Colts tour comes to Bedford

A beautiful sunny day saw families out enjoying the warm weather, and hundreds of families gathered at the Bedford Junior High School football field in Bedford, Ind., for an opportunity to get the autographs of some of their favorite Indianapolis Colts players.

“It’s great for the kids and for the family,” Bedford resident Jeff Ready said.

The Indianapolis Colts sponsored a day-long fan festival in Bedford on Wednesday as part of their Make it Personal Tour.  The tour will visit 18 different cities across both Indiana and Illinois during the months of June and July. 

Each stop on the tour will give fans a chance to receive autographs from Colts players and cheerleaders as well as registering for a chance to win pre-season Colts tickets.  Meijer, The Indiana Corn Marketing Council, Indiana Soybean Alliance, Bluegreen and Harrison College sponsor the tour.  

The tour has grown over the past three years from just one Colts-sponsored trailer to what is put forth now for the fans during each stop.

“It’s kind of been something that we have evolved," intern Brad Newbold said. "We used to just take our Colts emotion trailer around and it kind of evolved into a full blown fan fest you see here.”

Some of the perks of coming out to the make it personal tour is that the fans never know which Colts players the they will get to meet and receive autographs from.
In addition to meeting some Colts players, promotional booths and activities are set up free to the public.

“Everything is free the whole day long,” Newbold said.

Some of the stops on the tour are small towns that get a very strong turnout despite long distances from Indianapolis.

“The further away from Indy kind of surprises me," Newbold said. "The better crowd we get, because they are not used to the whole Colts theme around Indianapolis. We will usually get anywhere from a thousand to three thousand depending on the event throughout the two hours."

One of the biggest sponsors for this tour is the Indiana Corn and Indiana Soybean Alliance.  They set up an educational trailer to present awareness.

“We are out promoting biofuels, ethanol made from corn, biodiesel made from soybeans,” Indiana Corn and Indiana Soybean Alliance educational consultant Fred Henderson said.  “It’s an educational trailer. We bring it around to a lot of these venues like this with the Colts."