School holiday basketball camps in Melbourne: what they cost and who runs them

When the camps run

Basketball camps follow the Victorian school holidays. Term 4 2026 finishes on Friday 18 December, and the summer holidays run until Wednesday 27 January 2027, with government school students back on Thursday 28 January. Term 1 2027 ends on Thursday 25 March, and Term 2 starts on Monday 12 April, so the autumn break falls between those two dates.

Summer is the odd one out. Summer camps tend to skip the Christmas weeks and run in the middle of January instead. Last summer Frankston announced their January camps on 16 December 2025, for camps between 13 and 22 January, and the Southside Flyers ran a girls camp on 14 January 2026.

When we checked in mid October 2026, nobody had published January 2027 camp dates. The Phoenix listed their summer camps with associations as to be announced, and Tomorrow's Stars say they announce camps six weeks before each holiday. If you want a January spot, start looking in early December.

What a camp costs

Prices vary more than the camps do. Across the thirteen full day camps we found with a 2026 price, the cheapest single day was $69 and the most expensive was $130. The middle price was $80, and the average was about $90.

Two day packages ran from $135 at Eltham, for shorter four hour days, to $200 at Darebin and Tomorrow's Stars, which works out at $67.50 to $100 a day. Short clinics of a couple of hours are cheaper, mostly $25 to $55 for beginner and domestic sessions, while rep and tryout preparation sessions sat at about $100.

The price usually tracks who the camp is for rather than what's in it. A beginner day for five to nine year olds is the cheapest thing on offer, and a rep camp run by an association's VJBL coaches is the most expensive.

Camps run by associations

Your own association is the best place to start, because the coaches are often the ones your child will meet at domestic training or rep tryouts. These were the most recent camps we could find for each association, mostly from the September 2026 holidays. Use them as a guide to price and ages, then check the association's page for the next round.

A few associations publish a camp page with no dates or prices, and a few camp pages are more than a year old. Basketball Hawthorn's Super Camps page still showed September 2025 dates at $220 for two days when we checked, so ask the association directly before you plan around an old listing.

Private providers and pro club camps

Outside the associations there are privately run camps, and camps run by the professional clubs. Tomorrow's Stars ran a two day camp for five to fourteen year olds at Aqualink Box Hill in September 2026 for $200. Chase Basketball sells a two day beginner and intermediate camp at MSAC for six to twelve year olds at $175.

The South East Melbourne Phoenix run Heartland Hoops one day camps for five to twelve year olds, from 9am to 3pm, with the Knox camp at the State Basketball Centre priced at $95 to $110. Melbourne United run junior camps too, and say members save 10% on all of them, though no dates or prices were showing when we checked.

Most pro club junior camps are for five to twelve year olds, though the Flyers' girls camp goes up to 16 and Melbourne United run Academy camps for Under 12 to Under 18 players.

What to check before you book

Every adult coaching at a camp should hold a Working with Children Check. Basketball Victoria require one for coaches aged 18 and over, and you can check a card yourself by scanning the QR code on the digital Check with the Service Victoria app.

Ask about the coach to child ratio, because very few camps publish one. Tomorrow's Stars say theirs is usually one experienced coach to every 12 to 16 children, and Chase say one staff member to every 10 to 12 campers. Ask how the kids are grouped, too. The better camps split by age and ability rather than putting a nervous six year old on the same court as a rep twelve year old.

Read the refund rule before you pay. Basketball Hawthorn give no refunds unless they cancel the program, Nunawading offer credits only, and Chase give no refund with less than 24 hours notice. Most camps are bring your own lunch, Nunawading ask every child to bring their own basketball, and Frankston apply a heat policy on hot January days.

Is a camp worth it?

A camp is a great way to keep a child playing through the holidays, and for a younger kid a day of games with new friends can be the thing that makes them love the sport. For that, almost any camp on this page will do the job.

What a camp can't do is change a player on its own. One or two days of drills is fun, but skills are built by what a child practises in the weeks after. If you're paying for a camp because next year's tryout is the goal, plan what happens the following week as well, or the camp ends up as a nice day rather than a step forward.