Super Bowl XLVI

The Super Bowl left town almost a week ago, and most things have returned to normal.  As as a casual Indianapolis Colts fan I'll admit it was nice to see Tom Brady and the rival Patriots go home empty handed, especially after having to drive around their set-up at the University Place Hotel on campus where I work and study at IUPUI.  On Sunday, we had a nice little party with close friends and watched the game from kickoff through post-game celebrations.  This was the first time, however, that a Super Bowl had amounted to more than the game and commercials for me, and in all it was certainly an experience to rival (exceed, in some ways) the interest of the Colts' victory in Super Bowl XLI back when I had first moved to Indianapolis.

In fact, despite the legitimately exciting nature of the game, the whole concept of the teams playing seemed like kind of an afterthought following the week-plus of action in Super Bowl Village downtown.

[Above: Enormous XLVI and Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy Stickers on the east facade of the JW.]

[Below: The view at night, with the stickers lit up by light rigs atop the parking garage across the street.]

 [Right: View of the decorated JW from the south.]

Even before the Village opened, I could see Indianapolis changing day by day on my commute to school/work downtown.  The Lombardi trophy - aka probably the biggest sticker most people will ever hope to see - started as a few golden strips on the front side of the JW Marriott.  They hung the strips of the decal over the course of days the way you'd hang wallpaper over the course of an afternoon.  The trophy and other giant decals on the facade of the JW were heavily photographed...

[Left: The enormously sized, inexplicably captivating, highly photographed and gawked-at XLVI letters just to the south of the monument on the circle.]

...but I'm betting not as much as the giant "XLVI" letters staged on the South Meridian side of Monument Circle.  It was a really bizarre thing, huge letters doubling as video screens, apparently the mecca of photo opportunities.  Admittedly, we were among those photographing and being pictured with the letters - both nights we were there, even.  The buzz on the radio was that the letters appeared in a MILLION pictures during the week leading up to the Super Bowl.  I don't doubt that, given our temporary fixations on them and the incredible number of people all over the place, who...

[Above: Just a handful of the tons of people packed onto Georgia Street for a concert which, from my perspective, barely happened.  Somewhere at the end of this block was where the stage presumably stood.  Less than 10 minutes after this shot, I was being crushed in a giant horde of all of these people!]

...flooded the streets to the tune of 150,000 people on Friday night alone.  I like people well enough, in moderation.  But my idea of moderation is fewer than ten, probably maxing out at six people in my immediate vicinity.  Needless to say, the 30,000-fold increase from my comfort zone was a little awkward, especially since tens of thousands of those people seemed to have grazed/slammed into me in the chaos that was leaving the LMFAO (who?) concert.  And we were hardly close enough to hear, much less see the show.  I'd seen the insanity of the Egyptian soccer stadium riots just days before, so with that fresh in my mind it was actually pretty tense for the 15-20 minutes we were at a cramped standstill.  I (think I...?) can take pride in the fact that neither the atmosphere nor the people to turn a giant human traffic jam into a riot were present in Indy that night.

Without hesitation, I can say that the spectacle of the Super Bowl made for some memorable evenings.  Some of it was too crazy for words, though my crudely-built cartoon at the top hints at factual occurrences - though in a spatial context well outside any laws of geography - both mentioned and spared of detail here.

In fact I made myself list out the Top Ten most memorable things I witnessed/experienced at Super Bowl Village on the Friday night visit.  Below are the six that I didn't find too ridiculous to state publicly:

#3 - The utter inability to ever find/establish contact with people who were a maximum of two blocks away.
#4 - Being crushed/shoved about by approximately150,000 people.
#5 - Retrospect: Knowing now that some cohort of that 150,000 was passing the measles around.
#8 - Seeing a red carpet surrounded by star-stalkers trying to find some Kardashian at the Conrad.
#9 - Having to drive to three separate Steak-N-Shakes before finally getting seated at one in a suburb.
#10 - The fear/expectation that when the zipline inevitably snaps, I'll be the one that dies by breaking the daredevil's fall.  Fortunately (obviously), that didn't happen.

Overall, I think it was a positive thing for the city in most ways.  I heard and read a lot of praise both the weeks before and after the Super Bowl for the city and the people, and all sorts of chatter about making a bid to host again in a handful of years.  Early February weather might not be so accommodating the next go-around, but hopefully the rest of the good times and presentation can be matched or bested if the city does host again.