Rehearsals are getting underway for the Creative City Project’s latest production, Wavelength. The organization, which focuses on interactive experiences, will engage the audience with a visual art and music mashup at Steinmetz Hall inside the Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
Cole NeSmith is the founder and Artistic Director of Creative City Project, which is best known for its annual large-scale artistic event Immerse. The annual artistic event that closes down dozens of city blocks in downtown Orlando and fills them with interactive art.
After 2023’s pause on the event, the Orlando arts community has been holding its collective breath for an announcement on whether it’s coming back.
Well, we’re here to tell you, it is coming back!
“We are currently planning for the return of Immerse in February of 2025 and our team is working really hard with our incredible partners to make that happen,” says NeSmith.
Previously, Immerse was held in October every year, but NeSmith says October is already a packed month downtown and he wanted to give Immerse a little breathing room – a whole month’s worth.

“We’re actually planning right now for the entire month of February to have large scale art activations throughout the entirety of downtown,” says NeSmith. “So not only will we have the spectacular Immerse event the weekend of February 21, 2025, but we’re working with some incredible artists and partners – the Downtown Development Board and the City of Orlando – to activate all of downtown Orlando for the entire month of February next year.”
NeSmith says the Creative City Project team has been spending time learning how to raise awareness about what Immerse offers in terms of cultural tourism and other economic opportunities.
“I have a vision of Immerse being a destination experience that hundreds of thousands of people build their calendar and travel plans around every year,” he says. “And having a vision that big will only ever happen because a lot of people come together to make it happen.”
“The vision of Immerse is way bigger than I could ever achieve on my own,” he adds, so NeSmith says he’s working to bring more collaborators into a mutually beneficial process.
In the meantime and amid the whirlwind of Immerse planning, the new project called Wavelength takes center stage.
Continuing the organization’s ongoing interactive theme, NeSmith says Wavelength is a multisensory experience in Steinmetz Hall, with 21 singers, a live band, and an orchestral ensemble in the round, “and all of that sound will be represented through the visualization of about 200 different light fixtures, from lasers to light beams to projection elements. It’s going to be a visually stunning experience.”