Peep the video here. Peep a slideshow of pics here. More pics here and here courtesy of mega981.com. During the video I mention how the event was supposed to be free, but it wasn’t. Got back home and checked my sources and no price was listed. Not even mention of it being free anymore. I could almost swear to god it was free but clearly it wasn’t. We already tracked through the mud to get there so we decided to go ahead and pay the 12 bucks.

I went mainly to do research for a business plan. My friend Melvin wasn’t doing shit so he wanted to go too…weather pending. It was raining all day up until about 5p when the clouds finally gave way to some damn sunshine. At that point, my friend Maricela said she heard on the radio that the event hadn’t started yet cuz of the weather. I figured they’d open up shop soon enough cuz it was clearing up. So we gave it a shot and it was open season. Judging by some of the pics from mega 98.1, they opened on time, but it was pouring rain. The crowd was very, very sparse too. So I assume they closed shop for a bit and then reopened.

When we got there (we got lost for about 5 minutes trying to find the joint), it was no more than 500 people tops I’d say. Probably not even close to the attendance numbers they expected. But that’s Florida for you. You hold an event outdoors here, you take the chance that the rain, wind, and whatever else the weather wants to throw at you doesn’t rear its ugly head. More often than not, it does. Not a lot to do out there except look and listen to the performers on stage. Lots of people were dancing and I got plenty of footage of that. Not many vendors. Not a lot of kids either which was a huge surprise considering that spanish people breed like cockroaches. The music was mostly merengue, salsa, and reggaeton. We only stuck around for 2 acts: Los Hermanos Rosario and Raphy Leavitt y La Selecta. I think they got some plaques to commemorate their 35^th anniversary or something.

After doing a walkaround of the place, I can say that the weather practically killed anything they might’ve wanted to do (I hope). It was pretty boring. Not many kids and nothing for them to do if there were more of them. Nothing fun or interactive for teens or adults. Just the one main stage and vendors selling spanish merchandise, food, and drinks. That’s it. Not a lot of corporate sponsorship to liven things up or give away freebies or sign up for contests and shit like that either. Local spanish radio and tv stations were there but didn’t provide much in the way of halftime entertainment other than tossing t-shirts into the crowd. Heineken was the most prominent name and they only had 2 empty booths selling beer, one on each side of the field. Kinda sad actually. All that land and nobody on it. The vendors there got the shaft hardcore cuz none of them recouped the fee for their spot. But that’s how it is sometimes.

We got there around 6:40p and bounced about an hour, hour and a half later. Just wasn’t nothing extra to do out there if you weren’t strictly into the music. The pics I got were everything that was to be seen at the event for the time that we were there. Of course there was plenty of ass out there but everyone was with someone and, again, there weren’t that many people there to begin with. I expected more jailbait than anything cuz that’s usually the case with events like this but most of the chics were either of age and attached (dammit), unattractive, or over the hill. Basically little to no chance of hooking up. I could’ve done better with the video (still getting used to it) like wittier commentary (gonna consciously start making a better effort next time) during certain situations, and actually recording a full song performance but like I said, it got real boring real quick so we jetted outta there through the mud again. Good thing we took his car and not mine! Parking was free btw.