Development deal to lure 600,000 more visitors to Indy

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - A non-profit music group will help keep Indianapolis' economic engine humming along for the next decade. Music For All is one of the nation's largest music education organizations. Lured from Chicago in 2003, it now has agreed to stay in Indianapolis through 2023.

Its 17 full-time employees are important to the economy, but that's only the tip of the iceberg on the impact the group has to the local economy.

Cicely Yokum of Union High School in Tulsa, Okla. has been coming to Lucas Oil Stadium to compete in the Music For All Grand National competition for three years. The competition is under way this weekend. She likes it.

"This stadium is unmatched in every single way, and it's amazing," she says.

Even after Cicely graduates, her high school band will continue coming to Indianapolis for regional and national band competitions for at least the next decade.

In agreeing to keep its corporation in Indianapolis until 2023, Music For All has also agreed to hold four national or regional competitions at Lucas Oil Stadium each year. The deal is expected to bring more than 600,000 visitors to Indianapolis over that span and inject some $225 million into the local economy.

"But there's something about Indianapolis that makes it different. Because they are much more interested in more than the economics of it, but they're also involved in the critical success of our organization and its mission," says Eric Martin, CEO of Music for All.

Music For All's mission is to create life changing experiences through music education. Their commitment is one part of a growth strategy that Visit Indy has been working on since early 2007. Called Music Crossroads, it includes six organizations in music and the arts all headquartered in Indianapolis.

"And collectively these groups have now generated about $490 million dollars in economic impact and brought 2.3 million visitors," says Leonard Hoops, CEO of Visit Indy.

The city hopes visitors and students like Cecily Yokum might some day move here, work here, and make the city stronger.

"Music has changed my life. And Music For All has given me the opportunity to succeed and become better. I'm looking at my future as becoming a music educator," says Yokum.

Music For All holds a national festival in March with an attendance of 3,000. It also has its marching band Super Regionals that draws 11,000 to Indy in October and the Grand Nationals each November that brings another 39,000 people to Indianapolis. All of those events are now locked up for Indianapolis until at least 2023.