It’s Total Immersion

Look up! Look down! Look all around! The multimedia extravaganza known as Immerse is back and will temporarily transform 10 city blocks in downtown Orlando into a cornucopia of sight and sound. Hopefully you’ve spent the past year or so doing neck exercises—because this degree of concentrated artistic activity is certain to give your head-turning skills a serious workout.

Back to being an annual staple on the City Beautiful’s cultural calendar (after a pandemic-induced hiatus of a few years that ended last February), Immerse dazzles with a weekend’s worth of eclectic live performances, cutting-edge art installations and interactive events.

Immerse will take place on Friday and Saturday, February 20 and 21, from 5 to 11 p.m. Then on Sunday, February 22, the festivities move to Lake Eola Park for an underfoot exhibition of chalk art by local creators from noon to 2 p.m. (with a daytime fireworks display slated for 1 p.m.).

The celebration of creativity will, as always, run continuously and at a fast and furious pace. The roster of artists will range from such international outfits as Blue Man Group to individual local visionaries who are less well known but whose presentations will be no less imaginative and emotionally compelling.

Once again, the majority of activity will take place along the sidewalks of Orange Avenue between Anderson Street and Central Boulevard and may well spill over onto neighboring side streets. (The final map will depend upon potential construction activity, such as ongoing plans to turn Magnolia Avenue into a pedestrian thoroughfare.) 

Technically, Immerse will remain on Orlando’s radar for most of the month, since an enormous installation by the returning Architects of Air will be on display for three weeks prior to opening of the festival proper.

The U.K. art collective will contribute Arborealis, a series of huge inflatable structures that will occupy Seneff Arts Plaza outside Dr. Phillips Center. Large enough to house several rooms each, the walk-in edifices will feature ambient sound and lighting and will even be equipped for air conditioning and/or heating should the weather require it.

Like a few other events on the Immerse schedule, Arborealis will be a ticketed attraction. But for the most part, the featured experiences will be free to maximize their attractiveness to regulars who’ve learned to make the festival a destination and to those passing by who simply happen upon the kinetic goings-on.

Last year, Immerse drew 62,000 attendees and some 1,400 artists of all sorts participated. That’s a significant footprint for an event that began in 2012 as the comparatively modest brainchild of Cole NeSmith, journeyman rock producer.

Impressed by the talent of Orlando’s busking performers and the city’s potential to accommodate a major multifaceted event, NeSmith organized an assortment of street performances that started small but in subsequent years grew into a mammoth annual undertaking.

In the process, he also founded two interdependent organizations to execute his vision: He is now artistic director at Creative City Project, which oversees the creative functions of Immerse and some other local cultural undertakings, and chief creative officer at the Memoir Agency, a separate entity that produces large-scale events and brand activations.

“We continue to see the value of producers who convene artists to create a sense of community and a sense of home and a sense of place,” says NeSmith. “And I think that long-term, that’s really what helps us participate in cultivating a thriving arts community here in Central Florida.”

As an example, he points to the Orlando Vocal Collective, a group of seasoned local singers that debuted at last year’s festival with an elaborate tribute to Michael Jackson and Beyoncé. The group, which will be back this year, subsequently staged well-received shows at Renaissance Theatre.

“That was one of the most exciting performances at Immerse last year,” notes NeSmith. “I think that idea of finding people who are creating great things but also building communities is a great example of what we’re trying to do.”

Changes to Immerse this time around will include a reimagining of its performing environments. Two large main stages will be situated at key points: one between Dr. Phillips Center and Orlando City Hall and the other in the Chase Plaza at Orange Avenue and Pine Street.

But there’ll also be a handful of smaller stages at various spots along the event route that will cater to performers and exhibitors who want to foster a more intimate connection with their audience.

One group that has been part of Immerse since the very beginning is the Unity Step Team, a dance troupe that was founded 18 years ago at Greenwood Lakes Middle School and is now centered at Lake Mary High School. Coach Kelly Lupis is bringing a squad of 23 students to stomp, clap and shout their way through one of their tightly choreographed, hip-hop-inflected routines.

