PASADENA, Calif. — Nike or Adidas, Reebok or Puma, sneaker heads throughout the LA area will have a chance to buy, sell and trade shoes and clothing from hundreds of vendors Saturday when the Got Sole sneaker festival steps into the Pasadena Convention Center. Whether it’s a pair of lightly used Air Jordan 1s or an Air Mag Back to the Future collectible, Got Sole is the place where basketball, fashion and music collide.
“We don’t want it to be just buy, sell, trade,” said Got Sole co-founder Jonathan DiModica, 23. “We want people to have fun.”
In addition to hundreds of vendors, Saturday’s sneaker fest will include performances, giveaways, photo ops, raffles, contests and celebrity visits from social media influencers like CoolKicksLA and unannounced drop-ins from rappers and basketball players, DiModica said.
Saturday’s event is Got Sole’s second in LA. The fest started in Boston, when Jonathan and his older brother Joseph were teenagers. Two years after their family lost their home in a fire, 14-year-old Jonathan and 16-year-old Joseph “were looking for an escape,” Jonathan said. “Some people look to sport. Some people might take a negative route. We loved sneakers.”
Like a lot of teenage boys, they wanted every pair of LeBron James and Michael Jordan sneakers they could get their hands on. They just didn’t have any money. So they mowed lawns and sold candy at school to get the cash that allowed them to start buying — and reselling for a profit — the sneakers and streetwear they coveted.
With a couple grand in their pockets, they launched Got Sole in Boston in 2013 with about 18 vendors. A couple hundred people showed up.
“It was the biggest, craziest turnout we could have expected,” said DiModica, who advertised the event on Facebook and Instagram. “We were kids and had no idea what we were doing.”
Their next event drew 500 attendees, then 1,000, as they scaled up with events throughout the Northeast U.S. Then COVID hit, inspiring the brothers to turn Got Sole into a traveling show around the country once pandemic restrictions lifted.
Their first LA stop was a year ago at the Sneakertopia Museum in Westchester.
“We did not know what to expect. We didn’t know if we had any fans in LA,” DiModica said.
His fear was soon repudiated. Not only did the show sell out with 1,000+ attendees. It drew a visit from LA Lakers’ star LeBron James’ son, Bronny.
Having reached capacity at Sneakertopia’s 20,000-square-foot space last November, the DiModica brothers realized they needed a larger space. They considered convention centers in Long Beach, Anaheim, Los Angeles and Pasadena before settling on the 55,000-square-foot Pasadena Convention Center, where they are expecting about 5,000 attendees this weekend.
“There’s a lot of young people here in the LA area that love sneakers and love streetwear, and we’ve now found another base for our company,” said DiModica, who’s business is now year-round with ten full-time employees.
Including this weekend’s sneaker festival, the company has put on eight events so far this year from New York to Miami to Houston and doubled its attendance and social media following. Got Sole plans to do ten sneaker fests in 2023 and may relocate to the LA Convention Center when it returns to Los Angeles next year.
Prior to the pandemic, the sneaker resale market was worth $6 billion globally. It’s expected to be worth $30 billion by 2030, according to Cowen Equity Research, driven by a growing cohort of young people who’ve chosen to express themselves through their feet.
“Regardless of Joey and I, this crazy sneaker industry is booming across the country, nevermind in LA,” DiModica said.
As for Got Sole’s popularity, DiModica chalks it up to bringing a festival-like atmosphere to the buy-sell-trade community. Tickets to this weekend’s Got Sole festival cost $25 for general admission and $32 for VIPs. Tickets purchased on the day of the event are $35.