Book your annual-leave for 22 July–2 August 2026 and lock in Melbourne–Geelong–Bendigo as your base; the Victorian Government has already released 1.2 million public-transport tickets at AUD $3 flat per day, and hotel blocks in the CBD are 40 % cheaper when booked before 30 September 2025.
Track-cycling and the para-sport finals shift to the new 6 500-seat Anna Meares Velodrome in Geelong, while athletics stays at the MCG with a 100 000-seat configuration reduced to 65 000 for better sight-lines. Netball, rugby-7s and the inaugural women’s T20 cricket medal matches will be staged at Marvel Stadium under a retractable roof that guarantees play even in Melbourne’s winter drizzle.
Expect to see Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson defend her 200 m title on 25 July, India’s Neeraj Chopra open his javelin campaign on 27 July and Scotland’s Laura Muir target the 1500 m/800 m double starting 23 July. Para-star Australia’s Madison de Rozario headlines the 800 m T53 final on 30 July at the same session as the able-bodied women’s 800 m, a first for any Commonwealth Games.
Exact Schedule & Ticket Windows
Circle 17–23 Aug 2026 on every calendar you own; the Victoria 2026 portal opens 12 Nov 2025 at 09:00 AEDT and the best seats vanish within 72 h based on Birmingham 2022 data.
Swimming finals shift to 19:30 each night at the Geelong Arena, athletics starts 18:45 at Kardinia Park, and netball semis squeeze into a 13:00–15:30 slot on 21 Aug–plan transport now because the first Bellarine train after the session leaves at 16:12.
| Date | Sport | Venue | Session Time | Public Sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Aug | Opening Ceremony | Melbourne Cricket Ground | 19:00–22:00 | 12 Nov 25 |
| 18 Aug | Rugby Sevens (Women) | Regional Stadium Ballarat | 10:00–16:00 | 12 Nov 25 |
| 19 Aug | Swimming Finals | Geelong Arena | 19:30–21:30 | 12 Nov 25 |
| 20 Aug | Athletics Heats | Kardinia Park | 09:00–12:00 | 14 Nov 25 |
| 21 Aug | Netball Semis | Geelong Arena | 13:00–15:30 | 14 Nov 25 |
| 22 Aug | Cycling Road Race | Great Ocean Road | 08:00–14:00 | 16 Nov 25 |
| 23 Aug | Closing Celebration | Docklands Park | 18:00–21:00 | 16 Nov 25 |
Request a Visa debit card with no foreign-fee mark-up before the on-sale; the ticketing site charges in AUD and Australian banks add 3 % currency load if your card lacks AUD support.
Multi-session passes drop 24 h after single tickets go live–if you want both rugby and athletics, grab the Week-2 Flex Pack at 09:15 AEDT on 13 Nov; only 6 000 exist and they cover every medal event outside the MCG.
Set two alarms: the refund window closes 30 Jun 2026 at 17:00 AEST and any resale must list through the official exchange; scalped e-tickets auto-cancel when scanned at the gate.
Opening Ceremony Start Time in Your Time Zone
Set your alarm for 19:30 AEST on 5 March 2026; the ceremony begins at Victoria Park, Birmingham, and streams worldwide the second the countdown hits zero.
If you’re on the U.S. West Coast, cue the coffee at 02:30 PST; East Coasters tune in at 05:30 EST. Londoners click play at 09:30 GMT, while Delhi viewers settle in at 15:00 IST. Sydney neighbours the host city, so your screens light at 19:30 AEDT, and Auckland joins the same moment at 21:30 NZDT. Add these offsets to your phone now and you’ll never miss the first note of the live orchestra.
Quick checklist:
- Android: open Clock → World Clock → add “Birmingham, UK” and label it “Games Start”.
- iOS: use Siri–“Hey Siri, what time is 19:30 in Birmingham when I’m in Toronto?”–she’ll calculate DST for you.
- Google Calendar: paste “2026-03-05T19:30:00+00:00” and it auto-converts to your zone.
Broadcast windows shift by rights deals; BBC One carries it free-to-air in the UK, CBC streams ad-free in Canada, and SonyLIV keeps India live. VPN hop to a territory with complimentary coverage if your local broadcaster delays the feed.
Disable auto-updates overnight; one rogue reboot can reset your clock and you’ll wake to replays. Charge a backup phone, because global streams peak at 3.2 million concurrent viewers and regional servers throttle once the flame enters the stadium.
