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Week-Long Ideas & Music Festival Coming To Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Dazzling light displays and major music acts. A week-long, multi-million dollar festival is planned for Charm City. If it comes, you may not even recognize Baltimore's most familiar landmarks.

Rick Ritter shows us what's going to be called "Light City Baltimore."

The main avenue for the festival will be down at the Inner Harbor. Everyone remembers how successful the Star Spangled Spectacular was. Officials hope this festival will have an even greater economic impact.

It's a festival full of innovation, music and light, soon bringing big bucks to Baltimore and highlighting its image.

"It brings so much positivity, so much joy, so much light to the city," said Eric Jones.

Take a look at Light City Baltimore--a festival designed to kick off the city's tourism season in 2016.

The idea is modeled off Australia's "Vivid Sydney" and will host a spectacular display of light projections, sculptures and music for an entire week downtown, costing Baltimore around $4 million just to put on.

"I think it sounds pretty cool. If you look around the harbor, it's got a similar setup to Sydney," said Liz Church.

Many are thrilled, with the event already drawing comparisons to the Star Spangled Spectacular in terms of the impact.

"We hope that this festival will have an even greater economic impact on Baltimore City," said Tracy Baskerville, Promotion and the Arts communications director.

Officials aren't discussing attendance goals for the event, but the Sydney festival is known to draw 1.5 million people annually.

A major feature of the festival is a conference to bring in big thinkers and ideas for Baltimore--an effort to transform the city.

"What makes it a little bit different from other festivals we've done in Baltimore, that it has that innovation component," said Baskerville.

So the countdown is on, as some people already scope out their seats downtown.

"I got a building that I work in over there. That's a good spot because you can see everything," Jones said.

Officials say they're still in the planning phases of the festival. They hope to finalize it by April.

The event is slated to start at the end of March, 2016. Organizers hope to make the festival an annual event in Baltimore.

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