Super Bowl Week Kicks-Off

            If you live in Indianapolis, you may have heard that Super Bowl Week kicked off last week. Since the official opening of the Super Bowl Village on Georgia Street last week, Indianapolis has been the epicenter of the football world. Tens of thousands of people have already been Downtown, and more than 150,000 are expected to arrive this week. For a comparison of just how many people are going to the capitol city, the record number of people attending the NFL Experience in nine days has already been broken, in just five days. If you haven’t been downtown at all, I seriously recommend you try finding anyway to get there and see the beauty that is my Super City.

            So how did I spend my opening weekend? I was downtown on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday freezing my butt off, but having a great time.

            On Friday I talked to Indianapolis Star writer Bob Kravitz but wasn’t able to talk to him too long because he was trying to find a bathroom. I also went to the Bret Michaels concert. He did some of his famous “Poison” songs and covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd and John Mellencamp. There were also plenty of drunken people causing mischief. Fortunately, I have heard no reports of any kind of fights or public intoxication since that night so somebody must have acted to make sure everybody was staying out of trouble.

            On Saturday I spent a couple of hours just walking around Super Bowl Village and taking in the sights and sounds. The huge Roman Numerals on Monument Circle are really awesome and I can’t think of a better picture opportunity anywhere in the city. It seems like every picture that’s coming out of Indy is the three-story tall “XLVI”.

            Also on Monument Circle was the 33 IndyCar’s that had been painted up in the color scheme of every NFL team (32 for each team and one in a Super Bowl scheme). Everybody I saw was dying to get a picture of the car with their favorite team painted on it. Those cars represent uniqueness that no other city in the world claim and it’s awesome that Indianapolis took advantage of that.  Not only do those raise interest in the Super Bowl, but also in IndyCar.

            
            Probably the biggest entertainment outside of the game itself is the ten-story tall zip line on Capitol St. Tickets for this are selling at an insanely high rate. Each day tickets become available at 11:00 a.m., but people are lining up at 6:00 a.m. to get them. I have yet to take a ride on the zip line, but I would sure love to. 
Sidenote here, but there may be a zip line installed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.Stay tuned for more on that.

           Sunday, I went downtown to see country singer Dierks Bentley. Before he played, a folk band named “Railroad Earth” performed. They have a cheesy name, but they were really great and original. As for Bentley, he was great too. He played for more than an hour and every song he sang sounded just like what you hear on the radio.

            I read that 30,000 people were in downtown Indy Friday night. I haven’t seen the numbers about any other day, but I’d be willing to bet 30,000 were there Saturday and 40,000 on Sunday. I also know how cramped the Super Bowl Village and concert areas were when I was there on Friday and Sunday. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like this Friday night when LMFAO performs.