 Lupis has found Immerse an ideal platform for her group, even down to such fine details as the ability to coordinate the festival’s flexible lighting with her dancers’ white attire. “I love the growth of Immerse,” she says. “Just the whole production of everything is insane. And I love how they give all types of talent an opportunity.”

In contrast, installation artist Michael Dalton is relatively new to Immerse, having participated for the first time in 2025 after responding to a call for contributors. (Once upon a time, Dalton had been roommates with NeSmith, an inveterate networker whose address book seemingly consists of everyone he has ever met.)

Dalton’s contribution last year was a trio of mailboxes in which he had installed working iPads; opening a mailbox would trigger the playback of a video of inspirational sayings by Ram Dass and Rumi. The project was, says Dalton, a way of working through the grief that he was experiencing over the loss of some loved ones.

But, although he found the experience highly fulfilling, he realized he had to shoot a bit higher next time. “One of my takeaways from last year was that I made a thing that I loved and was proud of,” notes Dalton. “But in my garage it had seemed so big. Then when I got it onto Orange Avenue it just seemed tiny.”

Consequently, he’s upping the ante this time around with Last Words, an installation of four full-size wardrobes that will house 65-inch TV screens placed horizontally. The screens will display poignant quotations, including words of love spoken to Aldous Huxley by his wife as the author lay on his deathbed.

The idea, adds Dalton, is to impart sentiments that would be every bit as applicable to a celebration of community—such as Immerse—as they would be to a bittersweet moment of letting go.

“It’s a little bit nuanced,” he says. “Here are these encouraging words that you would offer to someone as they were passing. Now, could those same words be encouraging to someone who is having a wonderful time in downtown Orlando with their friends at the same moment?”

With a budget of about $2 million, Immerse now involves not only NeSmith but Melyssa Marshall, the executive director/ producer who manages logistical matters for Creative City Project. There is also a core staff of 11 contracted employees, each of whom has their own team of part-timers and volunteers.

This year’s festival has notched $1 million through Orange County’s Blockbuster & Special Events program, which is funded by the Tourist Development Tax. That amount will increase to $1.25 million in 2027, $1.5 million in 2028 and $2 million in 2029.

The city of Orlando, meanwhile, funded Immerse to the tune of $300,000 last year but was only able to chip in a $50,000 grant this time—although that amount will be augmented with in-kind municipal services of up to $100,000. (The details were being finalized at press time.)

Immerse no longer budgets around state money, NeSmith says, to protect it from what has become an unpredictable ebb and flow of arts funding from Tallahassee. The remainder of its financial backing comes from sponsorships and partnerships with such major entities as AdventHealth, the presenter, along with Orlando Utilities Commission, Massey Services and United Arts of Central Florida.

Creative City Project and the Memoir Agency are also responsible for Dazzling Nights, a Christmas-themed spectacle that’s become a tradition at Harry P. Leu Gardens. For a time, NeSmith’s firms were also furnishing the gardens with Happy Frights/Haunting Nights, a pair of Halloween events that were discontinued in 2025.

Reasons those productions went by the wayside included the uncertain national economy, the desire to focus more energy on Immerse and even the risks of running an outdoor event in the thick of hurricane season. (Speaking of weather, rain dates are secured every year for Immerse—a necessity that was reinforced last year, when a major downpour hit the area just one day after the festival wrapped up.)

NeSmith is always looking ahead. His position with Immerse has become a volunteer one, he says, and the idea that no one is irreplaceable is clearly on his mind as he anticipates the local cultural scene to come. Arts organizations, he believes, should be sustainable and not dependent on one strong personality to become permanent fixtures.

“That’s actually something we’ve been having a lot of conversations about internally: Who’s going to start doing this stuff when we’re not doing it anymore?” he says. “And that’s a conversation our arts community needs to start having in a more strategic way.”

But as Immerse 2026 approaches, the rest of us simply have to strategize what we’re going to look at first. For more information, visit immersefest.com.