(6/11) Based on conversations I had earlier in the day, the ‘Main Event’ had quite a few of us on edge. In the communications we received, we were asked to potentially speak for a few minutes about what got us into sneakers…I understood it to be talking 2-3 minutes in front of a group of 70+ sneakerheads and a handful of sneaker legends with cameras everywhere. One dude I had lunch with said to me ‘I want to go first so that I can do it quickly and then throw up’.
In the hours after the Nike tour, lunch, and the ‘Main Event’, I finally snuck a quick nap in. And it helped immensely.
During my slotted 2-3 minute time with the mic I wanted to hand the cards out, but there wasn’t much through line from ‘the Jordan 6 was my first sneaker’ to ‘I created this random card to deter my anxiety’, so I wasn’t too sure about how it was going to go. I used to be a teacher, tho, so having had some public speaking experience helped calm me down a bit more than some others.
With my wife acting as my personal chauffeur…I, again, arrived early. I set my single, solitary, Air Max 1 on one of the tables and stashed my cards nearby. I was kinda walking around frantically pretending to observe what everyone else was doing to make it look like I wasn’t freaking out, and it appeared to be working. It was super hot in the space and it was a bit tight, too, but it was really nice. Everyone was dressed well. @pgknows and @solesupreme showed up early as well, and we all started drinking and snacking on the food a bit to loosen the nerves.
After a couple glasses of wine and a couple slices of pizza and some cookies, I fell into ‘what will be, will be’ mode, and decided I was best to live in the moment.
After about 45 minutes of short, fun conversations with whoever happened to be near me, the lights flickered and room got silent. @aaron.ac.cooper introduced himself and shared a bit, then introduced a handful of other designers… Drake, Skip Lee, @christiantresser , and @iamkenblack . And then, he introduced us to @tinkahat and the room, was, officially, abuzz.