But these reports from the crowd are important because not everything is a highlight reel.

Overall, I loved my time in Melbourne, but the clear takeaway is that teams and brands need to realise that bigger is not always better. Fans will understand missing out if it means those who do get to attend have an elevated experience. Nobody is having fun when stuck in huge crowds, or when they miss out on parts of events because things have run out, or when they choose to leave because there’s no space where most of the excitement is happening. F1 is continuing to grow, and especially in a location like Australia with our love of sport and a local hero on the grid, the crowds aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s on the people organising these experiences for fans to work out how to balance building their communities with the overwhelming demand. Williams manage it. Alpine managed it. Quadrant are starting to manage it. It’s definitely possible…it just requires more of a focus on fans as individuals than events as spaces for influencers and social content.

If the world wasn’t currently a mess (and I didn’t have a pesky full-time job), I would love to be going to Miami as it seems like it’s going to be fan engagement central. However, I am trying to figure out a way to get to Singapore later in the year (a slightly easier trip!) to do some more on-the-ground work, so if you want to see how we can collaborate on that trip, please get in touch!

Also! In case you missed my announcement, I’ve officially added a paid subscription tier to this newsletter. While you’ll still get most of my content as a regular subscriber (or someone visiting from a link shared elsewhere), I will be locking certain posts such as my end-of-month recaps and in-depth case studies behind the paywall. I’ve kept the subscription quite affordable, and you’ll be showing your support for the amount of hours I put into this work (and for my unique POV - there’s a lot of people writing about sponsorships and business, but no-one else is writing about fan engagement and experiences).

While my Melbourne series is now complete, there’s plenty still to come for the rest of the season, so stay tuned for more research and analysis of everything fan engagement from the grid.

‘til next time!