There used to be racing and race related activity going on. Not just all weekend, but all month. The 500 no longer opens its arms or wallet to anyone.

If you want other things to do in Indy, they are there. The crowds aren’t bad on memorial at most attractions. Google them and sell your wife on them. It is the 11th largest city. Odds are you and your wife have found things to do in much smaller towns before.

I have never been to the Indy 500. I would like to go. The question isn’t “Isn’t the Indy 500 enough?”. The question is what else is there that my family would enjoy as well? Or to put it more bluntly, why on earth would my wife want to go? Sure she would go if I begged and pleaded, but I would love to be able to tell her some of the other things we will do in Indy that weekend.

A fan village sounds fantastic. A zipline sounds fun. A concert, especially if it’s someone she knows, would be great as well. Meeting the drivers that she’ll see on Sunday would be fantastic. A museum or a Lights race really doesn’t help the cause.

Let me throw something else out there. Several times now, my wife has traveled with me to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the greatest aviation fly-in in the world. Airventure, organized by the EAA. It’s 9 days long. Do you know how many people attend? 300,000-500,000 unique visitors with 800,000-1,000,000 daily tickets sold. It makes the Indy 500 look like an Arena Football game. Why do so many people attend?

First, it is the Mecca of a passionately loved activity: Flying. Second, there are things there that you’ll never see anywhere else, including special deals and technologies. Third, there is always something interesting flying between 8am and 5pm. Four, you can fly your own aircraft in and see other builders and their aircraft. Fifth, it encompasses more than just homebuilt aircraft. It encompasses the best in sport, business, military, ultralight, antique, sailplane, and commercial aviation.

Considering this, I would advise IMS as follows: Make the Indy 500 the gathering point for all of racing, (not just open wheel racing).
1. Find vendors to come in to help people with their own race cars. Symposiums, new technologies, deals, trades, advice, great stories told by pioneers.
2. Keep something interesting on the track at all times, or elsewhere in Indy. It doesn’t all have to take place at IMS.
3. Have events geared to non-racing fans. Concerts, playgrounds, shopping, outdoor movie showings, great food, a fan village for socializing, all included with your ticket.
4. Provide transportation for everyone to get around without driving. At Oshkosh that have a complex system of school buses that drive everyone around including to the on-site campgrounds.
5. More cowbell.

Just a few thoughts.

IMS could couple that with showing historic footage of exciting events from 500 history on the Jumbotrons. People could sit and watch cool scenes like the “spin and win”, Fitopaldi vs Little Al, the turbines running on the track, etc.

A final thought: do a random drawing from those who pre-purchased their tickets and allow the lucky winner to be on the flagstand for the start of the race.

Concerts, zip lines and a village are not what brought the crowds to Indy the last few weeks. They are profit opportunities that have sprouted to take advantage of the crowds the superbowl has attracted to metro areas even before the attractions were put in place.

Do you think a quarter of central Indiana residents would show up to the big ten title game village if they spent the same money the city did for the superbowl? Not a chance. The NFL provides the interest and the city commits the spending up front to get the superbowl and it’s crowds to town.

The concerts, and attractions are he effect of the existing crowds, not the cause.

Indy needs to regain interest and be the cause of fan interest to generate crowds before spending a minute contriving ways to keep them entertained.

Should have thought about that before commuting the series to a car that was irrelevant and useless from a mass market perspective before hitting the track.

The Super Bowl crowds in Indy were for a once in a lifetime local event. The 500 no longer interests the Indy population to bring anybody anywhere other than the race.

Never mind the fact that Indy’s Super Bowl cost at least a million more to host than will be recovered in taxes. Indy can’t afford to roll out that kind of red carpet.