“Next Stop: Station 97!”: iDEKO & Nike Go Back to the Future

Do It!

Time moves so quickly: if it had feet, it would need to wear some pretty sweet sneakers, like Nike’s—especially the Air Max. So much has happened since those were first dropped on the market in 1997 (Y2K, iPhones, Kobe) but the shoes still have it! If you’re dancing all night you better have shoes that look good and last. If you’re wearing sneakers and dancing all night, they need to be the best! 20 years of looking good is the reason to throw a party as hot as one you may have gone to back in the 1990s!The minds at Nike wanted to affirm that synergy of sneakers and rave culture at an event that was part of their “SNKRS Presents” series. It would be a chance to celebrate and reintroduce the Air Max 97—and launch the new Air Max 97 Ultra, an update on the classic. They reached out to Boiler Room to transmit the sonic highlights across the internet, and iDEKO Productions to shape the scene.Great music and great sneakers together are timeless! It would all come together at the party event that would occur in late July, but feel outside of time: Station 97! Where else to recreate the underground dance scene of the 1990s?Underground—in an uptown Manhattan train station, of course.

Doing It!

Back in 1997, you had to have an invitation in your pocket and the hottest dance party was at some old warehouse or an abandoned barn. That’s where iDEKO proves itself as a go-getting, results-driven partner. Instead of hopping a chain-link fence and scoping out an abandoned space, they bypassed that troublesome route and obtained the right permits from the city to stage the party at 165th Street &Amsterdam Station.With the station secured, production teams rushed in to turn back time. They lined the station walls with posters that announced, “FUTURE FORWARD!” They re-created newspaper stands and arranged dispensers stocked with colorful Nike classics, including Air Max 97s and the Air Max Ultra. A sign over sneakers in a glass display that read “HOT N’ FRESH!” was not lying. DJ booths were constructed and wired up. The featured performers, Laurel Halo, Joey Beltram and Physical Therapy set the beat and shaped the mood for the evening. Be thankful that Boiler Room recorded highlights from their sets for posterity.

Did It!

It’s hard work to make a July night stand out in space and time, but iDEKO succeeded. Nike’s people knew who to contact to make their event memorable.The iDEKO team secured the best location and set up the space. Everything was in place to make the night a success. “Definitely on another level of impressive,”Jordan Keyser declared on NiceKicks.com. From the pictures Jordan posted, aswell as the ones on the SNKRS Presents page, all the effort paid off.“HOT N’ FRESH,” indeed!