(3/?) 2014-2016: DXC, Sneakercon, Urban Necessities Invitational
A brief history of me and sneaker conventions
Looking through my emails, it appears that the first ‘official’ sneaker event I ever went to was Dunk Xchange (DXC), on or around March 2014. This is where I recognized Scott Skinner (@sneakerslut) of Sole Supremacy fame and I copped my first pair of shoes at a convention EVER (AM95 Made in Italy) for $40. I went there for ‘market research’ and ALMOST bought some Safari AM1’s from Skinner for $140. Too big, tho. I went solo.
The next event I attended - an official ‘Sneakercon’ event was on October 4th, 2014 (yeah, I had to google that). I had left New York and moved back to the West Coast a couple years prior and had begun working on the website for ‘The Sneaker Savant’ when my Wall Street buddies suggested we all go to a convention to determine the viability of the business model I was proposing (for Shoemetrics). I hopped on a plane, met my friends in New York and we made our way to Washington, DC, which was held at (I believe) the Redskins practice facility. It seemed like a big ass indoor football field, and the whole scene was kind of hectic…a TON of youngsters with a handful of women. Vendor tables lined the perimeter, but most of the real action, IMO, was going on in the trading pit, which was in the center. At first, I was confused watching dudes walk around with sneaker boxes on their heads, but understood pretty quickly what was going on; everyone was there to sell what they no longer needed.
I brought a single pair of *graded* Shoe Goo SB’s to show around, but…how…exactly…was I supposed to do that?
I haggled back and forth with some dude over some Galaxy Kobe 7’s before ultimately deciding they were too beat for what he was asking ($150) and settled on some KD IV ‘BHM’s’ instead. My other buddy, a non-sneakerhead, got caught up in the moment and ended up with some Kobe 8 Christmas’, KD 6 Christmas, and both the Green & Black pairs of the Alife x Asics Gel Lyte III ‘Monsters’…all in I think he spent about $600. Which, to me, was WAY too much.
Shortly thereafter, I was still researching ideas for The Sneaker Savant, I dragged the guy who made The Sneaker Savant logo with me to a Sports Card show at the Cow Palace in South San Francisco where I bought a variety of slabs for $1 each…and…being that this was my first time at the Cow Palace, I was a bit shocked to find that the place actually smelled like livestock. Hence the name. It was filthy. Sports cards were down badddd…
I went to another sneaker event a year or so later that was at the Oakland A’s convention center, where I met Jayssee Lopez (after having talked extensively through eBay) either right after or right before he started Urban Necessities…he was collecting raffle tickets for a pair of Red Octobers. And…IIRC…Freehand Profit was up there chopping up a pair of shoes on stage while a DJ was playing music far too loud. I don’t even remember a single pair of shoes from that event. And, for whatever reason I can’t find a single mention ANYWHERE online regarding this event, but I swear it happened…even Freehand Profit was said ‘it’s possible’. I SWEAR I WAS THERE EVEN THO THE INTERNET HAS NO RECORD OF IT.
Thing is, I *always* felt out of place at these events. I wasn’t there to buy anything, I wasn’t there to sell anything, I didn’t see anything that ‘wowed’ me, I was really just trying to figure out the market and how I could somehow introduce ‘Shoemetrics’ to collectors…
And then…I had a bit of a fateful interaction with Jayssee Lopez. When I showed him Shoemetrics and what I was building, he asked me if I would be a guest at HIS sneaker convention at the Southland Mall in Las Vegas…the ‘Urban Necessities Invitational.’ August 2016. I convinced a few friends to fly out with me and we manned a table near the entrance where I displayed everything I had been working on, complete with a massive flat screen mirroring the grading process.
I didn’t really realize it at the time, but being placed near the very end - in front of a Vitamin World - wasn’t exactly prime real estate. Not that it would have changed anything if I were closer to the shop, but still.
It was kind of a wake-up call for me, though, because despite the fact that there was a line nearly half a mile long that wrapped around RIGHT in front of my booth, only like 5 people stopped to talk with me about what was going on. Everyone was vying for that ONE pair of Yeezy 350’s priced at $1 to draw people to the convention. And pretty much the whole line was full of teenagers…I didn’t really understand what was going on. And no one cared. NO ONE.
One table was full of graded shoes, the other showed the software…
I took that info with me and pretty much told myself that conventions just weren’t for me…I had to go back to the drawing board…
In 2018, I brought a sneaker-adjacent colleague with me to Sneakercon in San Jose…where we also looked for opportunities to make something of The Sneaker Savant. I ran into Jayssee, said hello and I don’t even think he recognized me…I was noticing a pattern and felt like I had missed my boat…
Continued next week!