MattB Customs' pop-up customisation studio and team at SneakMe festival, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

SneakMe Festival, Riyadh: Running MattB Customs' Pop-Up Studio in Saudi Arabia

In October 2022, the MattB Customs team packed up the studio in Manchester and flew to Riyadh for the first-ever SneakMe festival in Saudi Arabia — the region's biggest celebration of sneaker culture, and our first activation in the Middle East.

Best fit for: a festival or expo brand wanting a fully-built live customisation experience running for multiple days, in front of thousands of attendees.

MattB Customs' pop-up customisation studio at SneakMe festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

A full studio, built in the desert

The festival organisers built us our own air-conditioned pop-up studio, which we operated in for two weeks, creating custom pieces live in front of festival crowds. Alongside the live customisation, we brought 150 of our pre-made pairs out to Riyadh to display and sell at the event — used both as finished pieces for sale and as design inspiration for customers designing their own.

Pre-made MattB Customs trainers on display at the SneakMe festival pop-up studio in Riyadh

The reception

Over the two weeks, the studio saw around 1,000 visitors through the door and served hundreds of customers directly. Saudi Arabia has a huge sneaker culture but historically limited access to new releases, and the response to seeing genuinely one-of-one customisation built live, in person, was something else — it's opened the door to more conversations about future work across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East.

Customers at the MattB Customs pop-up studio during SneakMe festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

See the full festival wrap-up on Instagram.

Want a live customisation studio at your next event? Get in touch via our Work With Us page or email business@mattbcustoms.com, or browse our full Case Studies library for more examples.