The Octagon and George St will be front and centre for all of the street parade events - with Dunedin City Council traffic management plans in place to try to keep potential disruptions for central city motorists to a minimum.
More than the usual number of University of Otago graduation ceremonies are being held this December because of the event's move from the Dunedin Town Hall to the smaller Regent Theatre.
Council events manager Marilyn Anderson said traffic management plans had been tweaked to accommodate the extra ceremonies and the traditional graduands' parades before each event.
The parades, which included the Otago Polytechnic graduation ceremony next Friday, this year departed from the usual route in that the street march would turn at the Octagon and proceed along lower Stuart St to access a rear entrance at the Regent, she said.
"The more the merrier, I say."
Street parades along George St were relatively common and temporary traffic management plans used a "rolling road closure" at either end of the march to handle such events, Ms Anderson said.
"They move at about the pace of a pipe band - more of an amble than a march, really - and the rolling road closure system we use affects about a [city] block at a time." A university graduation ceremony and street parade was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon, believed to be one of the first times that had happened.
Other scheduled events clashed with some of the graduands' parades, with the annual Bronz Christmas Toy Run of motorbikes timed to start this Saturday afternoon, shortly after the first graduands' parade ended, Ms Anderson said.
Cruise ship visits, which required their own separate traffic management plans for through the Octagon, were happening on the same consecutive days as graduand parades timed for Friday and Saturday next week.
"It will give our cruise ship visitors something to remember about their time in Dunedin," Ms Anderson said.
"It is about giving everyone the best advantage to celebrate Dunedin. We plan on sharing spaces to their best ability and have a proven model for how to manage these things," she said.
The city wanted to promote and back the tradition of graduand parades to "celebrate the achievements" of students and the contribution they made to Dunedin. The DCC paid for the traffic management plans and also the pipe bands, which accompany the parades.
"They [cost] very little - under $500 a parade. It is a public service," Ms Anderson said.
There would be only one graduands' parade on those Saturdays when two ceremonies were scheduled.
DCC transportation operations technical officer Michael Tannock acknowledged the busy schedule of community events "may cause some temporary disruptions". The council's traffic management plans were designed to "manage clashes as best we can" should they occur within the central city, he said.
Parades and visits
December 3: University of Otago education, teaching and pharmacy graduands' parade and the Bronz Christmas Toy Run parade.
December 4: Santa Parade.
December 9: Cruise ship visit and Otago Polytechnic graduands' parade.
December 10: Cruise ship visit and University of Otago medicine, medical laboratory science, dentistry and physiotherapy graduands' parade.
December 14 (Wednesday): University arts, music and theology graduands' parade.
December 17: University commerce, biomedical sciences, health sciences, law, applied science, consumer and applied sciences, physical education, science, and surveying graduands' parade.
