Led by NEP Australia, with the support of production partners the Seven Network and Sunset+Vine, the host broadcaster will produce high definition multi-camera television coverage during the 11 days of sporting competition plus the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for delivery to rights-holding broadcasters around the world.

The Opening Ceremony on April 4 is due to be produced in 4K Ultra HD.

The host broadcast team currently numbers 20, comprising the key management group and broadcast training manager, two venue-planning teams and administrative staff.

It is due to expand to 30 members in early 2017, 60 over the course of next year, and reach workforce of more than 1,200 during the Games.

The new headquarters in  Bundall Road was officially opened by Stirling Hinchliffe, Queensland's Minister for the Commonwealth Games. 

He was joined by several guests, including Gold Coast 2018 chairman Peter Beattie and chief executive Mark Peters, NEP Australia President Soames Treffry; Seven West Media’s event director for the Rio Olympics, Commonwealth Games and chief revenue officer Kurt Burnette and Seven Network’s head of sport Saul Shtein.

The master of ceremonies was Olympic gold medallist Giaan Rooney, a former swimmer who is now works for Seven Network as a presenter. 

“With an expected television audience of 1.5 billion people worldwide, it is vital the broadcast is provided by an organisation with exceptional expertise and experience,” Hinchliffe said.

“I congratulate NEP Australia on the opening of its host broadcast operations on the Gold Coast and welcome the opportunities they will provide, including valuable work-experience and training for university students, and jobs for local industry professionals.

“This is a great example of a unique industry coming to Queensland because of the Games and I am delighted their team will call the Gold Coast home for the next two years.”

Among the current priorities for the new headquarters will be surveys to determine camera positions across 20 venues in and around the Gold Coast, including basketball from Cairns and Townsville, and shooting and track cycling from Brisbane.

Other tasks include confirming host broadcaster space requirements at each of the venues, determining broadcast compound layouts, sourcing suppliers and connecting to Queensland universities and colleges for the host broadcast training programme.

The project’s training programme includes work experience opportunities for 200 Queensland students during the Games, who will work alongside some of Australia’s leading broadcast professionals.

This will provide students with invaluable broadcast industry experience for their future careers in television.

As part of the training programme, eight students have been selected from six Queensland universities to be part of the Seven Network’s Olympic Games coverage of Rio 2016 at NEP’s studio complex in Sydney.

This integrated learning approach is a unique opportunity for these students to be part of a live multi-sport international broadcast, experience they can bring back for their work on the Gold Coast Games.

Many of these students attended today’s launch.

“As our previous Commonwealth Games experience has shown, detailed forward planning is key to getting a project of this complexity off to a flying start," said Treffry.

"We hit the ground running, with our core team in place more than two years from the Gold Coast 2018 Opening Ceremony.”