Tasked with creating an outdoor event for Dundrum Town Centre in order to drive footfall from June to August with key family target audience, we created Deep Sea Dundrum. Our brief was to make the outdoor space around Pembroke and Town Square look welcoming, exciting and be a place where families wanted to come and visit and stay a little longer.

 

Inspired by Dundrum Town Centre’s commitment to sustainability, we wanted amplify the message of climate change and the importance of being eco-friendly. We conceptualised the idea of Deep Sea Dundrum and brought Captain Bart and his crew to Dundrum in a series of bright and colourful installations designed by the team here at Pluto.

 

The Eco-Adventure was full of helpful facts to help everyone learn how we can play our part in our homes, in our gardens and in our communities in protecting and sustaining the environment. We brought flags, sea shells, lobster pots and funny sea creatures to make our crew feel right at home in Dundrum.

 

There were eight helpful sea-faring characters to find on the trail around Dundrum Town Centre, each sporting a QR codes which brought participants to Dundrum.ie to find out more useful tips, to win free goodies and to enter competitions and helped Dundrum Town Centre track footfall.

 

Visitors captured lovely summer moments in our four photo installations as well as play our summer games dotted throughout the outdoor areas of the centre.

 

Central to Deep Sea Dundrum was our metal whale sculpture which contained up to a tonne of waste recycled at Dundrum Town Centre. Unfortunately, this year alone, 8 million tonnes of plastic waste will end up in our oceans, and here in Ireland we produce the most plastic waste per person in the EU. We wanted to show that visually for all to see and to remind visitors to continue to recycle.

 

There was also a chance for families to meet some real-life sea-life. The Centre engaged world-renowned marine biologist and owner of Seahorse Aquariums Kealan Doyle, and his colleague Eimear Manning, Environmental Education & Youth Coordinator for ECO-UNESCO.

 

We partnered with the team in Flying Elephant to construct the installations, making sure that all structures were made from smartply which is a material sourced and made here in Ireland. This results is a lower transportation carbon footprint than plywood, or other competitive imports. Smartply uses far less energy and resources to make than steel, concrete and other wood sheet building materials and can be recycled.

 

We had so much fun making a splash with Deep Sea Dundrum.