Keep the official app’s push alert active; it pings 15 minutes before the Queen’s Baton reaches the stage so you can park the popcorn and catch every drone forming the Commonwealth star over the West Midlands skyline.
Session-by-Session Ticket Release Calendar
Circle 27 August 2025 on every device you own; that is the single morning when all athletics finals, swimming prelims and netball medal matches drop at 09:00 BST sharp. Demand for the 100 m men’s final alone is forecast at 1.3 million requests for 42 000 seats, so queue in the official app by 08:45 and preload a Visa or CommonwealthPay wallet to shave 12–15 seconds off checkout.
One week later, on 3 September, the less-hyped but still high-speed sessions open: qualifying rounds of badminton, table tennis and beach volleyball. Prices start at £15 and rarely climb above £35, making this the cheapest window to secure a full day of multi-sport action. If you miss it, secondary blocks appear on 10 October, but the inventory is typically 40 % smaller and the price band jumps by £8–£10.
October focuses on para-sport: 14 October brings wheelchair marathon, 17 October offers para-swimming heats and 21 October lists para-cycling time trials. Each release begins at 18:00 BST to align with UK home-from-work traffic, so set a phone reminder and expect a 3-minute sell-out for the cycling–there are only 3 200 grandstand seats around the Brands Hatch circuit.
November quietly unlocks the cultural programme: 7 November for the opening concert at Alexander Stadium (60 000 tickets), 14 November for the nightly city-centre festivals, and 28 November for the closing fireworks. These tickets are bundled as “CityPass+” e-tickets; you cannot print them, and the QR code refreshes every 30 seconds, so screenshots will fail at the gate.
Multi-sport flex packs land on 5 December. £180 buys any five non-final sessions, £280 adds one finals day. Inventory is held back for each sport in proportion to venue size: 9 % for hockey at the University of Birmingham pitches, 15 % for boxing at the Coventry Arena. You can swap sessions until 31 January 2026, but only within the same price tier and only if capacity remains above 5 %.
The last public wave hits 11 February 2026: community relays, training sessions and morning practice swims. They cost £5 flat, disappear within 36 hours, and do not carry the 10 % booking fee applied to every other release. After that, the box office reverts to phone-only resale; online windows close permanently at 23:59 BST on 28 February, so treat February as the hard stop if you still need tickets.
Last-Minute Hospitality Packs Still Available
Book the £395 Park-to-Park Pack before 11 p.m. tonight and you’ll secure a grandstand seat at both the Athletics finals on 30 July and the Rugby Sevens medal day on 2 August, plus a 48-hour tram pass and a reserved picnic table at the Riverside Fan Zone. Slots are released in real time; refresh the official portal at :05 past each hour when cancellations hit the system and you can grab up to four seats in a single checkout.
If you missed the ballot, the regional rail operators still hold unadvertised flex bundles: add any regional train ticket to your Games account, upgrade for £25 at the station kiosk, and the system auto-issues a hospitality code redeemable for a marquee lunch at Victoria Park or a sunset river cruise with live medal-screenings–no accommodation booking needed, codes stay active until the start of each event session, so you can decide on the morning based on the overnight medal table.
Venue Maps & Travel Shortcuts
Download the official 2026 app before you land; offline vector maps load in under 3 s and shrink to 17 MB, so you can pan around the Athletes’ Village perimeter without burning roaming data.
Track cycling and badminton share the same GPS pin–Sleeman Sports Complex, Chandler–yet the gates sit 650 m apart. Follow the red painted dots on the footpath; they shave four minutes off the posted sign and keep you under shade sails the whole way.
Gold Coast trains run every 6 min on competition days, but the platform at Broadbeach is 200 m shorter than usual. Carriage C doors align with the exit ramp; board there and you’ll surface right beside the beach-volley boardwalk instead of queuing back along the stairs.
Driving? Fill up at Coles Express Rochedale on the M1 exit 10–morning prices track 8 ¢/L below the metro average. Check live updates at https://chinesewhispers.club/articles/brisbane-fuel-prices-below-average.html before you set off; the servo usually updates its feed by 05:20 and queues stay under four cars until 07:00.
UberPool is capped at $18 between Roma Street and the Gabba until 19:30, but the trick is to set the drop pin on Stanley Street’s eastern side. You’ll bypass the tunnel bottleneck and walk 90 m to Gate 4 where security lines move twice as fast.
