MELBOURNE MARATHON
Turning the 2025 Melbourne Marathon into an explorable mixed reality world that shows off an iconic city, builds excitement before the start line and rewards runners with a lasting digital medal.
Client: Melbourne Marathon
Location: Melbourne, Victoria
THE CHALLENGE
A mixed reality showcase of the Melbourne Marathon
You can run a marathon anywhere. What makes this one special is Melbourne itself: an iconic city, a course that threads past its most recognisable places, and a finish line inside the MCG.
For the 2025 event, the opportunity was to show that off. A flat course map tells runners where to turn, but it cannot capture the city, build excitement for what is coming, or make someone feel part of the race before they reach the start line.
The experience also had jobs beyond the runner: helping support crews pick exactly where to cheer from, and opening new opportunities for brand presence along the route.
THE IMMERSIVE IDEA
Turning the course into a world you can explore
We transformed the 2025 Melbourne Marathon route into a detailed 3D diorama that runners could explore in mixed reality, stretched across the city from start to finish.
The model is as much a portrait of Melbourne as a course preview. Landmarks and points of interest line the route, so exploring it feels like being handed the city, and your place in it, before race day.
Runners move around the model, follow the route through the streets and explore key sections before arriving at the iconic finish inside the MCG.
WHY XR?
Seeing the race from a new perspective
A flat map shows where a marathon goes. Mixed reality can reveal how the entire course fits together.
By bringing the route into 3D, runners can understand elevation, distance and the relationship between different parts of the course in a much more spatial way.
Key information including kilometre markers, pacing, difficult sections and refuelling points connects directly to the places where they matter, turning race preparation into something visual and intuitive.
And the same view works for everyone around the runner. Support crews can pick the exact corners to cheer from, while sponsors gain a new canvas for brand presence, tied to real locations on the course.
INSIDE THE EXPERIENCE
Exploring every stage of the race
Using Meta Quest passthrough, participants see the Melbourne Marathon course appear as a floating tabletop model within the real world.
They can physically move around the route, following its path through Melbourne and exploring key moments along the way.
Elevation, landmarks and race information add context throughout the journey, giving runners a chance to familiarise themselves with what lies ahead before they reach the start line.
Then comes the payoff: the finisher’s medal, recreated as a detailed digital replica runners can pick up, inspect and keep. The reward at the end of the course, there to be earned before and after the real thing.
THE IMPACT
Turning preparation into perspective
The experience takes information runners would normally absorb across maps, guides and race-day preparation and brings it together into a single spatial view.
By allowing participants to see the complete course before running it, mixed reality creates a stronger sense of orientation and familiarity with the challenge ahead.
It turns 42.195 kilometres from a line on a map into a journey runners can explore before they experience it for real. It elevates the event, builds excitement for race day and makes participants feel part of something before the gun goes off.
And when the race is run, the digital medal remains: a lasting, shareable replica of the achievement that extends the Melbourne Marathon beyond the finish line.
Let’s Build Something Bold Together
At Catalyst VR, we specialise in helping organisations turn complex ideas into simple, unforgettable immersive experiences. Whether it’s engaging future engineers at an airshow or transforming your product into an interactive demo, our team is ready to bring your vision to life through expert Virtual Reality Development and strategic Virtual Reality Marketing.
Ready to explore what’s possible in VR?
Let’s talk.
