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On the heels of a record-breaking year for tourism, leaders of Visit Indy said Wednesday the city has secured commitments for a pair of major medical conventions.
Ahead of the agency’s annual State of Tourism event Wednesday, officials shared with IBJ some of those wins and more: the American Academy of Family Physicians selected the city for its 2028 convention, while the American Society of Plastic Surgeons plans to meet in Indianapolis for its 2033 event. Visit Indy courted each of the groups for more than 20 years before confirming the deals.
The tourism agency said 2024 was one of the most active years in the city’s 100-year history of hosting major events. Last year, the city recorded nine of its Top 10 days for hotel bookings, largely attributed to events like the National Eucharistic Congress, Gen Con, the total solar eclipse and Taylor Swift’s three-night stop at Lucas Oil Stadium. Visit Indy did not share where each of those events ranked individually.
Visit Indy said it had record-breaking attendance in 2024 for several annual events, including 71,000 visitors for Gen Con; 27,200 for the NFL Scouting Combine; and 36,500 for FDIC International. Swift’s shows each drew more than 69,000 attendees at Lucas Oil Stadium, with each night setting a new record for concert attendance at the venue.
Visit Indy also recognized the Indiana Fever basketball team for its contributions to the city’s tourism industry in 2024. The WNBA team made its first playoff appearance in eight years and sold out nearly every home—and away—game after adding Caitlin Clark to its roster.
New conventions bring thousands more to Indy
The two new additions to Indianapolis’ convention roster will bring a combined 14,000 attendees to the Circle City and bring in more than $16 million.
Chris Gahl, executive vice president of Visit Indy, said Indianapolis has spent two decades trying to bring both the Family Physicians and Plastic Surgeons groups to Indianapolis.
He said interest in Indianapolis has been bolstered in recent years by a flurry of other medical activity—over the past decade, Visit Indy has booked nearly 450 medical events through 2035—as well as the ongoing construction of the 800-room Signia by Hilton hotel and expansion of the Indiana Convention Center at Pan Am Plaza, both set to open in late 2026.
Throughout 2024, Visit Indy secured secure commitments for conventions totaling 932,000 hotel room nights, the nonprofit said. The pipeline of potential bookings for other future events that have expressed interest but haven’t yet signed on reaches nearly 4 million room nights.
“We know that the record-setting number of conventions in our pipeline is directly tied to the robust number of events that we hosted in 2024 and the tangibility of being able to see the Pan Am project come out of the ground,” Gahl said. “Being able to physically point to the project—now 14 stories and growing—that is extremely compelling to a meeting decision maker who’s in Indianapolis thinking about our city into the future. They’re now able to see, touch and even smell construction happening, and that’s compelling and awesome.”
The American Academy of Family Physicians has been on Indianapolis’ radar since 2002, Gahl said. The event is expected to be held in October 2028, with 10,000 attendees using nearly 17,000 hotel room nights. The event is expected to generate $12.2 million for the local economy. Indianapolis secured an official commitment from the group late Tuesday.
The plastic surgeons event, known as Plastic Surgery The Meeting, will be held Oct. 13-16, 2033. That event, centered on the world’s largest group of board-certified plastic surgeons, will bring more than 4,000 attendees to Indianapolis and generate about $3.7 million in economic impact.
“This caliber of medical association picking Indy will help us get in the door with other medical related groups, because of the gravitas that [they] carry in the medical community as a whole,” Gahl said. “So as news spreads that Indy is hosting [these] … inevitably, other medical related conventions and events will be more confident in responding to our email or phone call.”
Record-breaking year a springboard to solid 2025
The agency also celebrated other milestones from throughout 2024, including a record number of earned media hits about Indianapolis tourism, with 4,076; traffic to VisitIndy.com, with 5.56 million sessions; and air traffic at Indianapolis International Airport, which saw 10 million passengers come through the terminal.
Gahl said Visit Indy hopes to use the success its touting from 2024 as a springboard for 2025, which is set to bring more than a dozen major sporting events—including the WNBA All-Star Game and LIV Golf—through central Indiana. The city will also host several concerts, annual conventions and one-off events throughout the year.
“From a Visit Indy perspective, and working with the CIB and Team Indy, we’re looking to keep the momentum front and center,” he said. “We plan to take our results from 2024 and make sure that every convention and major event in the nation knows of our capabilities.”
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