Valley rail to QSAC for athletics? Switch at Banoon; the cross-platform connection saves 11 min compared with staying on the same line through Central. Trains sync at 12:03 and 12:27–set a phone alarm so you can stay in the shade and board last, grabbing the rear carriage that stops closest to the pedestrian bridge.
Cycle hubs rent 30 cm-frame foldies for $3/hr. Scan the QR at South Bank, ride 7 min along the riverside boardwalk, dock at the tennis cluster, and you’ll still have 15 min spare for security–no parking fee, no sweat.
If you misplace physical tickets, customer-service kiosks hide inside the Woolworths entrance at CBD pedestrian underpass Level B2. Staff print replacements in 40 s; the queue rarely exceeds five people because most fans head for the obvious street-level booth.
Free Shuttle Routes from Glasgow Airport to Each Stadium
Flash your Games accreditation at the bus bay outside Terminal 2 and hop on the purple-striped coach labelled “Glasgow 2026 – Venue 1”; it departs every 20 min from 06:00–23:00, reaches Scotstoun Stadium in 18 min via the M8 and drops you inside the athletes’ entrance gate.
Heading to the Emirates Arena? Board the green-route shuttle at stance 3; it runs every 30 min, takes 22 min via the M77 and stops beside the media car park, a 90-second walk from the mixed zone.
Swimming and diving spectators should use the blue-route shuttle that loops via Tollcross International Pool; expect a 26-minute ride with free on-board Wi-Fi so you can download your heat sheets before arrival.
Shuttles to Hampden Park events:
- Yellow-route coach every 15 min
- 32 min journey via M74
- Drop-off at the main Olympic Steps
- Runs continuously from 05:30 on race days
All shuttles are zero-emission electric, accept folding bikes in the luggage bay, and operate on a first-board basis; if a coach fills, the next one is already queued behind it, so the longest documented wait during the July test window was 7 min. Keep your accreditation visible–drivers scan the barcode at the door and close it 30 sec before departure to stay on schedule.
Reserved Bike Parking Spots Near Every Arena
Lock your bike at the secure 300-space compound 80 m west of Alexander Stadium’s Gate 3; swipe your ticket barcode at the entry gate between 06:00 and 23:30, hook to the numbered rail that matches the last digit of your ticket, and collect the free rain cover from the dispenser on your left.
Perry Park’s cyclists get 150 covered slots under the Broad Street ramp; the racks sit 40 m from the turnstiles, watched by CCTV and two volunteer marshals who log frame numbers so you can sprint to the rugby sevens without worrying about your wheels.
At the Sandwell Aquatics Centre, 200 vertical racks line the blue fence along Holyhead Road; arrive early because the spot numbers correspond to session blocks–once block “C” is full, latecomers are redirected 300 m to the overflow plaza behind the leisure centre.
Coventry Arena supplies 400 spaces split into four colour zones; scan the QR code on the rack to reserve a slot the night before, then flash the return confirmation to the exit marshal to avoid the £5 walk-up fee that casual riders pay.
Victoria Park in Leamington Spa offers 100 slots inside the cricket pavilion gates; if the pavilion is locked after 22:00, show your event wristband to the security guard and you’ll be buzzed in within 30 seconds.
Cycle to the University of Warwick’s sports hub and you’ll find 250 spaces under the solar-panel canopy; plug the adjacent USB-C cable into your e-bike battery for a free 30-minute top-up while you stroll 5 minutes to the basketball hall.
Cyclists heading to Sutton Park’s mountain-bike course receive a detachable tag at the entrance station; tie it to your helmet, leave your bike in the 150-slot corral next to the finish-line marquee, and the tag number lets you reclaim your ride even if you’ve lost your receipt.
If you’re switching between venues, use the free drop-off points at Birmingham International rail station–200 racks inside the south plaza–then hop on the Games shuttle; the racks sit 30 m from the shuttle stop, under cover, and you can borrow a spare helmet from the customer-desk locker with a £5 cash deposit you get back when you return it.
Q&A:
When exactly do the 2026 Commonwealth Games start and finish, and is there a rest day for athletics?
The action runs from 22 July to 2 August 2026. Athletics sits in the middle of the calendar: heats begin 25 July, finals wrap 30 July, and the 29th is a scheduled rest day to give field-event athletes a breather and let the track crew re-lay the Mondo surface at Perry Park, Birmingham.
