When a legendary local hat shop meets up with a legendary local television network, there’s no telling what will happen.

The crew from WGN's Around Town team from the Morning News mingle with the employees at Hats Plus. From the left: Mary, Courtney, Tod, Terry, Ana, Mike, Erica and Shawn.

At the predawn hour of 6 a.m. on Tuesday November 20th, WGN sent their Morning News crew for a Live Around Town segment at Hats Plus. The store opened early and many of the employees were on hand to have fun being on TV with reporter Ana Belaval and her crew.

If you have never been around a live, on-the-scene, news cast, it is really something to see. The WGN news van rolled up, extended its satellite uplink antenna (which goes maybe 50 ft. in the air), and opened up for business. Panels lift up to reveal plugs and dials, as the van acts as a generator to power the shoulder mounted camera, mics and satellite transmission feed.

As Mary the camerawoman prepped her camera to shoot the store, Ana and her staff explored the hats and interviewed store manager Tod Canon and the rest of the employees about the store’s history, selection and points of notoriety. They were definitely interested to learn about the celebrities who have shopped here such as Michael Jordan and White Sox legend Minnie Minoso.

Here's the WGN news van parked just outside Hats Plus, as it prepared to broadcast a live segment as part of the Morning News Live Around Town report.

They were all ready to go on the air at 7 a.m. First there were brief teasers and then a 2+-minute segment just before 8 a.m. Then they repeated it all during the 8 o’clock hour. Well, they didn’t repeat themselves, but the process.

It was a wonderful experience being on WGN and helping the city wake up to a fun time in the hat shop. Ana and her crew are such experienced professionals they put everyone at ease about being on live TV, and they made being up that early just as much fun as it looked on the broadcast.