Sneaker Bless 2019: Event with A Purpose
Introduction to Journalism and Interview Techniques
Aurelia Nadine, Staff Reporter
Monday April 8, 2019
JAKARTA—Sneaker Bless 2019 is a sneakers and apparel event that puts forward charity and
humanity act made possible by YesImProject event organizer. The event was held at Plaza Indonesia
Function Hall, Central Jakarta on 5, 6, and 7 April 2019. The event included bazaar, exhibition,
auctions, raffles, music, talkshows with influencers, giveaways, trade and release with charity and
auction as their main event. Having a different concept from most of the sneaker events & festivals
that have been held before, Sneaker Bless 2019 is expected to gain not only more profit, but also to
gain awareness from the visitors.
Following the charity and ‘giving back to the community’ concept, the event acts as a way for
sneaker enthusiasts to unite and contribute in donating, where a number of percentage from the
profit will be given to those in need, including victims of natural disasters through the Plaza
Indonesia Foundation, the same organization that they have collaborated with before.
Sneaker Bless has been done before back in 2017 as their first ever event. The number of visitors
that year reached more than 5.000 people with the total income of Rp200.000.000 (Two Hundred
Million Rupiah) per tenant. With the bigger number of people who attended during the three days of
this year’s event, committees agreed to one statement; that it is safe to say that this year seems to
be more successful than the previous event. It has been totaled that around more than 7.000 people
attended this year, which already showed an increase of enthusiasm compared to the previous event.
The tenants participated were mostly from online-based stores including Tigrail, Unbranded Store,
Crooz—only to name a few. Arsyadham Lazuardi, the project leader of Sneaker Bless 2019 stated, “I expect people to be inspired by this event because of the main purpose of this event which is basically to take part of helping those in need (charity). And of course, I expect this year to be betterthan 2017.” The 19 year old boss-of-the-event seemed to be very confident during the interview. “…and I do hope that the kind hearts who will or have contributed in donating will always stay blessed. InsyaAllah we did something for the greater good of humanity, he added humbly. The event was first founded by Davy Satria and was led by him along with the helping hands of his older brother back in 2017. But due to some circumstances, the event was handed to the creative minds of YesImProject, an event organizer founded in 2018 by Arsyadham Lazuardi.
The Hype Beast and sneakers culture is often known for their relatively high price of goods and
apparel, leaving an impression of ‘conceited’ or ‘arrogant’ on most sneaker enthusiasts—making
them disliked by many outside of the community. Yet the enthusiasm from the community at this
charity-themed event has proven otherwise. When being asked about the future of Sneaker Bless,
Arsyadham answered, “Yes. Definitely. But I don’t want to give you any spoilers yet. Just stay tuned.”, as he laughs. And so the wait begins for the sneaker enthusiasts.
