INDIANAPOLIS — Thousands of people will be in downtown Indianapolis Saturday for the 2024 AES 500 Festival Parade.
Organizers are busy making final preparations for the big event, which is expected to bring more than 200,000 people to downtown streets.
"We're going to be finishing up putting all of the floats together so they can make their way down the streets of downtown Indianapolis," said Lindsay Labas, vice president of marketing and communications for the 500 Festival. "We're just going to make sure that the lineup is all tidied up, everybody that's helping out in the community and volunteering has their positions and knows what they need to do. And then on our end, in the marketing world, we're working on those parade scripts, so we'll have announcer zones throughout the route for all of the attendees to hear which floats, drivers, balloons, all that that are coming down the route so they can hear it as well."
The theme of this year's parade is "Iconic Moments in Indy," and there's a special grand marshal this year.
"She's an icon herself. It is Tamika Catchings, and we are very excited to have her on board with us as the grand marshal for the parade, especially with the Fever and all the hype that's around that," Labas said. "I'm excited for that and to have her here and really supporting the community and being out about."
This year's parade will be unique, with so many new floats and performances and bands from all over.
"We've got 15 marching bands that will be out there. We've got floats, we've got balloons, we've got the 33 drivers for the Indy 500 that will be competing, some VIPs and dignitaries as well that are local to Indiana, so we're excited to just get everybody out there and celebrate the month of May," Labas said.
You can watch the parade live Saturday, May 25 on Channel 13 at noon, and there's also an encore broadcast at 7 p.m.