Kicks for the soul

For the Shanghai edition, personalities such as former NBA player Stephon Marbury, Chinese tennis superstar Li Na and Chinese rapper Will Pan were in attendance.

According to Ma, the reception for the inaugural Shanghai Sneaker Con was overwhelming. The tickets for the event, which were priced between 200 and 300 yuan, sold out within just two minutes on the entertainment ticketing platform Damai.

"We had 17,000 visitors in total. We didn't actually plan on having so many people because we were initially looking at a two-day event over the weekend with a daily cap of 5,000 tickets," he says.

"We needed a visitor cap because Sneaker Con is not like a normal trade fair where people come, check out the products and leave. This is a very unique trading community. Sneakerheads come and interact with their peers and listen to the guest designers. If we didn't have a cap, the place would be overcrowded and that would affect the whole experience."

Buoyed by the success of the first event, Ma says his company is already planning to hold another edition in China at the end of the year.

"For the Shanghai Sneaker Con, we had 130 million social media impressions on Weibo alone. It just shows how passionate the community in China is," he adds.

A thriving resale market

The practice of reselling and collecting sneakers is believed to have originated in the US in the 1980s when the footwear became an intrinsic part of street culture. This subculture in China, however, is much younger, says Zhu.