INDIANAPOLIS – For some, it signifies the beginning of the greatest team ever assembled.
Enshrinement weekend for the Pro Football Hall of Fame kicks off another NFL season while culminating legendary careers for the game's greats.
Come early August 2016, this year's descent to Canton, Ohio will have some major Colts' flavor.
"The Hall of Fame weekend has become a bucket list item for fans," Pete Fierle, the Vice President of Communications at the Pro Football Hall of Fame says.
"Obviously (for) Colts fans, this is the time to come with Marvin Harrison, Tony Dungy and then the Colts kicking off the season right here from Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium."
This year's festivities will commence on Thursday, Aug. 4.
The Enshrinees' Gold Jacket Dinner will bring about 4,000 people into the Canton Civic Center to start the four-day celebration.
"We will have about 130-plus of our 170 living Hall of Famers, who will form a gauntlet and Tony and Marvin and the other members of the class will walk through, take center stage and receive their gold jacket," Fierle says of Thursday night's dinner.
"That's a nationally televised show, but to see it in person ends up being one of the more emotional scenes of the weekend."
Friday is highlighted by the Concert for Legends with Tim McGraw performing this year.
Around 200,000 people will be in Canton on Saturday morning the for the grand parade downtown.
The parade is just a precursor for what will take place Saturday night inside of Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
"That is an event you can't miss," Fierle says of the induction ceremony on Saturday night.
"You may have watched the enshrinement ceremony on TV, but there's nothing like being here for it. I can tell you as much as Tony and Marvin think they are prepared for what will happen...when they step on that stage and they look around and they're seeing the who's who from Joe Namath to Joe Montana to Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, the list goes on and on and on. They get really humbled by that moment as they get to share a really special night with their family, friends and fans across the country."
Sunday night of Hall of Fame weekend will see the 2016 Colts take to the field to launch the start of the NFL preseason.
The Colts and Packers will kick off at 8:00 p.m. EST on Aug. 7, for the first of five preseason games in 2016.
Tickets are going fast for the slate of activities, but some fan packages do remain.
What began with a knock on a hotel room door back at Super Bowl 50 will come full circle in August for a weekend Colts' fans will not want to miss.
"What Hall of Fame weekend has become is truly a bookend to the NFL season," Fierle says. "On one end, it's the Hall of Fame weekend that kicks it all off. And on the other end, it's the Super Bowl where the champion gets crowned.
"It's a truly special weekend."
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In September, the Pro Football Hall of Fame broke ground on a $500 million development all around the Hall’s campus:
"It will include great enhancements to the Hall of Fame itself, a brand new holographic theatre, unlike anything in the world, have other components like the stadium being converted into a sports and entertainment complex," Fierle said. "We will have a five-star (themed) hotel football. You won't have a room number but you will be staying in the "Eric Dickerson" room, or the "Lenny Moore" room, or the "Johnny Unitas: room, suites named after each of the NFL teams. We will also have a center for excellence and that will be home to coaching clinics, officiating academies, corporate management programs, a performance center. We are also putting in a youth sports complex. By the summer we will have three of what will be nine fields turning Canton into what Williamsport is for Little League. We will ultimately have nine fields, which will be synthetic turf that will have state of the art video technology incorporated into that. We will also be adding what is called an "NFL Experience," which will kind of be a Disney for football, high-end experiences to put fans in the game. We are adding Legends Lamping, which is an assisted independent living facility for those legends that played the game and later in life they want to return to the "locker room." We are going to create a football like environment for them. It is an incredibly exciting time here but what I will tell you is that everything."
