Only a few people were present when Orville Wright first flew an airplane down a remote, windswept dune in North Carolina.

But the attempt to re-create that 12-second flight exactly 100 years later at 10:35 a.m. Dec. 17 will likely take place before more than 40,000 spectators.

The sell-out crowd -- it includes 35,000 people who weeks ago bought every available ticket for that day, as well as workers, volunteers, VIPs and media -- is emblematic of the power that the birth-of-flight moment still holds over the nation's collective imagination.

State and federal agencies, along with private sponsors, have organized a six-day celebration at the Wright Brothers National Memorial on North Carolina's Outer Banks to commemorate the Wrights' achievement and the century of aviation history that followed. Exhibits and events also will look to the future of flight.

The celebration, Dec. 12-17, already has sold more than 150,000 tickets and generated enough bookings to fill every motel room and many rental cottages on the Outer Banks.

"People want to be here," said Kim Sawyer, program administrator for the North Carolina First Flight Centennial Commission. "It's an incredible level of interest."

Organizers are meeting that interest with a celebration that stretches beyond the first-flight re-enactment to include exhibits, speeches, daily ceremonies and concerts by big-name entertainers including the Beach Boys, the Temptations, Lee Greenwood and Michelle Branch.

The 425-acre Wright memorial site, long a tourist draw with its 61-foot stone monument atop the 90-foot-high Kill Devil Hill down which the Wrights flew gliders, has received numerous improvements. These range from new walkways and outdoor sculpture to an interactive Wright Flyer flight simulator and a 20,000-square-foot pavilion divided equally between a 1,000-seat auditorium and exhibit space with enough room to house aircraft.

The centennial, including physical improvements to the park, will cost an estimated $10 million to $13 million in state and federal money and donations from private sponsors, said Brenda Follmer, public-affairs director for the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Organizers made 35,000 tickets available at $10 for five of six days of the festival, and proceeds will pay for future improvements at the memorial, Follmer said.

The opening day on Dec. 12 is devoted to the theme of inspiring children and young people, and there is no admission charge.

Interest in the event is so great that organizers have developed a transportation plan to bring ticket holders to the celebration site from remote parking areas via the Outer Banks' first public transportation system.

Sawyer, the First Flight Commission's program administrator, attributes the excitement about the North Carolina event to the fact that it is happening on the actual centennial date and in the place where the Wrights first flew.

"Not only did it happen right here in North Carolina, but we also have a picture to prove it," she said. "I think there's a certain lore to this event."

Although the flight took place in the sparsely populated seaside town of Kitty Hawk, its location has technically been in Kill Devil Hills since that town came into existence during the 1950s.

The first successful flight on Dec. 17, 1903, came three days after Wilbur Wright made a three-second flight ending in a crash.

Thanks to a Warrenton, Va., company named The Wright Experience, the attempt to re-create those moments will employ a copy of the 1903 Wright Flyer that is as accurate to the original in every detail as researchers and craftsmen could make it.

Professional pilots associated with the project are hoping weather conditions are good on the morning of Dec. 17.

A second re-enactment is scheduled for the afternoon, but organizers are hoping for a successful flight at the exact centennial.

"We'll see if we can do it," Sawyer said. "We just need 12 seconds."

Andrew Petkofsky is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.