Light City is such a feast of creativity you’ll want to catch the next Amtrak to Charm City. This year’s edition runs each evening through November 1-10, 2019 and is absolutely free.
What exactly is Light City? It’s the nation’s first large-scale light, music and innovation festival. It aims to redefine what is possible in the public realm by transforming Baltimore into a groundbreaking multi-media playground of light art installations, concerts, and performances.
Baltimore has a robust community of artists and Light City offers local talent the opportunity to stand should-to-shoulder with internationally acclaimed artists from around the globe.
2016’s inaugural edition was attended by over 400,000. Festival organizers have ambitious plans to grow Light City into something on the grand scale of South By Southwest. From the looks of this year’s festival, they are well on their way.
Light Art Walk Experiences
The main draw is the BGE Light Art Walk, a 1.5-mile trail hugging Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It features illuminated sculptures, projections, pop-up performances, musical entertainment and maker tents.
Channel your inner-child when you interact with Impulse, a publicly activated light and sound experience with 15 seesaws of various sizes. To activate them, one person sits down on each end. The seesaws, fitted with LED lights and speakers, then produce a series of sounds.
Another superb participatory installation is OVO. You’ll walk on a path in shallow water until you reach the interior of the egg-shaped sculpture, as if to vanish into a metaphysical mist.
My light is your light pays tribute to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. This installation embodies six human-scale figures representing a family fleeing this war-torn country. It’s haunting and thought-provoking.
Explore Baltimore’s Quirky Neighborhoods
Baltimore is a city of some 200 distinct neighborhoods and this year’s festival extends to eight of them, expanding its reach beyond the tourist trodden Inner Harbor.
Baltimore’s food and drink scene is blossoming and the festival promotes homegrown goodies from the city’s culinary community. Sample locally distilled Sagamore Spirit Rye and beer from Union Craft Brewing and you’ll understand what the buzz is about.
If you’ve got kids, Mini Light City offers hands-on experiences each evening at a bedtime-friendly 5-8 pm.
Get to Baltimore from NYC
Take Amtrak or consult oM’s Baltimore Transit Guide. The train ride from Penn Station takes 3 hours.
For more information, go to Light City and Visit Baltimore
Photo credits:My Light is your light by Alf, OVO by Allison Tibaldi, House of Cards by Perry Mandelboym
Allison is a native New Yorker, who has lived in Rome, Tuscany, Melbourne, Toronto and Los Angeles. She frequently contributes travel pieces to Family Travel Forum, using her own children as guinea pigs as they travel the globe. She is fluent in Italian and Spanish and laughably adequate in French. Her background as an Early Childhood Educator gives her an added understanding of what it takes to travel with kids in tow. She firmly believes that the most important part of education takes place outside of the classroom, on the road, around the world. She never misses a chance to sample local delicacies, as her love for travel goes hand-in-hand with her love for food and wine. Follow Allison at @gourmetrav.
Sarah Knapp is a Brooklyn based entrepreneur whose love for the outdoors and community building led her to the October 2013 creation of OutdoorFest. She has a BA in History, is a Wilderness First Responder and a NY state hiking, camp and boating guide. Her proudest achievement to date is reading the Aeneid in Latin. 
Allison was one of our first top writers and Chief Editor but is no longer working with offMetro. Allison is a native New Yorker, who has lived in Rome, Tuscany, Melbourne, Toronto and Los Angeles. She frequently contributed travel pieces to Family Travel Forum, using her own children as guinea pigs as they travel the globe. She never missed a chance to sample local delicacies, as her love for travel goes hand-in-hand with her love for food and wine. 
Josh Laskin is a freelance travel writer and photographer based in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. When he is not at work or on the road, you can find him in the mountains snowboarding, climbing, hiking, fly fishing, mountain biking, and eating bagel bites.
Annie is a travel writer, environmentalist, and surfer based in Venice, CA. She heads up our West Coast team, keeps our grammatical errors in check, and makes sure our California writers always have a plan for their next adventure. Follow Annie’s travels @annelisemcb.
Carly Pifer is a freelance writer who has been known to follow whims inspired by romantic movie scenes or colorful street style shots to India, Japan, Tunisia and Argentina. After stints living in Seoul, Boston, Paris and Los Angeles, writing and searching for something intangible, she landed somewhat steadily in Brooklyn and has begun to find inspiration in her more immediate surroundings. 
Kate E. O’Hara is a New York based freelance writer and photographer who loves all things food—especially the people who make it and market it. Her writing aims to capture the essence of the food experience; the stories that go well beyond a plate of ingredients. In addition to her love of food, Kate is also known to have a hankering for red wine and craft beer. You can also find Kate on Instagram