Indianapolis 500 graphics go up on JW Marriott

INDIANAPOLIS — The month of May is about to arrive, and the biggest sign of the times is going up downtown. 

Indianapolis 500 graphics were being put on the JW Marriott Hotel Tuesday.

"We're 26 days away from the 108th Running of the Indy 500, and in Indy, if something big happens, it's on the side of JW, so this is a cool thing for us to do," Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles said.

 It has become a tradition to celebrate the Indianapolis' biggest events with these giant signs.

"Going up (the side of the hotel) is a little sketchy. I've done it a couple of times. It's actually pretty cool. You get an amazing view of the city, so I got a couple of our staff guys who've always wanted to go up, go up with our friends at Sport Graphics," Boles said. "You think about big events in Indy, oftentimes we put them up here, so it's pretty cool that the Speedway and the 500 gets to go up there."

Month of May events at the track begin next week.

"Yeah, we kick it off with the Sonsio Grand Prix, can't wait to have that, and then, we'll convert the track, and we'll start getting ready for the big show, the Indy 500, and it's gonna be a good month of May," Boles said. "Ticket sales are great. If you don't have your tickets, you need to get them because those reserved seats, we're running out of them pretty quick."

Speaking of tickets, 13News asked Boles if a sellout was likely this year.

"So, the difference between 2016 when we sold it out and this year is I think we can sell out reserve seats. We probably don't sell out (general admission), but we'll see where we end up, if we can sell out those reserve seats," Boles said. "I'm excited. We've got 15,000 more tickets sold today on this day - 26 days from the Indy 500 - than we did last year. It's a lot of momentum around the Indy 500. This community is unbelievable."