It’s the year of the Dragon, a year brimming of opportunities. Largely because people in Asia REALLY like dragons and the prosperity they represent. This was the year Aristocrat Gaming aspired to be more than a logo etched onto slot cabinets, and instead be recognised as the name behind Asia’s most popular games.

Here’s the thing: Vegas might be flashy, but Asia turns the dial up even higher. With new concerts, art installations, and trendy food spots appearing every week, competition between properties is fierce. To get people talking about Aristocrat Gaming, we had to outshine the noise and be louder, brighter, bolder.

The way to start is to do something that was never done before. Dragon style.

A whole slew of decks brimming with ideas (with an eye-watering amount of visuals to match) were made for proposals all over markets in Macau, Philippines, and Singapore. Aristocrat Gaming representatives got really busy, flying around, meeting big shots from the properties all around the world showing off the cool ideas that we have.

All of that culminated with us landing a first and only of it’s kind experience with…

Studio City’s Dragon Kingdom

Our task is to turn that Dead zone into a Dragon zone.

There was a deadline tick-tick-ticking as the property wanted the room to launch during the Golden Week in early October, giving us less than 9 months to conceptualise, present, get approvals, build and promote the experience.

Resources were limited as the brief dropped the Chinese New Year break. While everyone in China, Macau and HK were enjoying their reunion dinners, I got round to figuring out the room’s concept in 3D.

Since 2024 is the year of the wood dragon, we went with a nature-inspired look. We invite visitors to step into our life-sized paper craft landscape filled with homages to Chinese craft. Blessing the space is a giant golden dragon who graciously offers up a pearl for visitors to rub for luck.

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Flew to Macau to present. The clients dig it, their clients love it, and with that the concept was sealed.
A new hoarding with a “coming soon” message replaced the old one. Teaser trailers were blasted on screens all over the property.
Studio City proudly heralds the upcoming Dragon Kingdom to a curious crowd.

The Dragon Kingdom launched with great fanfare.
(Heard that they had suckling pig, consulted with a fengshui master on the right time to eat said pig and everything).
Cooked up a KV to brand various stuff for the room such as themed snacks such as dragon’s beard candy and bubble tea (with pearls of course).
A mid-autumn PR kit was also sent out to relevant partners to promote the space.

If I were to summarise
9 months of work in
19 seconds…