Big Car Collaborative, in partnership with the Levitt Foundation and Arte Mexicano en Indiana, has kicked off its second season of Levitt VIBE Indianapolis at the Tube Factory campus.
Big Car Collaborative, an arts nonprofit based out of Garfield Park, announced it would begin season two of its Levitt VIBE series. The event is a free concert series that runs on the second Sunday of each month, excluding May for Mother’s Day, from noon to 3 p.m. The event has food, drinks and live music from local artists. A complete list of artists performing can be found on its website.
“It’s five minutes from UIndy,” Grants & Marketing Coordinator of Big Car Collaborative Hannah Hadley said. “The Red Line bus stop is like a two-minute walk, maybe one minute walk away from the Tube Factory so you can get there easily … you can go and play ping-pong, we have giant Jenga out, you can chill and listen to all kinds of different music and just have fun with your friends.”
A major change coming to the second season of Levitt VIBE Indianapolis is the change of format from seven weeks in a row to once a month for seven months, which Hadley said was a marketing decision.
“It was easier on our team since we are also in the heat of doing Spark and doing a lot of other programming in the summer,” Hadley said. “But also, just because it seemed more appealing to people, the feedback we got, it would be easier if it was once a month.”
Along with Levitt VIBE, Big Car Collaborative hosts placemaking events all around the city. One example is Spark on the Circle, where a portion of Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis is closed off and covered with turf with games, music and bistro-style seating laid out for people to enjoy.
The event is also in collaboration with the Levitt Foundation, a nonprofit based out of Los Angeles. According to Levitt’s website, it partners with communities to fund underused outdoor spaces and create events with free, live music to invigorate community life. The Levitt VIBE concert series stands for “Vibrant Inclusive Beats for Everyone,” and along with Indianapolis, there are two other concert series taking place in Chicago and Oakland, California.
Big Car Collaborative also partnered with Arte Mexicano en Indiana, a nonprofit that promotes Mexican art, music and culture in Indiana through collaborations and public events. Hadley said it works with Big Car Collaborative to book at least one local Latin artist per concert. Levitt VIBE also has a number of other sponsors including the Efroymson Family Fund, the Lumina Foundation and the MIBOR REALTOR Association.
New for this season, the event is at the Tube Factory campus. A five-acre former tube factory has been converted into a contemporary artspace. Along with the artspace, the venue has a coffee shop, a public park, a low-power FM radio station and has been the home base for Big Car Collaborative since 2016. According to Hadley, the campus is also renovating a 40,000-square-foot building to be a contemporary art museum. All the amenities, including the art gallery, coffee shop and bathrooms, are open to the public during the Levitt VIBE concerts. A full list of upcoming events by Big Car Collaborative can be found on its website.
