INDIANAPOLIS — When you vote early in Marion County the wait times can be long. But in the shadow of the City-County Building is musical relief and live entertainment.
"The venues that we normally sing at like the Jazz Kitchen, the Chatter Box, we don't know when they're going to open. We don't know when we're going to have the opportunity to do that, so the fact that there are other ways for us to be able to do it, is going to be fantastic," said Goldie Taylor.
Taylor is one of 85 Indianapolis-based performers hosting 100 free live shows to an audience of early voters. Thanks to the pandemic the show in Lugar Plaza is the first paying gig many of the singers, musicians and bands have had in months.
"This is all I do for a living, so it's barely making ends meet. Everybody knows musicians are starving musicians. This opportunity it doesn't matter what it pays, it's just the fact that were able to get out and do something especially when the community is out and we can tell that the music is soothing them," Taylor said.
Kären Haley is the Executive Director of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which runs through Lugar Plaza, and came up with the idea of live music after seeing the long lines to vote.
"I think everyone was very pleasantly surprised with how many people were coming out to vote early and the line in Lugar Plaza just kept getting longer and longer and longer," Haley said.
WRTV Reporter Cameron Ridle was among the voters waiting 90 minutes to vote early last Friday as Goldie was entertaining the long line of voters. "It made all the difference," Ridle said.
"I've been talking about Friday since I finished Friday. I went home I was cheering to my sister like you just don't understand it was soo wonderful!" Taylor said.
Artists of all genres are performing seven days a week from the time the doors to vote early open, and running until they close, Every day until early voting at the City-County Building ends on November 2nd.
The Indianapolis Cultural Trail is also posting its lineup online so you can select a time to vote when your favorite genre of music or musician is playing.