Good Friday Appeal - Kids Day Out 2026

Client
Good Friday Appeal
Location
Melbourne, Australia
What we did
90,000+ attendees, 1-day experience, 70+ Large Scale Activations & exhibitors, Teddy Bear Hospital Activation including 1,500 Doctors, Telethon Plenary Room, Channel 7 stage & studio, MCEC Takeover.
Attendence
90,000+
Audience
90,000 kids & their families show up for the Royal Children's Hospital.
Result
$25.3M raised for the Royal Children's Hospital

Background

Each year, the Good Friday Appeal takes over MCEC to run Kids' Day Out — Melbourne's biggest and best free family day. This year, Phoenix were hired to organise and elevate the whole day, including over 60 activity providers, welcoming over 6,000 kids to the Teddy Bear Hospital, a full day of fun and music on a festival-style stage, Channel 7's Telethon Room and a full-scale money counting room.

In total, Good Friday Appeal raised $25,268,485 for the Royal Children's Hospital.

Objective

With such a large footprint and space, GFA had found Kids Day Out had grown stagnant. As much as it was still raising significant funds and remained a great day for the kids, the team knew there was room to elevate the whole experience.

The objective: deliver this mammoth event to our usual high standards across every moving part, while earning the trust and support of GFA to continue elevating the event for years to come.

Result

A hugely successful Kids Day Out, contributing to the total funds raised on the day. Numerous new styling ideas were implemented that blew the client away.

New relationships were built with over 60 activity providers, all of whom have expressed the desire to come back next year. Teddy Bear Hospital reported its “smoothest process since the move to MCEC.” Over 90,000 kids and their families came through the doors throughout the day, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash were counted and processed on site.

Concept Design

Worked with our trusted suppliers to elevate this special and important day with a whole new look and feel, curated around a theme called ‘Festival of Colour’.

Included an oversized Welbie, an oversized archway, bangin' hangin' styling throughout, bangin' hangin' archways on each door entrance, and decals on the floors and windows for easy QR-code access. New for this year: a Children's Ground Indigenous arts & craft activation.

$25.3M

raised

for the Royal Children's Hospital

90,000+

kids & families

through the doors on the day

70+

large-scale activations

across the MCEC takeover

What the client had to say

The success of this year's event was a massive team effort, and your support was instrumental.

Rebecca Cowan
Executive Director, Good Friday Appeal

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