'Light Up Bristol', which will run from December 17 to 21 for four hours each night from 6pm, has been developed with the help of a team of 14 of the city's creative companies, including Aardman Animations and digital agency E3.
The projectors will throw the giant moving images and animations onto landmarks around Bristol's city centre, including The Council House and Cathedral.
The organisers have also ordered two tonnes of artificial snow and several snow blizzard machines from Pinewood studios for the event. The machines were used in the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' where New York disappeared under 300ft of snow and ice.
Mike Bennett, joint managing director of E3 Media, said: "It's all about the leading creative brains coming together to work on a huge urban canvas, taking everyday areas and parts of the city and blasting them with a whole host of colours and animations.
"We didn't want Bristol to look like just another city with 20-year-old tacky Christmas lights which should have been binned years ago. We wanted to come together to stage something different, that we'd all enjoy working on and that would raise a smile on the odd passer by on their way home from work."
The group has commissioned music and VJ's to work alongside the light show.
Dan Efergan, digital creative director of Aardman Animations, said: "Designers tend to spend our lives working on a 19-inch monitor, so to be asked to produce 400ft animations and visuals that are going to be thrown all over the city -- we all jumped at the chance."