Case Study: Designing a Statewide Pilot to Create Evidence That Enables Change

This engagement demonstrates Luminaire’s repeatable approach in practice: Research → Engagement → Strategy → Behaviour Change → Programs & Systems → Outcomes

Categories: 

• Evidence & Insight

• Capability & Capacity Uplift

• Behaviour Change

This case study demonstrates Luminaire’s integrated approach — combining pilot design, original research and stakeholder engagement — to create first-of-its-kind evidence across a complex, statewide industry ecosystem.

Working in partnership with state government departments and industry stakeholders, Luminaire designed the statewide pilot to establish a defensible baseline of event organiser practices, measurable waste outcomes and attendee expectations. The work created decision-grade evidence to inform future frameworks, guidance and behaviour change interventions, and to support confident testing and scaling across regions and event types.

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Context

Queensland’s events industry sits within a complex delivery environment — multiple organisers, venues, suppliers, regional infrastructure realities and diverse attendee behaviours.

To support sector uplift, the event sustainability pilot was established as an industry-and-government collaboration. Luminaire designed the pilot to create a defensible baseline across the state — capturing current organiser practices, measurable waste outcomes, and attendee expectations — so future solutions could be tested, refined and scaled with confidence.

The Challenge

The challenge was not intent — it was designing a pilot that was representative, repeatable and usable across a statewide ecosystem.

Key requirements included:

• a sampling design that reflected Queensland’s diversity (SEQ, regional, remote) and event types

• a method that captured both outcomes (waste streams) and drivers (organiser behaviours and attendee sentiment)

• data structures designed for repeat use over time, to support year-on-year benchmarking and intervention testing

Luminaire’s Role

Luminaire acted as pilot designer and evidence architect — responsible for the pilot’s design logic, data architecture, and engagement pathway so the outputs would be credible and fit-for-purpose.

Our role spanned:

• Research: defining what data was required and how it would be collected (waste outcomes + behavioural drivers)

• Engagement: designing participation settings that enabled adoption across organisers and delivery stakeholders

• Strategy: ensuring the baseline explicitly informed solution-focused framework and content development

• Behaviour change readiness: capturing the “why” behind practices and preferences so future interventions can target the right levers

  
  

What We Did

1) Designed the statewide pilot architecture

• Created a representative sampling methodology across geography and event characteristics

• Ensured the sample reflected known variables affecting waste generation (e.g., food, alcohol, overnight formats)

• Ensured the pilot was suitable for metro, regional and remote regions

  
  

2) Designed and implemented baseline data collection tools

Baseline elements included:

• physical waste audits across key waste streams within defined windows

• attendee sentiment questions embedded in existing survey channels, designed to be repeatable

• organiser baseline surveys to capture current practices and barriers, also designed for repeat benchmarking

  
  

3) Ensured the baseline translated into action

• Designed the pilot outputs to directly inform subsequent framework and guidance development

• Built the engagement logic to maximise participation and usability of results

Outcomes

A defensible baseline of organiser practices, measurable waste outcomes and attendee sentiment

• A repeatable pilot design that enables year-on-year benchmarking and comparison

• An evidence base intentionally structured to inform solution-focused frameworks and future intervention design

Why This Matters

This case demonstrates how Luminaire designs pilots that create decision-grade evidence — the kind governments and partners can rely on to align stakeholders, target the right levers, and test and scale what works across complex statewide ecosystems.