Innovation Sprints exploring arts & culture futures on the Gold Coast

Background

Watch this space as this project unfolds over 2026!

The Innovation Sprints explore how arts and culture innovation can be strategically positioned across the Gold Coast. Delivered with the City of Gold Coast, the sprints sit within the evolving strategic context shaped by the closure of the Gold Coast Cultural Strategy 2023 and the endorsement of the two-year Creative Gold – Arts and Culture Action Plan 2025–2027. This strategic setting is an important ‘kick-off’ moment as the City prepares for its next city-wide cultural approach.

The sprints respond to city priorities by bringing together teams from Invest, Brand and Experience Gold Coast, HOTA, Nature-Based Tourism, Climate Resilience and Sustainability, local artists and external experts. They’ll test innovation themes such as arts leadership in local government, AI and climate resilience, grassroots engagement and infrastructure needs for supporting creative futures.

Opportunity for Futures

The Innovation Sprints create a space to reframe innovation within arts and culture, helping the City and creative sector explore strategic futures ahead of emerging city-wide planning frameworks. By foregrounding critical design-futures approaches to innovation, the process supports new ideas in technologies, partnerships and infrastructure to strengthen cultural outcomes and position the Gold Coast as a leader in creative futures-led innovation. The sprints are designed to surface insights that will inform infrastructure gaps and activation opportunities in the long-term, including (and beyond) the 2032 Olympic Games.

Approach

We have designed and are facilitating a series of three Innovation Sprints with in-person and remote formats: a city-wide sprint with council, a local artist sprint with key innovators and leaders, and a national and international sprint with external voices. Each sprint brings curated participants together to explore strategic themes, identify emergent opportunities and collaborate on future-ready ideas.

Our approach combines strategic design, futures thinking and participatory design-led facilitation to translate complex contexts into actionable insights and possibilities for the future of arts and culture on the Gold Coast.