The annual SEMA Show is held at the convention center in Las Vegas, Nevada each November. The show runs from Tuesday to Friday, and if you have never had the pleasure of attending, we would highly recommend it if you’re able to get tickets. The show is chalked full of awesome custom vehicles ranging from pre-war hot rods, to tweaked and tuned European sports cars, to the newest technology in off-road racing.

While we always look forward to attending the annual show, we are naturally a bit distracted with the commercial side of things and have a number of meetings to attend. So SEMA Ignited is a real breath of fresh air come Friday night. You can basically think of it as a SEMA Show afterparty in which all of the vehicles from the show are driven by their owners to an adjoining parking lot. When the gates open the first hundred or so cars can drive in with relative ease, but the portion of the strip blocked off for the drive fills up quickly. Once the line fills up, the vehicles continue to poor in for several hours into the night.

One of the greatest parts about SEMA Ignited is that unlike the four-day show, it is completely open to the public and these custom vehicles can draw quite a crowd. Our group focused on the off-road and diesel-powered machines, though there were vehicles there to suit any style. Before it got too dark, we shot a few vehicles that were brought over early for display purposes and had to stop to take a look at this sweet truck. While many may consider it “vintage” by today’s standards, it is still one hell of a vehicle.

As the vehicles continued to file in, we decided to move up to the northwest corner of the lot and shoot some vehicles as they drove in. The moving vehicles combined with their lighting and the setting desert sun made for some pretty unique shots. We tried to shoot the most nimble of overland vehicles, giant diesel pickups, and everything in between. We were surprised by the number of trucks this year and opened them with welcome arms. As you can see, the LED light bar trend appears to be growing in full force, and helped to light up the grounds as off-road equipped vehicles continued into the lot.

We started talking to one spectator, Stephanie who said, “It’s like Christmas morning out here. The show has turned out to be a really great event and it is just making for a real nice ending to an awesome week.”

Vehicles like this RBP truck that would normally stand out like a pink elephant were right at home at this event, and we were quite impressed with the number of creative builds.

We found a lively group by this unique looking Escalade and Kyle was happy to speak with us about the show. Kyle explained, “We’re having a blast. This is just a lot of fun, and everyone has been very positive – lots of smiles despite the rain earlier this week. We’re actually meeting some friends here tonight at Ignited. This is a 2015 Cadillac Escalade, with a seven-inch Full Throttle kit, everything has been done in chrome or powder coated red, and it’s running American Force wheels and Toyo tires, and has a 3,000-watt sound system. These come stock with about 420 horsepower which has been fun, but I plan on putting a supercharger on it shortly. I actually built this vehicle for my wife, and she named it Sparkle.”

All in all, the show was a great success, and we really look forward to seeing what SEMA Show 2016 has in store for us. We think the Ignited show was a real hit and made for a great relaxing evening after a long action-packed week.