Make wishtv.com your home page

Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration begins Thursday

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The 46th Annual Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration kicks off Thursday.

Organizers of the event are expecting 200,000 people to attend the 10 day event.

Visitors can attend the 30 events that are planned throughout the event.

Several of those events are new this year.

There will be a couple virtual reality exhibits in a tech zone. Organizers say they will have a focus on STEM, specifically to help students.

Indiana University will have a virtual tour of the school and Purdue University will have a virtual reality exhibit where users can clean up debris from the moon, according to event organizers.

New to the film festival this year is a competition for both kids and adults.

There will also be a music conference July 16-17 that Rico Love will be attending. He is a Grammy nominated artist who has worked with fellow artists like Beyoncé and Usher.

“We’re happy to be able to have a conference in the Midwest and offer something that is of this caliber to help those aspiring artists,” Dian Foreman said.

IMPD has been working on security with event organizers. IMPD Chief Troy Riggs said there are no specific threats to the event but they will be increasing patrols.

“Just to make sure that individuals that are coming here as residents or guests to our city have a fun time, an enjoyable time and they see plenty of security to feel safe as well,” he said.