The Sneakerness festival — London’s sneaker wonderland, brought to you by the Evening Standard — has upgraded its offering for 2023 with the help of streetwear marketplace The Edit Ldn, video gaming company 2K, and a litte basketball.
New for this year’s festival - which is set to attract 15,000 visitors over two days to East London’s Truman Brewery - will be a ‘gamers’ haven courtside’. It’s an area for guests to get comfy and play the much-anticipated new NBA 2K24 basketball game, which is to launch on September 8, 2023 to celebrate a quarter century of the NBA 2K gaming series.
Those more tempted by a real-life hoop game are in luck, too. A mixed gender, two vs two basketball tournament will be hosted across the weekend, with the help of Sky Sportsâ£â£ presenter Mo Mooncey. Need more tempting? Players are in with a shot of winning a £5,000 cash prize.
The top scorers won’t struggle to find ways to spend it, either. Elsewhere at Sneakerness — a Swiss festival which was founded in 2008 and arrived in London a decade later — expect Nike Air Jordan devotees and self-professed trainer archivists making their way around exclusive stalls and fawning over the rarest models. This year, the most in-demand pair is expected to be the Jordan Retros.
Other partners, including eBay and Chilly’s, are also set to have activations offering everything from vintage fashion to one-of-a-kind graffitied water bottles.