This week, I was invited to the Adidas Creator Base in Shoreditch, London. It was a week-long event for creators of all shapes, colors and sizes with a chance to collaborate with Adidas. The event consisted of a workshop for the creators, an opportunity to watch some games from Adidas’ tango league, a chance to play against an E-Sports FIFA professional, and a night of local London entertainment from artists such as Bakar, Black Focus All Stars, Jimothy Lacoste, Chennessy, just to name a few.
Creator Workshops
In the workshops, creators were invited to design the next Adidas Futbol stadium, design the next Adidas Futbol cleat, create two mini Adidas shoes and create an Adidas t-shirt. Adidas has a few Futbol stadiums around London and, this was our chance to design the next one. From the colors to the graphics, creators got the chance to bring their dream stadium to life. Adidas will announce a winner in the upcoming year and will begin the process of making that design a reality in London.
Next was the Futbol cleat. Once again, with this creation, the cleat was chosen for us and we got the chance to design the color scheme and graphics. As with the stadium Adidas, will announce a winner in the upcoming year and that cleat will then be turned into a reality for one lucky person.
The create a mini shoe station was a nice touch, added to the event. The public got a chance to put together a shoe from scratch, the same way a shoe designer would in his/her workshop. The only difference? Shoe Designers stitch their fabric together, while we were going to use a hot glue gun to put ours together. There were two designs that you could put together, a football cleat and the forever iconic stan smith. The materials were cut for us beforehand, all we had to do was figure out how to put them together, which was much harder than you would think! After a few trials and errors, most people were able to take home two mini shoes from the event as a perk.
Last, came the t-shirt design. This station started with designing your own t-shirt, on a piece of paper. Little did we know, that we were all going to get a custom Adidas Futbol shirt, in the end! Once you finished designing your shirt on paper, the Adidas team sent you over to the t-shirt press, and gave you the chance to make a shirt to take home! Creators were able to choose a name and a number to go on the back of their shirts. Next, we got to choose from a few hashtags that Adidas had set out that we could also print onto our shirt, wherever we wanted.
Tango League/E-Sports
After the workshop creators were invited to relax and watch the FIFA World Cup games on a big screen in one of their hangers. Alongside that we were given a chance to play against a professional E-Sports FIFA player. If anyone beat one of the professionals, they would be given a pair of Adidas Futbol Cleats for FREE! Unfortunately, as much as some of us tried, no one was able to defeat them.
Across from the hanger was a Futbol court set up, for the Adidas Tango League games. The Tango League is a league started by Adidas, which is an international global futball tournament that was is won through a combination of futball prowess and social clout – with the added incentive of an adidas boot deal for the winning MVP at the end. Tango League tournaments are hosted around the global. Players earn points by winning games, creativity on the pitch, and social presence. The Tango League has created a new generation of adidas sponsored players. For more information and to join, visit http://iris-worldwide.com/work/the-tango-league/.
Late Night Entertainment
To end the night, Adidas invited the creators to a night of entertainment, from up and coming local London artists. Every day, there were different artists coming in to entertain the guests. Adidas served free drinks to all guests, throughout the night. Although I had not have heard of these London artists, as a Calgary native, I was happy to have been introduced to them. I immediately fell in love with the music from Bakar and Black Focus group. If you have not heard of these guys, I recommend searching them up. Black Focus group gives out a true modern funk sound, and Bakar is an Indie band with a lot of talent.
Being my very first time attending an Adidas event, I have to say I was thoroughly impressed and inspired by the end of it. I would heavily recommend going to any event like this to anyone, whether you are a creator or not. I guarantee you will have a lot of fun and by the end of it, you will not have realized how much knowledge you walk out with. Until next time this is @kingkhamba signing off, hope you guys enjoyed reading about this small adventure. More to come soon.
Written for a Soledier, by a Soledier.
@kingkhamba
#YYCSOLEdiers
