Creative City Project (Website) is hard at work on connecting all of the programming dots for its ambitious Immerse festival, taking place in downtown Orlando from February 21-23, which includes the exciting return of the restored Merita Bread sign.
Through a collaboration with The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, the completely restored iconic Merita sign, which loomed over I-4 for 50 years, will be coming out of storage to be displayed on the 30 S. Orange Avenue [GMap] lot for a whopping 60 days as a part of the ongoing DTO Live activations downtown. The 48-foot-long sign was saved by the museum when the bakery closed in 2012. The installation will even include the smell of fresh-baked bread. Don’t ask us how – it’s probably magic.
A special sign lighting ceremony will be held on Monday, February 10, (time TBD) ahead of the festival.
Other installations will include:
- Mariposa by LED Labs – A 26-foot wide butterfly sculpture made wit hover 39,000 LEDs hanging overhead, with a porch swing attached underneath, which allows visitors to flap its wings and display animations that play in concert with classical music.
- Mind Wash by LED Labs – A 26-foot diameter half-dome filled with 26,000 full-color LEDs that display patterns in tandem to music.
- Dream Slide by William Nemitoff with Curious Form – A glowing, larger-than-life unicorn slide that invites attendees to slide down the unicorn’s glowing mane.
- The Cloud Swing by Lindsay Glatz with Curious Form – An interactive swing that is suspended from a glowing cloud structure.
- The Art of the Heart presented by AdventHealth – A 14-foot-tall heart that glows a neon red at night.
- Those notorious inflatable pigeons that popped up last summer are already back on several downtown rooftops.
The festival will also feature countless pop-up performances including headliners like Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, and Broadway’s Michael James Scott, with a full list of artists and programming to be announced on the Immerse website soon.
The three-day event is free to attend but there are also some paid ticket options that include closer access to stages, a curated guided experience, and a dining experience with dinner on Orange Avenue followed by a guided tour of the exhibits and activations throughout the festival.