On Saturday, June 30th, thousands of sneaker-heads descended upon Baruch College in New York City for the homecoming of Sneaker Con NYC. Sneaker Con is an event for sneaker-heads to buy, sell and trade the most sought after shoes on the market.

The crowd arrived early to reserve their spot in line—a wise move considering by noon it was already 3–blocks long with a 5–hour wait to get in. Braving the 100° heat and lugging duffel bags, boxes and hand-trucks stacked with shoes just to wait for that long is brutal, but that just goes to show the passion for the scene. I guess after camping out for a week to get a pair of Yeezy’s a 5–hour wait isn’t so bad. The event was sponsored by Adidas, who had a handful of shoes on display, including originals by Jeremy Scott. Awesome to see Adidas getting involved and supporting the culture.

We couldn’t have asked for a better booth assignment considering it was positioned right in front of the Adidas display. After setting up we were able to check out the other vendors. Most vendors were clothing companies, but there were also sneaker shops and sock companies. Streetwear clothing brands and the sneaker scene are closely related due to the fact that they’ve been complimenting each other since day one. It was great being able to check out other companies’ ideas, designs and brand as a whole. From someone who’s passionate about the streetwear scene it’s always awesome to hear another company’s story.

Around noon Sneaker Con opened its doors letting people in and soon the gymnasium flooded with sneaker-heads. It’s amazing how well rounded the sneaker scene has become. Guy or girl, young or old, if you’re into shoes well, you’re into shoes. It’s incredible how marketing and social media reach the younger generations. When I was ten years old I wore Airwalks from JCPenney that were on sale for thirty bucks—not a $220 pair of Foamposits. Soon people were walking around holding shoes up in the air yelling out sizes and prices and for those that had too many shoes to carry found a chair to claim for the day.

Being in the city we wanted to rock–out and Four Loko was the weapon of choice—some got a little more loco than the others. The NYC sneaker scene was in full force and it was great to have met a lot of cool people and brands. If you didn’t make it out this year you should be regretting it so take our advice when we say go next year because it was SoGood!