This has been a remarkable year in Indianapolis. In a city more known for basketball and auto racing than arts and culture, Indianapolis has experienced a cultural renaissance.

In what might be the nation’s first all-out effort to blend sporting and cultural events into a single community identity, Indianapolis has been hosting a cultural coming-out party throughout 2005 to celebrate a more than $360 million investment in the city’s cultural offerings that have come to fruition in 2005.

Opening in 2005 were major expansions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, the world’s first totally submerged dolphin viewing experience at the Indianapolis Zoo, the new ARTSPARK at the Indianapolis Art Center and the new Herron School of Art and Design.

In addition, several blockbuster exhibits that are still going on include The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy – The Exhibition at the Indiana State Museum, the International Arts & Crafts exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Norman Rockwell exhibition at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Many cities would envy any one of these expansions or exhibitions, let alone all of them in one year.

To make sure no one can miss these happenings – being celebrated collectively as Indianapolis 2005 – the city adopted a Big Red Arrow to point them out. Ten feet high, 18 feet long, eight feet wide and weighing in at about a third of a ton, the Big Red Arrow has served as a mobile marketing icon at each point of cultural and community convergence in 2005.