It’s been some time since I drove my Veloster out to a meet, or even a car show. So when Hot Import Nights returned to Houston back in December, I registered my ride to be in the show. Success, the little Veloster was approved so I purchased the car registration ticket and prepared my ride for some new additions to be debut at the car show.
I ended up having to install the new interior and underbody LED lights later than initially planned, so the day before and morning of the show I did the work to finally install them. Once I was done it was time for the Veloster to get a bath and head out to the show for staging. Since I live outside the city, by the time I arrived to NRG Park, the car had picked up some dirt and needed to be cleaned up yet again. Once I got in line with the other cars waiting to get in, I started to do a full detail of the car. The show was scheduled to start at 4 pm which was drawing near as I completed my final touch ups, but I was still outside with several other rides.
Here came the bad news, as we were waiting we found out that there wasn’t enough room for all the approved and registered cars, so the last 30 or so that have been waiting for a few hours would be left outside to miss the show. Some that were behind me only waited an hour or so, but some before me waited over 3 hours to find out they wouldn’t be allowed in. Some were upset and left, I decided to stay since I was already here and see how the show went with plans to leave after a bit.
As for why there wasn’t enough room, the staff’s reasoning was due to having to move to a smaller venue for some unnamed reason. However, many of us saw that about 1/4th of the venue space was being taken up with the indoor drone racing area. Fantastic.
The first hour or so I was still really upset, that morning was a bit cold to work on my ride and then wash it, and my hands were freezing during that part. Eventually I got over it and decided I wasted enough time being upset and started to begin my coverage. I soon remembered NRG’s house lighting isn’t the best for photos with every other light giving off a different color. Realizing how much time I wasted I tried to go as fast as possible capturing a photo of each ride, with that a few shots ended up coming out blurry (sorry to those owners.)
With more time passing, I started to enjoy the show. Once the drone racing actually began, I made my way over to see what it was all about, and I wasn’t the only one as a crowd drew around the netted area to spectate as well. Unfortunately that was about the busiest they were for the rest of the time at the show as every time I looked over there weren’t a lot of people watching it. My thought is this is a car show, people came to see cars, no? While drone racing was a cool little spectacle to see, it wasn’t the main attraction of the show and should have been left out due to lack of space.
I made a few trips up and down the aisles of cars for photos with a few breaks to see what was going on for the stage performances which included gogo dancers while the DJs hit the tables, live music performance from HIN Host Jargon featuring Mhaye Monti, and the bikini contest. I pretty much enjoyed all the action that was on stage and ended up with a few swag from the giveaways, one being Jargon’s CD which I listed to on the way home and quite enjoyed. After I finally finished spanning photos of each ride, there wasn’t much time let so I made a trip around snapping photos of the vendors, promo models, other models featured in the model lounge area, and a few more of some of the rides on display. Next thing you know the show was coming to an end, with Miss HIN Houston being announced I made my way back to the stage to see our very own Spekture Syren Heidi Jo taking the crown – congrats girl!
I spent a lot more time than I thought when I first entered the hall, I was glad I did even though it started off bad for a few of us. I wrapped up my gear and made my way out to head home. To jump back about those who registered and paid that ended up not being allowed in, HIN staff told us we were get a refund for the car registration but still were able to spectate the show. That following Monday they came through and I received an email for the refund. They have some time to prepare for December 2017 show as far as space and planning, so here’s hoping to seeing you there with my ride being in the show this time around.
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