This Is the Hot Shop Where 'Blown Away' Films (EXCLUSIVE)

Competitive glassblowing may not be the riveting competition show that you thought you needed, but you’re about to be Blown Away by Season 2 of this amazing Netflix reality series. The latest season of Blown Away features 10 new contestants representing some of the hottest talents in glassblowing as they compete for the title of “Best in Glass,” a residency at the Corning Museum of Glass, and $60,000 worth of prizes.

Hosted by YouTube star Nick Uhas and renowned glass artist Katherine Gray, Blown Away gives audiences an inside look into the many complicated techniques of blowing glass. 

But where exactly is Blown Away filmed? Distractify got to spend an afternoon learning to blow glass with Katherine and Nick after the first season aired — here's what we learned about the series!

These days, reality TV can be about pretty much anything. While glassblowing may not strike audiences as an activity primed for a competition show, Season 1 of Blown Away proved that the technical skill of glassblowing and the rollercoaster of emotions that goes into creating a piece of glass art truly is something to marvel at. 

Viewers were indeed "blown away" by the delicate and incredibly beautiful creations that the competing artists made in Season 1 and were thrilled by the tense but rewarding experience that glassblowing appears to be. Now back for Season 2, Blown Away features 10 all-new contestants returning to the impressive studio that the first round of contestants worked in. 

Like its inaugural season, Season 2 of Blown Away was filmed at “North America’s largest hot shop,” and while it is the largest, the space didn't start off as a real hot shop. 

The series was filmed in the city of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, where the show’s production company, Marblemedia, found and converted an abandoned warehouse into the hot shop audiences see on the show. 

The hot shop is where all the show’s drama takes place. Season 1 was shot over the course of five weeks from October to November 2018, and in an exclusive interview with Distractify, Katherine Gray said, “The glassblowers were here every day. My schedule was one day on two days off. But every episode was 3 days.” 

Marblemedia’s producers worked with Sheridan College's Craft and Design Glass Studio to custom-design the warehouse on Imperial Street in northeast Hamilton and transform it into the largest glassblowing studio in North America. Students from the college also appear on the show as assistants to the competitors. 

Katherine told us that while more than 300 people applied to be on the show, only 10 were tapped to appear. Each glassblower was given their own studio space to conceptualize and execute their designs, complete with their own glory holes (the technical term for a reheating furnace), as well as two large, shared furnaces for glass melting. 

Katherine also said that the town of Hamilton served as home for the cast and crew, with everyone living together in a nearby hotel.

But even though they were all living together, Katherine revealed, “I couldn't talk to them [the competitors] unless it was on camera.” Katherine herself was initially tapped to be a one-episode challenge judge, but since the laws in Canada require a certain number of people working on set to be Canadian (which she is), she was asked to stay on for the entire first season, and we're delighted that she returned for more.

Don’t miss an exciting, all-new Season 2 of Blown Away streaming now on Netflix.