Jonathan Scott

The festival and its parent organization make for a well-oiled machine at this point, with 1,000 human and 600 canine comers at its annual Pet Pride event, along with five felines, and 32,000 onlookers at its June 8 parade.

About 85,000 attendees took in the day’s events, including the entertainment on three stages—DJs, drag queens, and song-and-dance acts. The week-long festival’s main day of events attracted about 15,000 more comers than in its previous two years, a sizable gain.

Actors aplenty—Michael Peña, Tim Daly, Mike Epps (an Indy native)—plus gymnastics greats Shawn Johnson and Jordyn Wieber, Olympic gold medalist Tyler Clary, Colts punter Pat McAfee, fan favorite Jim Nabors, members of bands Foreigner and Live, and more

The stars on hand picked favorites in Sunday’s running of the Indy 500, told stories, and shared laughs, all in high spirits the night before the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee, no stranger to controversy and ever the huckster, even left his car at one point to take a photo with a fan sporting a shirt with McAfee’s “Boomstick” moniker emblazoned on it. And that was just about the biggest “incident” of the event, which was otherwise marked by periodic stop-and-go float traffic—horse droppings, you know.

Many of these stars approached fans who called out, patiently taking photos with them and signing papers, shirts, and whatever else was handed their way.

About two thousand onlookers attended as Pence, Ballard, and General Daniel B. Allyn—who earlier this month became the 20th commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command—addressed the fallen, surveyed the present, and glanced at the future. “I wonder how many times that scenario has played out—the last hug, the last kiss before heading off to war,” says Mayor Ballard. “Sometimes, though, it really is the last war, the last kiss. And that is why we are here today.”

Think of it as the Gideons of IndyCar, a nondenominational operation not hell- but rather heavenbent on sharing the gospel with as many folks as possible in motorsports, including some drivers, with testimonials on its website from a few drivers to boot.

Freiman’s impending evaporation from Indy is the latest move at the IMA, where relatively new director and CEO Charles Venable, who started in October 2012, has made an array of changes.

As to designs on an Indy move, Davidson says that a humble start will breed expansion: “We’re gonna work our way out. We want to self-distribute as long as we can.”

Music acts and costumes, belly dancers and superheroes—the Indy Mini has it all, with runners the world over all pushing themselves to the limit on the IMS track’s 2.5 miles of splendor and sweat. Then there are the other nearly 11 miles.

Mass Ave’s self-describing cocktail bar, where music videos marry Moscow Mules served up in metal cups, has a new food-and-drink menu just in time for summer.

In a message to participants on April 29, organizers wrote that “in partnership with the Indianapolis Department of Public Safety, local, state, and federal agencies, [we] will be taking additional security and safety precautions … [that] may or may not be visible to event attendees.”

Celebrating 25-years-young musicals such as Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera, among other stalwarts of the stage, the IMC puts on a classy, smart show.

Previously both a fiscal and social conservative, Donnelly now expresses the belief that supporting same-sex marriage is “the right thing to do.”