Meet the mayors of Drip City

By Brian Bonilla

There aren’t a lot of places where you can cop a $2,000 pair of MF Doom sneakers, a $400 Funko Pop of Mets star Francisco Lindor and a bag of weed in the same place. But, if that’s your sort of thing, all of the above can be found at Drip City Market.

The self-styled “most lit sneaker and hat convention” in New York City, Drip City Market is barely a toddler at just 2-years-old. Co-founders Oscar Espinoza and Marcel Israilov launched it in 2021 because they felt there wasn’t a true sneaker convention left in New York City. One of the best known, Sneaker Con, had gone global — growing beyond its New York roots. When the two friends checked out other shows in the tri-state area, they felt more like pop-ups than actual conventions, Espinoza says.

“Everybody in New York loves to get fly and why does it have to be limited to sneakers?” asks Israilov. “We just said screw it. Let’s try it.”

So they built it. And people came. The first Drip City convention in 2021 saw around 500 attendees. Last month, more than 2,000 people attended Drip City Market to shop from among 250 vendors.

“I’ve been to all the shows, sneaker-cons,” Ryan Houston, proprietor of the Missouri-based memorabilia shop Fan Cave, posted online after an event here last year. “I can tell you this was around the best of any show I’ve ever been to.” Houston, who said he’d resell the kicks he bought, reported spending $15,000 in a single day at Drip City Market.

Vendor tables at the November event were stacked with collectible sneakers selling for as low as a few hundred dollars up to a few thousand dollars. Tickets for the event, which took place at the Resorts World Casino in Queens, ranged between $40 and $55.

One vendor, Michael Koschitz, was there selling his personal collection of Nike SB Dunks. His prize item was a mint condition pair released in collaboration with rapper MF Doom, which Koschitz said he’d be willing to part with for around $2,000.

“These are collectible shoes,” said Koschitz, who also sells items online. “A lot of these end up going into people’s personal collections and they tend to be a higher price shoe. So it’s a little more cost effective for me to be here at one table.”

Max Preston, a vendor who has been at every Drip City event to date, conceded that this is one of the few sneaker conventions left in the city.

“One reason i keep coming back is because usually when you buy new shoes, usually you want to buy a new shirt or jacket to go with it,” he said.

For vendors like Preston and Koschitz, events like Drip City also give them access to new potential customers, who might in turn become long-term clientele.

“It’s great to [build] social media following,” Preston said. “Some of my better clients have come from this show. I still keep in touch with a few of them.”

One shopper who declined to be identified said he loved the event, even though he ultimately didn’t buy anything.

“I liked it so much because you can become aware of certain vendors that you have never heard of,” the shopper said.

Still, he admitted that the experience could be a bit intimidating at first for a casual buyer.

“You might have to be part of that community, to be willing to spend that much money over there,” he said. It helps, he said, to go knowing already what you want. “You have to be aware of the trends and all this stuff, because people are reselling and you don’t want to be someone who buys something over the market price.”

He added that he plans to attend the convention when it returns in the spring given there were other compelling aspects to the event such as celebrity guest appearances — Brooklyn rapper Rowdy Rebel showed up at the event he went to. Past celebrity guests included rappers Bobby Shmurda and Dave East, internet star Spider Cuz, and ShadeTV host Marissa Hill.

Rowdy Rebel and fans (Photo by Jeremy Medina)

Haircuts, weed and Funko Pops
Beyond kicks and hats, shoppers pore over collectible items like Funko Pops (ranging from $10 to $400 for a figure of Luffy, the main character of the anime “One Piece”). Cannabis businesses make up an increasingly significant segment of vendors at the event as well. While there is still some taboo around weed, which is legal in New York, it has lessened, said Richard Gonzalez, one of the partners of Gotham Meds, a cannabis dispensary and delivery business that was selling at the event.

“Even though it’s supposed to be accepted, there’s still a layer of stigma happening where it’s like, ‘Do I feel comfortable in public or do I still have to hide? Now it’s opening up a lot more. It’s being accepted everywhere,” he said.

“Cannabis is now a part of New York culture as it always has been, but now it’s actually a legal part of our culture, and these are hardworking individuals that look for opportunities just as we do,” Israilov added.

Other businesses at the November event included a barber giving onsite haircuts, a vendor making spray paint clothing on the spot, small businesses selling their own custom clothing, artwork, handmade candles and more.

“When we first started this, we didn’t really say, ‘This needs to be a sneaker convention,’” Espinoza said. “When we started this, we wanted it to be for young entrepreneurs.”

Not just sneakers … (Photo by Jeremy Medina)

Drip City Market’s next event is slated for some time in April with an official date to be posted soon.