Why did the organisers split events between Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow instead of picking one host city?
After Durban withdrew in 2017 and the 2022 Games left a surplus of ready venues, the three councils offered a joint bid that needed no new builds. Birmingham keeps the athletics stadium it upgraded in 2022, Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena already has the ice sheets for the new Olympic-standard squash courts, and Glasgow’s 2014 arenas slash the temporary overlay budget by £42 m. The model also lets each city showcase a different sport cluster: athletics and 3×3 basketball in the Midlands, cycling and gymnastics in the North-West, swimming and netball in Scotland.
How do I buy tickets for the mountain-bike races at Cathkin Braes if I live outside the UK?
From 3 September 2025 the general public ballot opens on the official site (tickets.birmingham2026.com). Overseas cards are accepted; you pay in GBP and choose either e-ticket to your phone or a paper souvenir sent by DHL for £9.50. Pick the “Cathkin Braes – MTB Cross-country” session—there are only two, women 30 July 09:00 and men 31 July 11:30—because day passes are not interchangeable with the city-centre venues. If you miss the ballot, a resale exchange opens in May 2026; you’ll need the same FAN ID you used for the ballot to keep scalpers out.
Will the athletes’ village be in one place, or do they stay in three separate camps?
There is a single village: the University of Birmingham’s Vale student residences, refurbished with 4,300 modular rooms and a 24-hour canteen run by Compass. Athletes fly into Birmingham airport, clear customs, then ride a 19-minute Games-lane bus to the village. For distant venues, they sleep on-site the night before competition: track cyclists head to a Liverpool dockside hotel, swimmers to Glasgow’s West End, but they all return to Birmingham after their events so medal ceremonies stay central.
Which cities are actually hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games, and why did the original plan change?
The entire event is now centred on Victoria, Australia, after the state government withdrew its multi-city proposal. Instead of scattering competitions across regional hubs like Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo as first advertised, organisers will cluster them in Melbourne and nearby existing venues. The switch came after a sharp rise in projected costs; keeping everything within an hour’s drive of the athletes’ village in Parkville cuts transport bills, security staffing and the need to build new permanent arenas.
Reviews
Charlotte
I used to tape the races on VHS, rewind until the ribbon wore thin. Mum kept them in a shoebox under my bed; they still smell of her lavender drawer-liner. Now the dates arrive like wedding invites from people I no longer kiss. I trace the cities on an old atlas, watch the ink bleed through the paper—my fingernails the same bruise-blue as the coastlines. No one remembers the girl who came fourth in ’98, but I still feel the sting of the starter gun in my teeth.
PixieDust
If 2026 thinks I’ll fly to Melbourne for synchronized swimming in a car park, it’s drunk. I’ll race my toaster across the MCG at dawn; odds are it beats the Kiwi flyer by a crumpet.
StormRider
Fellow ghosts of 2022, do you smell the same rot I do—plastic medals minted for towns that can’t keep the streetlights on, calendar pages flapping toward 2026 like bankrupt surrender flags, and the same agents already booking the same hamstring pulls for whoever they’re pretending is a “star” this cycle—tell me, why do we still queue for reheated leftovers that even the seagulls won’t touch?
RoseGold
I ironed the tablecloth and caught sight of the calendar—August 2026 stares back like an unpaid gas bill. My youngest’s birthday falls smack in the middle of the Games and every hotel within two counties has already jacked prices to “mortgage-level.” I queued forty-three minutes for the pre-sale only to discover the only seats left require binoculars and a sherpa. Meanwhile the council’s knocking down the leisure centre where I learned to swim; they swear the new aquatics palace will be “community-first” once the cameras leave, but we’ve still got holes in the pavement from 2012. And what of the athletes? Poor things, shuttled from village to village with no time to taste a proper scone. I’d invite them all for tea if the A-road wasn’t slated to close for VIP lanes. My grandmother saved ration stamps for the 1948 relay; nowadays I’m hoarding loo roll and paracetamol. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the loft, labelling Tupperware with the dates each venue is supposed to revert to public use—colour-coded so I can find the liars at a glance.
Sophia Martinez
Why list stars who won’t kiss my flag, why dates without moonlight, why arenas if no hand reaches mine—did you forget hearts?