Been down in Indianapolis checking out Super Bowl weekend as well as some old acquaintances. I mean, I didn't miss anything when I was down there, did I? You know, like our Governor going in front of a DA in a corruption probe, or anything like that?
1. The Super Bowl festivities are surprisingly accessible for a non-celebrity. They blocked off numerous downtown Indianapolis streets and regular folks were able to check out all of the pregame open concerts and live coverage just like any NFL player or rich person could. You get a good idea of the cross-section of NFL fans and locals, and especially on Friday, when it was sunny and mid-50s (!), it raises spirits even more than your typical big event. There's even the Mardi Gras-ish "drinking on the street" part that's a nice boost, and extra bonus to RAM and Rock Bottom Breweries to sell a $10.50 32 oz. "to go" carrier of their beer, not a bad deal when bottles of Bud Light on the street go for $7. It looks like an old medicine bottle, and me and my buddy had numerous people asking us on Friday "Hey, what's that and where do you get it?" On a related note, here's a good article on the beer carriers, as well as on the many other microbreweries that Indiana has been adding in recent years.
In fact, the only down sides from Indy putting on the show that I could tell were that so many people showed up on Friday night that certain streets had to be shut down to pedestrians and some people suffered injuries in the mash of people. A friend of mine was down there on Friday (biggest event was an LMFAO concert, and apparently LMFAO is a big deal), and she said the surging mass of humanity was at the "scary" level. I wasn't down at those points in the evening, but even at 4pm on a Saturday, you could see traffic and crowds getting massive, making it very tough to get around, so I can't imagine what Friday's post-work crowd must have been like.
2. Good side of Indy services- free bus rides allowed us to park for free in the Broad Ripple section of town and then grab a bus within walking distance of the festivities. Smart move to keep the traffic down and improve convenience as much as you can for an event like this. Down side of the services- they decided to keep with only 1 bus for a given time (and IndyGo has some of the lowest levels of service for a city of its size to start with), and many of the buses were listed as "full" once you got toward the middle of town. They should have at least taken a tip from Madison and ran an "extra bus" following a main one, to grab overflow traffic. In addition, is it too much to ask to run service past 10:30pm in a major city? We left well before those points on Friday and Saturday, but how would you like to have to make a decision on whether to throw down $30 to park and deal with awful traffic, or cut out from a concert in time to make the bus back to the North side?
3. When Scott Walker next calls Mitch Daniels' Indiana a low-tax haven that he wants to copy, will someone remind Scotty of the 9% sales tax I paid on every beer and food item this weekend? (7% is statewide, 1% is for the Indy Convention Center, and 1% is for Lucas Oil Stadium) Oh, and that Indiana is one of only 9 states in the country to have that 7% sales tax also apply to gasoline (page 19 has the list, you'll see Wisconsin has no sales tax for many of these items....yet) And while Indiana's beer tax is relatively low at $3.57 a barrell, that's still almost twice what we pay in Wisconsin. On a more positive note, this great LFB paper will tell you that Indiana charges $1.53 a pack less in cigarette taxes and also charges less than Wisconsin for liquor, so fill up on your smokes and booze when you're down there (just remember that there's no carry-out booze or beer on Sunday).
But in all, Indy has handled this rather well, and as a former resident of the city, it was great to see it mostly rise to the occasion on the biggest stage. It deserves another Super Bowl in a few years. I highly recommend that you go and give it a shot, just to say you've done it and to meet fans and people from all over. And from looking on the street, the Giants will have a definite home-crowd advantage, because their fans outnumbered the Pats 2 to 1, and the Colts fans attending will also be rooting and Brady and Belichik (there were an impressive amount of Colts fans representing at the Super Bowl festivities, especially with all the Peyton Manning turmoil starting to bubble up).
The only downer was not seeing the Packers be one of the teams in this Big Game, because judging from the hundreds I saw in Packer gear this weekend, having the Pack playing 6 1/2 hours from Green Bay would have thrown beer, brandy, and ticket demand through the roof. Guess I'll have to settle for having the Pack tattoo Andrew Luck and the Colts next Fall instead.
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