SNEAKER BALL 2020

Sneaker Ball 2020 (or SNKR Ball 2020 to those in the know) is an annual Black History Month event, sponsored by Nike’s Black Employee Network. It’s a thank-you celebration for those partners who have helped support the cause of black empowerment and social change throughout the year.

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Nike wanted to create an immersive environment for the event; that meant bringing many vendors together in a complex orchestrated build-out of the space – including live music, video, shoe displays, and a living garden of grass, moss, ferns, and flowers.

But first up on the run of show was Premier Press. Nike asked us to design the interior shell of the two-level space to house the festivities. They provided photo and graphic assets, and we created the overall look and feel of the space. We dressed the walls, floor-to-ceiling, with dramatic photo collages and wood-grain and concrete-texture printed fabric. The special temporary wall covering, PhotoTex, has an adhesive backing that makes it easy to put up and easy to remove without damaging the walls. And unlike standard wall vinyl, PhotoTex is PVC-free, so it’s environmentally friendly – something that’s important to Nike and to us at Premier.

We even built a rigid covering to disguise the partition doors as a concrete column, in order to complete the illusion of a lush outdoor urban environment, and covered the windows with a semi-transparent film to keep the party private.

At the last minute, Nike discovered that their video projection for a shoe was splashing light onto the wall behind it, so we came back in and covered that area with black vinyl. Problem solved.

Black community VIPs, celebrities, Nike employees, and volunteers arrived wearing their favorite Nikes, packed the space, and partied all night. It was an event to remember.

This video from P-Town Media shows how the environment enhanced the event.