How Indy tourism plans to follow a historic 2024
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Taylor Swift broke records this year in Indy. Photo: Kevin Mazur//Getty Images
Indianapolis' 2024 events calendar will be a tough act to follow.
The big picture: Tourism experts expected a year bookended by NBA All-Star Weekend and Taylor Swift to be huge for the Circle City, and the millions of people who stopped by to see us over the past 11 months seem to have proven them right.
- The year was so big that 2024 saw Lucas Oil Stadium's concert attendance record broken four times — three of those high marks were set by Swifties on consecutive nights.
Why it matters: Local leaders are working on an encore, saying that they plan to keep up the pace in 2025 by bolstering the city's ability to host large crowds and putting on a good show for those who call Indy home year-round.
What they're saying: "With 2024 having record-setting tourism numbers for the city of Indianapolis, it will be difficult to replicate such a robust year," Visit Indy executive vice president Chris Gahl told Axios. "But when we turn the page and look at 2025 with the WNBA All-Star game and its growth, it's perfectly placed. When you think of WWE … that will be a tourism driver in February, a cold weather month."
Zoom in: Here are a few events poised to draw big crowds to Indy in 2025.
🤼 The WWE Royal Rumble, Feb. 1 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
🏀 The 2025 Big Ten Women's Tournament March 5-9, and the 2025 Big Ten Men's Tournament March 12-16. Both at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
🏎️ The Indianapolis 500, May 25 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
🏀 The WNBA All-Star Game, July 19 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
🎲 Gen Con 2025, July 31-Aug. 3 at the Indiana Convention Center
⛳ LIV Golf Indianapolis, Aug. 15-17 at The Club at Chatham Hills.
🏈 The 2025 Big Ten Football Championship, Dec. 6 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
State of play: The Indianapolis metro is evolving to accommodate all of the new visitors.
- Major hotel projects are making progress, including the historic Odd Fellows building becoming a Kimpton Hotel in late 2025; a Signia by Hilton hotel opening at the Pan Am Plaza site in summer 2026; and Old City Hall transforming into a 32-story mixed-use tower with a 21c Museum Hotel by 2028.
- The ongoing Indiana Convention Center expansion is also slated to be done by summer 2026.
- The old CSX building at 230 S. Pennsylvania is being redeveloped into a Shinola Hotel and 4,000-seat capacity Live Nation music venue by 2027.
- The Fishers Event Center opened its doors over the weekend, becoming the largest midsize event center in the region and boasting a list of more than 125 events over the next year.
Between the lines: When discussing Indy tourism's 2024 follow-up, Downtown Indy Inc. president Taylor Schaffer told Axios the moment has been "a turning point for downtown Indianapolis" that will only make the city stronger in the future.
- "It's also given us the opportunity to come back together as a civic ecosystem … to be able to really get creative with the new assets that have come online. Places like Bicentennial Unity Plaza that really offer a new and different experience to people who haven't been to Indianapolis in a while, or who haven't been downtown in a while," she said.
The bottom line: Travelers who didn't make the trip to Indy in 2024 should probably book a ticket to fly into the nation's best medium-sized airport and check us out in 2025.