Tracktown Exchange is a student-run company on campus for student creatives to use their space free of charge to sell their products.
Started by junior advertising majors Tommy Bowers and Joni Victorino during their sophomore year, Tracktown Exchange is a place for student creatives and entrepreneurs to sell products they’ve made.
“It’s a lot of creative anything. So we do student magazines, newspapers. We do a bunch of clothing companies, a bunch of people make jewelry, people who crochet, or people who sell hats or just any creative who has an idea. If you have something you can sell, we want to work with you,” Bowers said.
Once an abandoned coffee kiosk located on the corner of 13th Avenue and Kincaid Street, Bowers and Victorino renovated the space after getting approval from the owners of Eugene NEST, a vintage clothing store on the same property as the kiosk, and the building landlord.
“We just had an idea, and so we kind of faked [it] until we made it and pitched this whole idea to them about remaking it, and they would let us use it as a space for creatives to sell their stuff for free [and] people who had small companies who couldn’t do their own full pop up,” Bowers said.
Bowers and Victorino said they used their own personal funds to finance the renovation process.
“There was a bunch of dirt [and] a bunch of old leftover stuff from the coffee shack that was in there. The whole thing was graffitied. The ceiling had a leak in it. The whole thing was kind of in shambles,” Bowers said.
The first Tracktown Exchange pop-up event occurred in April and included the entire week of the Associated Students at the University of Oregon Street Faire.
“For the first event we’d hosted, we created posters. We had told a bunch of our friends. We created an Instagram account,” Victorino said.
After the first events, other pop-up events were held during the remainder of the spring 2024 term.
“We plan on doing pop-ups throughout the year at various times, and a bunch of artists…are wanting to sell stuff or have collections that they’re comfortable releasing, and we’re hoping that we’re doing some pop-ups with ASUO and the NEST soon,” Bowers said.
According to Victorino, one goal of Tracktown Exchange is to create an accessible space for student vendors. Vendors are never charged to use the space.
“[Vendors] have so many different barriers, like fears of not having enough stock, the money, like the actual overhead to have a table, the actual scheduling of getting a spot at the EMU, like, there’s all these little things that I don’t think people really consider,” Victorino said. “We just wanted to give students a space where they were able to express themselves and do what they wanted to do without these barriers.”
Currently, Bowers and Victorino work with a team of 15 other people, all volunteering their time to assist vendors and creatives.
“We’re looking for volunteers, always, we’re always looking to grow the team,” Bowers said. “No idea is a bad idea.”
