(2/?) Early 00's: Interview with an OG sneaker-convention-goer
Joe Privitt aka Jumpman Joe gives us his perspective on some of the earlier conventions.
I’m pretty sure that the first time I actually *heard* of a sneaker convention, though, it was called a ‘sneaker summit’, and it was put on by different members of Niketalk in different regions. I’m pretty sure the first one I saw was called the ‘East Coast Sneaker Summit’ and…for whatever reason…I didn’t feel like I was someone who really *deserved* to be there. I was just a guy who liked sneakers and liked finding deals on sneakers…I wouldn’t consider myself much of a ‘collector’, and I damn sure wasn’t into Samples or PE’s at the time…so…irrelevant to me. I didn’t think I had anything that anyone at one of those summits would care about, so I kept a safe distance. I’m not really even sure I knew what it was about. It didn’t look like a place you’d go to buy or sell shoes. It didn’t look like an event that you’d bring your grails to. It looked more like an event to just meet up and shoot the shit over some capri suns and pizza. The pics that I saw made it look very social and less sneaker-y. With a few of the more popular users on Niketalk clogging up the pics. Whatever it was, I felt like I was WAY out of my league (and I was). I really felt like a noob to the world of sneakers, and I wasn’t paying much attention to what the big dogs were doing, so I simply sat that whole
A friend I met a few years later, Joe Privitt aka (Joerdan23 on NT) went to quite a few of these summits to show off his collection of samples... and, luckily, he kept and shared some of those pics (with me)…Truthfully, this is kinda what I HOPED I’d see at the conventions when I began going later on…a museum of sorts…but…this *definitely* wasn’t my experience…I hit up Joe with a few questions to give us a bit of context:
Me (bold text): What were you thinking the first time you heard about these conventions/meetups?
Joe (italics): I loved it. This was the early days when everyone only knew each other from NT {NikeTalk}. It was about the pride people had in their collections and wanting to share their passion with like-minded people. I was in love with that concept. Seeing some of the amazing tables in LA in Vegas blew me away. It let me know that I was not alone. Again this was before the sneaker game blew up.
Your first time setting up - what was going through your mind?
Pride in my gems, getting to tell stories, getting to show off some gems I had been keeping undercover to surprise people. I wanted my table to be the most unique set of sneakers there. My hope was to educate people about the early years of the sneakers they love. Let them see the design process within the prototype, to samples, to what they had on. I just wanted to participate, share, network, and be around others with the same mentality, my community. The community is for the streets now.
Most memorable convention? Why?
DJ Greg Street Sneaker Friends! Greg just wanted to have fun and bring people together. His relationships with music and without the need to profit made it great. The events were always hosted in a great facility with amazing special guests.
Were people there to buy things or to just look at things?
People were not there to buy for the most part. That didn't come into play until later on in my experience.
What was the worst convention you went to? Why?
I never really went to a bad convention myself. I saw the writing on the wall early on and stopped participating. In reference to my answer of the first question, it started going bad quickly. Once clout started existing in the game more so than pride and passion people started buying their tables, or trying to buy their win of the events. That isn't what it was about originally. After a few years of people buying their tables, people caught on, you would see a "collector" selling all of their gems and buying for their next table. That lets me know they didn't have the passion that originally attracted me. Shortly after, those events ended due to that sadly, enter the reseller events to fill the void.
Joe left me with a few videos from these events…kinda cool to watch and see what things were like (and how young Joe is in these videos lol). I think they give you an idea of how different these events actually were.
Joes last comment - “those events ended due to that sadly, enter the reseller events to fill the void”…that’s kinda where I figured things went. These were little more than reseller events…Although these collector conventions are what I’d LOVE to see more of today, I don’t think it’s much of a possibility…if the purpose isn’t commerce, how or why would anyone spend their own money to go? These things are better left to a museum at this point…
If you like Joe’s story - hit him up on IG…Joerdan23tn