It’s Official, You Live in a Super City!!!
Not that you needed me to write or tell you about this, but Indianapolis is officially a Super City. City leaders and volunteers pulled off a pretty darn near perfect execution of Super Bowl 46 and hopefully by doing so, Indianapolis has clearly demonstrated it can compete and do just as well, if not better, than a lot bigger places.
The compactness of downtown was the perfect setting for the Super Bowl, and unlike other host cities such as Dallas, Miami or Phoenix, people didn’t have to spend half their time in the car. Let’s face it, while getting there may be half the fun, it shouldn’t take all day.
Hoosier hospitality was at its finest as usual as locals and merchants opened their doors and their good manners to visitors. Even some of our most controversial issues managed to stay in perspective and not ruin the day. Apart from some reasonable demonstrators, no one cared about Right to Work. And the only real complaint I heard about the city not having a total smoking ban was the line to get into some places that were non-smoking. And when traffic got a little hectic Friday night, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department took a page out of its previous playbooks and redirected traffic.
The only read adjustment I would suggest for city planners to do a better job of assisting downtown merchants who might have overstocked based on what they were told by local tourism officials. With Super Bowl village mainly taking place on the south sector of downtown, some of the more northern business in the area didn’t get as much traffic as they were hoping for, but that is something that is easily adjusted for next time.
And whether you call it luck, mother nature or divine intervention, the weather wasn’t too bad either.
Indianapolis, you should be proud. Granted you have pulled off big events before, the Indy 500, Final Four, Gen-Con, Big Ten tournaments, but there is nothing like a Super Bowl to show you have the gravitas to make it happen. And despite the naysayers and curmudgeons, you should go out have a cocktail and toast yourself. Indy, you done good and I’m glad to know you.
