We shot a couple episodes last week in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and it was really quite an experience. We flew in a day early to scope out the event we were going to shoot and get a feel for it before our camera man was to arrive the following day. Turns out, it was a good thing we did.

The event was the Gran Feria de Autos Antiguos; loosely translated, the Grand Festival of Old Cars. It’s held at an exhibition center in San Juan, and it’s the biggest car show in the Caribbean, boosting over 2,000 cars. When we got there tho, we found that the vast majority of these cars were under large tents; row after row of them. It was like a huge tent city.

The tents are there because the sun can really roast you in San Juan, and it could just as easily be pouring down rain at any time too. It was actually pretty nice for spectators, but it was clearly going to present some challenges for shooting.

There was definitely a festival atmosphere there. It was like somebody threw a huge party and a car show broke out. The place was packed and there was all sorts of stuff going on. There was even a roving band of musicians playing high-energy island music complete with multiple drums and horn section. These guys were really working up a sweat!

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