Pokemon Go's Safari Zone Had Three Times the Expected Attendance

Last weekend's Safari Zone event was a big success for Pokemon Go, as attendance was three times as high as originally anticipated.

Pokemon Go's first live event of the summer took place in Dortmund, Germany. The unticketed event gave players a chance to catch Corsola, Unown, and Shiny Rosalia, and collect special 2 KM eggs from PokeStops along the city.

A German website's report on the event revealed that over 170,000 players attended the event, more than three times as many people as what Pokemon Go organizers expected. More than 100,000 players visited Westfalenpark, the park that served as the central hub for the event.

Hearing that attendance was triple of what was expected shines a little more light on the event's early connectivity problems. Those who attended the event on Saturday complained of network connectivity and log in issues. Pokemon Go corrected this issues by midday on Saturday and added a special Europe-exclusive event to apologize for those players impacted by the issues.

Since the event was free and open to everyone, Pokemon Go expanded the event's boundaries to include the entire city of Dortmund. Last summer's Pokemon Go Fest faced severe network issues due to the sheer number of players in one location, which led to Pokemon Go eventually expanding the event to include parts of downtown Chicago. While the expanded boundaries did direct some players away from the park central to the event, clearly a lot of players wanted to go to the event first hand.

The Safari Zone event is the first of three planned live events for this summer. Chicago will host a second Pokemon Go Fest in July and a second Safari Zone event is planned for Japan later in the year. The events are all leading toward some big event, either the release of a new Mythical Pokemon or possibly the addition of a new generation of Pokemon to capture.