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How we do it: Projects
Dominion Road Dragon Trail Hunt
Celebrating cultural diversity and planting seeds of connection on one of Auckland's most multicultural streets
Project Overview
The Dragon Trail Hunt started with the Dominion Road Business Association (DRBA) and a simple question: how do you help a street full of people from all over the world actually find each other? Dominion Road is extraordinarily diverse: its businesses and residents bring languages, traditions and stories from across the globe. The DRBA saw that diversity as something worth celebrating, and engaged Catalyse to bring the idea to life.
Working with a modest budget and a wide circle of partners, including Albert-Eden Local Board, Auckland Council Libraries, Earth Action Trust, SportHub Community Trust and Welcoming Communities, we designed and created the creative elements that turned that idea into a neighbourhood event on 16 May 2026, drawing 150–200 visitors to Ballantyne Square and the businesses of Dominion Road.
Objectives
Busy commercial streets don't automatically create community. DRBA wanted to give people a reason to slow down, to notice and learn about the cultures around them, and to encourage them to walk into businesses they might pass every day without entering. Our role was to make that possible: to bring play into everyday life, create a story that the whole street could see itself in, and design elements that were culturally meaningful, genuinely playful, and that would leave something behind after the event day was over.
What we created and why
Twelve dragons
Most cultures in the world have their own dragon and this project aimed to create a series of unique dragons that were inspired by the culture of participating businesses and “of” Dominion Road. Working within a very small budget, with limited time for deep cultural research on each tradition, we used AI to help generate initial designs, then refined each one carefully to ensure it felt genuine rather than generic. We acknowledge that while not a precise cultural replica, each dragon carries the spirit of where it comes from.
The dragons and eggs were printed as stickers and placed in business windows along Dominion Road in the week before the event, as a way to build curiosity. Alongside this, we created a sticker pack of six dragons as giveaways, three colouring pages, and the Dragon Trail Hunt passports, each inviting participants to find at least six dragons, record their secret passcodes, and claim their victory. We coordinated all print production and contributed to the final event poster.
A chalk walk at Ballantyne Square
Ballantyne Square is a small park in the heart of a commercially focused area. It has trees and seating, but little that invites people, especially children, to stop and play. That kind of space matters for the health and wellbeing of city communities, and it is often overlooked in areas where the focus is on business and movement. A chalk activation seemed like the right response: low cost, joyful, and able to keep offering something to the neighbourhood long after the event was done.
We originally planned a maze and hopscotch in a single area, but a site walk with the wider team revealed that location was prone to flooding. We adapted, finding three smaller pockets nearby that turned out to be better suited: shaded, close to seating, and slightly out of the main foot traffic.
The first pocket became a dragon-themed hopscotch, designed with familiar simplicity for younger children and added complexity along the sides for those who want more of a challenge or want to create their own path. We left out instructions deliberately: children instinctively know what to do and love to explore their creativity, making their own rules as they go. We saw this confirmed when a mother and child tried it naturally on-site, without any prompting.
The second pocket became a "follow the line" experience with three possible paths: one leads nowhere, one to courage, and one to adventure, where children might find treasure, love, or a dragon, depending on the story they choose. Leaving the ending open means children bring their own imagination to it, which is always more interesting than a prescribed answer. The third is simply a small dance spot, a chalked outline that says: this is a place where you can move and play.
Dragon footprints
Throughout Ballantyne Square and along Dominion Road, we painted dragon footprint steps in chalk: some straight, some circular, some in long winding sequences. Their purpose was partly navigation, helping people find their way to the businesses displaying dragons, and partly encouraging the kind of everyday playfulness that busy city streets often miss. In areas focused on getting somewhere, a trail of footprints that invites you to follow them, and that children naturally do follow, breaking from walking in straight lines just to see where they lead, is a small act of joy that belongs to the place.
Impact
Between 150–200 visitors came to Ballantyne Square and walked Dominion Road on 16 May. 39 passports were completed and 49 dragon sticker packs given away. Of the 200 x $10 vouchers distributed to encourage local spending, 106 were redeemed across 10 participating businesses, a 53% redemption rate. Children came from across the area and asked for more dragon stories. Families from a diverse mix of backgrounds came together around something that belonged, in its own way, to each of them.
The chalk walk has continued to be used well beyond the event. Parents and children walking past stop to play, and a small recreational corner has emerged in a park that previously had little to invite people to linger. That feels like a beginning.
Insights
The right hook belongs to everyone. The dragon worked because it was simultaneously universal and genuinely specific to each culture, while providing a point of curiosity and pride for each community on the street. Starting there meant the trail felt meaningful rather than decorative.
Working within constraints sharpens thinking. A modest budget meant we had to be clear about what mattered most, and focused our energy accordingly: a trail that gets people walking and discovering, and a chalk activation that keeps giving after the event is over. The flooded maze site became a better chalk walk because we had to rethink it on the ground.
Small joys accumulate. Footprints on a pavement and a hopscotch in a park are not big interventions. But, in commercially focused streets, they signal that this place is for people too: for wandering, for play, for stopping. That kind of signal, repeated across a neighbourhood over time, shifts how a place feels to live and move in.
This could become a tradition. The DRBA's instinct was that an event like this, rooted in cultural identity and repeated year after year, could become something people look forward to and feel part of. We share that hope. This Dragon Trail Hunt might be the egg from which something much bigger grows.
