Thank you for coming out to our second annual Pop-Up shop!
If you were able to make it out we are so glad that you did, and if not, never fear, we have so much event coverage between our photographers and the after movie that Dylan has produced that we are sure you will feel like you were right there.
We are so grateful to everyone who came and checked out the second annual Checkpoint Pop-Up Shop that we hosted this past weekend. We had an incredible time putting this together and being your hosts, and it was awesome to see so many of you come out and match our energy. We’re still buzzing from all the positivity, excitement, and passionate support we saw in the crowd. The location was perfect; we couldn’t have asked for a better place to host our event. The cars were amazing; they were everywhere — It was inspiring to see so many of our favourite local cars crowded in one place. And the people? Well, what can I say? You guys are incredible!
The turnout was positive and fun, with lots of passionate car enthusiasts who were excited to share their love of cars and be around others who share it with them. The atmosphere was respectful and exciting at the same time—something that many attendees noted as being exactly what they expected from the event. We took this not only as a huge compliment but also as a reflection of how great a community we have.
Before I get any further writing this article; we owe a huge special thank you to a few key players that made this event possible. Thank you, Jonny and Tunezilla for making this location available to us, Harrison and Josiah for the incredible photos (I will credit them properly and include links to their folders later on here), Rebecca and Sara for running the store and taking care of everyone’s orders, and Kiera, Josh, Cole and Mikhail for all of your extra help making sure things went smoothly with final setup and tear down. It really takes a community of amazing people to make a night like this happen, and thankfully we are blessed to have that community around us. I could go on another rant about how having quality people around is more important than talking endlessly about quality parts and how there is no amount of authentic and cool parts that could ever make up for having a lack of authentic and cool people in your life, but I will save that rant for a different day. For now, one final thank you to this group of amazing people.
We have been working hard over the past year to create an atmosphere that fosters community and collaboration among all kinds of people who love cars, whether they’re just getting started or have been working on their passion for decades. We believe that this is one of the many reasons we’ve seen such positive feedback from our community: because people feel like they’re able to be themselves without feeling judged or out of place at all.
Recently there has been a lot of discussion amongst our team about the concepts of resilience, progress and passion. This Pop-Up shop felt like the physical personification of the fulfilment of these three things.
Resilience.
For us, this idea is captured perfectly in the Japanese proverb 七転び八起き (“fall down seven times, stand up eight”). Each one of us has experienced failure countless times before; Checkpoint almost failed once when it went on its hiatus from 2018 to our eventual relaunch last year. No matter how many times we may get knocked down, we need to get up again. Even if you fall one thousand times, you just keep getting up and trying again. Checkpoint has taught us that there are no quick fixes in life and anything of real value will take dedication and perseverance. Success does not have to be fast—what’s more important is that we know we are doing our absolute best and remain persistent.
Progress.
Measuring this is sometimes challenging because it’s easy to get stuck in a comparison trap with others rather than evaluating development internally. Our friend Reggie Mah, the founder of Nightrunner, often vocalizes his opinions on progress and has inspired us with his dedication to constant habits that yield results or his focus on the importance of holding true to your own expectations and standards. Nothing has helped us measure our progress more than comparing Pop-Up Shop II to our first Pop-Up last September, and our inspiration is higher than ever because of this.
Passion.
This is the big one. Joey Lee from The Chrncls is often quoted saying “Passion first, everything else will follow”. And when we see the development that has happened within Checkpoint as well as the support and encouragement that we have received from everyone around us it’s obvious that he couldn’t be more accurate in saying that phrase. Checkpoint has always, and will always, be about passion above all else. Our passion for Japanese car culture, our passion for excitement, our passion for connecting with our community and our passion for friendship. Checkpoint’s passion is fueled internally just as much as it is fueled by each and every one of you reading this. We couldn’t do it alone.
Before you finish reading all of this here are the socials for our amazing photographers, Josiah and Harrison, as well as their full albums for you to scroll through and save images from.
Check them out on Instagram: @yamfriess & @renn_media
Here is Josiah’s album from the Pop-Up (be sure to tag him and us): https://bit.ly/3RgVIm8
Here is Harrison’s album from the Pop-Up (be sure to tag him and us): https://bit.ly/3KzWIzh
Thank you again for making this such a memorable day for us. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and we cannot wait to see you next year at Pop-Up Shop III. All of our remaining inventory is now active on our website and from now until the end of the day on Sunday (Sept 4) use code POPUP2022 for a discount on your order. Visit the store here:
https://checkpointjapan.bigcartel.com/products
Put your passions first and don’t forget to break the rules.
Alexander, Dylan, Sandra, Jake & Karly.
Checkpoint Japan.
Checkpoint Japan 