This past weekend, the Chicago outpost of House of Vans opened with a splash. Marking the third venue worldwide under this brand name, it combines a focus on music with a one-of-kind event space featuring the the only existing indoor skatepark in the Chicago metropolitan area. Brooklyn and London locations are sister to this new West Loop spot.
Friday night opened with a sold-out crowd for a concert featuring Future Islands, Digable Planets and local up-and-coming rapper Noname. Large format images on several dedicated walls featured skate culture photos by Vans' best-of photographers, adding to the character of the space.
Saturday's schedule started with a photography workshop by Atiba Jefferson presenting his background, techniques for photographing skaters in action and a hand-on participative demo. Afterwards Chicago artist Chad Kouri hosted a workshop for designing your your own custom Vans shoes uploading on their site. The weekend activities closed with an evening community open house for skating, music and socializing.
The House Of Vans is located just off of Randolph at 113 N Elizabeth St., an ideal location for festival aftershows for Pitchfork and North Coast.
The music space is roomy and flush with distinctive features -- one wall contains a replica of Wrigley Field's ivy and the bar is the old one from Goose Island's shuttered Wrigleyville location.
While the skateboard theme indicates as certain type of programming, the first night of music proves that anything goes. Looking forward to seeing what type of events the future holds.
