A detailed look at Nike Basketball’s Area 72 space from All-Star weekend in Houston

Nike Basketball pulled out all the stops during All-Star weekend to showcase its extraterrestrial lineup of special edition kicks that would be worn by Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant during the NBA’s midseason exhibition.

Setting up shop inside the Houston Galleria mall, Nike created an Area 72 retail space that allowed fans to get the full space-age experience. It was impossible to miss the large black dome in the center of the mall’s lower level that housed the exhibit — it was eye-catching from above, and even at a distance.

Once inside, fans enter a hallway with silver “space boot” versions of the shoes lining the walls, which leads them into the main area of the exhibit.

After passing through the hallway, you find yourself in the center of things, where the real All-Star edition shoes are all on display. This was one of the cooler parts of the experience, where everyone entering received an access card with a unique code on it.

Visitors walked around the exhibit where the shoes were encased in glass, and got to enter their code on a keypad. If the display read “access denied,” they didn’t win anything. But if it lit up with “access granted,” a key was revealed and they could unlock their size of the pair of shoes that they had just won.

One young man really wanted to win badly, and would rest his head against the display, eyes closed as he was deep in meditation (or perhaps prayer) before entering his code on the keypad. Unfortunately, he wasn’t among the chosen ones, and let out an exasperated yelp after being denied at all three tries.

There was plenty more detail to see, including video displays featuring Bryant, James, and Durant. Near the display’s exit was a customization booth, where merchandise that included socks, shirts, and track jackets could be special-ordered with various Area 72 design options. This was packed consistently throughout the weekend, and orders took between 1-2 hours to complete.

Nike held player appearances at the space throughout the weekend, which included the three biggest names in the game whose shoes were prominently featured. The crowds were at times alost unmanageable, which speaks to the success of the space, as well as to the popularity of the NBA and the merchandise supporting the league fans love to watch.

During my visit, I caught up with Erick Goto, a member of the design team that created all of this. One of the more interesting things we discussed was how the design process for the All-Star edition shoes, as well as the theme that would carry the company’s vision throughout the weekend, was over a year in the making.

As we talked about all that went into the design process, Goto was like an actor who works on a film a year or more before it’s released, and then has to discuss it again after it’s become a distant part of his professional past.

“Up until a couple weeks, ago, I really didn’t know how excited to be about this whole thing,” he said. “But seeing all the images of how the space would look, I got so excited because you know, you’re working on it a year ago, and you’re done with that stuff. It was so long ago.”

Goto said the design team was surprised with how popular the space-age themes have become, beginning with the Galaxy editions that carried the 2012 All-Star weekend in Orlando through to the extraterrestrial theme that was omnipresent in Houston.

“We were surprised,” he said. “We definitely didn’t think that it would cause as much chaos as it did last year, but it’s great. And that’s kind of what pushes the creativity for the team. We’re always trying to make sure we deliver something special.”

The detail and design that was put into each player’s special edition shoe is truly something to behold, as was the retail space that came together for the All-Star weekend celebration. Seeing the space in its finished form made it well worth all the hard work the design team put into it, beginning more than 12 months before the final vision was realized.

“This totally made it worth it,” Goto said. “It totally brought a tear to my eye. People were down here a couple of days [before the opening] just sending me pictures of how the space was building out, and I was like, no way! I got totally excited. We worked on the product so long ago thinking, ‘it would be cool if they did this, or it would be cool if they did that.’ But they actually made everything happen.”