Dubai-based festival activation

adidas Sole DXB

Four floors of sport x culture

Sole DXB is Dubai's biggest sneaker and street culture festival. adidas wanted in. Not as a sponsor with a tent and a photo wall, but as a mash-up of performance and culture, appealing to both audiences. We built four floors of experience that had no VIP areas, no passive consumption, and no safe choices. Every floor was a different world, ranging from art installations, smash rooms, to mash-up fashion workshops, a functioning panna cage and tournament, live music stages and a 4th floor bar with a view.

A busy city street with multiple people walking past a large colorful Adidas billboard featuring a vibrant and intricate design.
“One of the few times the two adidas logos came together, globally.”

Client
adidas (Middle East + Global)

Market
Dubai, UAE

Scope
Concept, spatial design, creative production coordination, programming and art installation oversight, artist collaborations.

An outdoor scene of a crowded area with many people standing around a small enclosed soccer game using an Adidas-branded portable soccer goal. Two players inside the goal are kicking a soccer ball, and others are watching from the railing and crowd.
A woman wearing a blue Adidas jumpsuit, a helmet with a face shield, black gloves, and white sneakers stands inside a retail store, holding a baseball bat. The store has clothing items and race track background elements.
Display of gold-colored Adidas sneakers, boxing gloves, a skateboard, a bicycle, and empty picture frames on a white background with bold black and gold text that says 'FALCON' and Adidas logos.
A rooftop bar with black and white patterned furniture and tables, overlooking a city skyline and water. The floor has geometric black and white designs, and there are white bar stools and high tables. Scaffolding structures are present, with a view of a bridge and skyscrapers in the distance.
A group of people in black Adidas clothing, with one man and one woman smiling, standing in front of a blue wall with white graphic designs. One person is taking a photo of them with a smartphone. There are hanging light bulbs and clothing items on display.
Two women in blue athletic suits near vending machines under a metal arch ceiling. One woman is waving, and a person is holding a sneaker in the foreground.

adidas at Sole DXB needed to feel like it belonged there and counter years of strong competitor performance. The challenge was building something that the culture would claim as its own rather than see as a sponsor activation.

BRIEF

We built from the inside out. Started with the people: female creators who had something to say, freestyle footballers who could stop a crowd, makers who wanted to build something with their hands. Then built the spaces around them. The smash room came from listening to what those women actually wanted to destroy. The panna cage came from asking what sport looks like when it's also a performance. The creators studio came from the question: what if shopping was making?

INSIGHTS & APPROACH

Four activations across four floors. A smash room where powerful female creators physically destroyed the messages that held them back, in their own words. A custom panna cage on the third floor hosting live hip hop battles and a Tango-style tournament with world champion freestyler Sean Garnier, watched from a mezzanine above. A creators studio where deadstock met new product and guests left with something they made. Instagrammable installations that replaced traditional retail merchandising entirely. Zero VIP areas. All culture.

THE EXPERIENCE

What it really took to pull it off.