Part of the secret to Supercrawl’s warm and welcoming energy is its generous and engaging programming for children and youth. First introduced in 2012, Supercrawl’s Family Zone features joyous and engaging programming that showcases Hamilton’s abundant creative talent and wealth of community cultural organizations. Its eclectic lineup of hands-on activities fosters creativity, compassion, and the capacity to see potential all around us. All of the zone’s activities are geared to engage and entertain young people 12 and under, and its programming has earned its fair share of applause. On the heels of the 2019 festival, Supercrawl’s Family Zone programming earned a Festivals & Events Ontario (FEO) Achievement Award for Best Youth Initiative.

Supercrawl’s Family Zone packs oodles of interactive creative play into a bustling block within the festival corridor — York Blvd between MacNab & James. More than a dozen community groups will be on hand to promote interactive creative fun for families and kids, featuring participating organizations such as Arts For All Artasia, Bay Area Restoration Council, Campfire Circle, Hamilton Regional Indian Centre, Let’s Talk Science McMaster, Navy League of Canada, Play Project Parkour, Girl Guides of Canada, Forge FC, Hamilton Bulldogs, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and Toronto Rock. Not only that, but the 2022 Family Zone is bringing back the kid-pleasing, 12-and-under Foam Party after a four-year absence. Plus the Zone is located nearby a host of food trucks, a picnic area and the Wilson Stage, where children of all ages can have their imagination sparked by the creative performance art of Pittsburgh art-rockers Squonk and their giant interactive performance Hand To Hand.

A four-storey crowd-sourced augmented reality mural on the east face of the York Boulevard parkade — soaring above the Family Zone’s foam pit — will also come to life at Supercrawl, thanks to the team at Concrete Canvas.  Conceived and painted by local graffiti artist Scott McDonald, the mural of a peregrine falcon in flight currently exists as a kind of high-tech colour-by-numbers. Through Sept 7, individuals can fill in the black-and-white outline mural on their smart phone or tablet by scanning a QR code, giving it different colours, shades, and hues. Once a user has finished their rendition, they can submit their colourway online, after which a high-powered projector will project these submissions as overlays of the outline on the wall, screening nightly from dusk to 11:00pm, Sept 9-11. After the run of projections has finished, the public will be invited to vote on the best submission, which McDonald will make permanent post-festival by returning to paint that colourway onto the wall, a larger-than-life community engagement project. The piece was originally intended to run as part of July’s Concrete Canvas Art Festival but was paused after a critical technical member was sidelined with health issues, which have happily been resolved since then. Concrete Canvas’ programming has enlivened walls across Hamilton, including a handful of colourful sites in and around Supercrawl’s festival enclosure (21 Rebecca, 20-30 Wilson, 10 Cannon), and the festival is thrilled to be presenting this unique collaboration.