CINCINATI — With less than two months until BLINK 2024, the festival has unveiled its installation map.
The nation's largest art and projection mapping festival — which takes place Thursday, Oct. 17 through Sunday, Oct. 20 — is back bigger and better than its 2022 rendition.
More than 80 artists are set to participate in the 2024 festival that will stretch through dozens of city blocks from Over-the-Rhine, downtown, The Banks, Covington and, the newly included, Newport.
It's also the first year the festival will have an official after-party, aptly titled "afterglow," which will be held at MegaCorp Pavilion in Newport on Saturday, Oct. 19.
The 2024 festival, similar to the 2022 festival, is broken down into various zones: The Findlay Market Zone, OTR Zone, Downtown Zone, The Banks Zone, Covington Zone and Newport Zone.
"Since it spans so much of our urban core, the Zones function to help break the experience into more manageable pieces," said Justin Brookhart, executive director of BLINK. "We invite people to come to each, stay for awhile and return the next day to see even more of what makes this event so special."
BLINK's 2024 footprint map shows the perimeters of the festival, as well as what streets will contain or showcase installations.
BLINK 2024 Festival Map by webeditors on Scribd
Festival organizers said the Findlay Market Zone will have 15 new permanent murals. Cincinnati artist Daniel Shields is also set to showcase a new rendition of his popular 2022 installation "String Theory" somewhere in the zone.
The OTR Zone, which includes Washington Park, will see Music Hall enveloped in light for the first time since Lumenocity.
The Downtown Zone will include updated project mapping from GraffMapping on the fan-favorite Toy Heritage mural from ArtWorks. Court Street will also transform into the Asianati Night Market again.
The Banks Zone will have a fully programmed live music and entertainment schedule, as well as its returning nightly drone show.
The Covington Zone and Newport Zone will see more of BLINK this year, with sites like Hotel Covington and Newport on the Levee lit up.
The full festival map with each installation's location, hospitality and accessibility sites and more is set to be released closer to the event.
The October festival is meant to be explored on foot, so BLINK also has announced a partnership with Metro in Cincinnati and TANK in Northern Kentucky.
"BLINK is a one-of-a-kind event that highlights the incredible offerings of the Cincinnati region, and Metro is proud to be a part of it," said Brandy Jones, Metro's chief communications and marketing officer. "Through all of the improvements made by the Reinventing Metro plan, connecting to BLINK by Park and Ride or other Metro services is efficient, reliable and safe."
Both Metro and TANK will be providing free rides beginning at 6 p.m. each night and direct routes from three "park-and-ride" locations for the 2024 festival. These "park-and-ride" locations will drop attendees off at the Riverfront Transit Center for both Metro and TANK, and TANK will also have service to the Covington Transit Center.
Cincinnati's streetcar, which runs a loop from The Findlay Market Zone to The Banks Zone, will also be available during the festival.
