Pokemon Go Fest Totally Redeemed Itself

Pokemon Go had a moment of redemption last weekend when it pulled off a successful Pokemon Go Fest [...]

Pokemon Go had a moment of redemption last weekend when it pulled off a successful Pokemon Go Fest live event in Chicago a little less than one year after its first live event in Chicago made headlines for all the wrong reasons. 21,000 fans attended last weekend's event in Chicago's Lincoln Park, which gave fans a chance to catch rare Pokemon like Celebi, Unown, and Torkoal. Neither rain nor humid weather could deter a palpable excitement in the air as fans traversed through a 1.8-mile stretch of the park and enjoyed four distinct Pokemon habitats set up during the event.

"Chicago was a tough day for Niantic last year," Mike Quigley, Niantic's Chief Marketing Officer said while sitting down with ComicBook.com during the event. "Let's not sugarcoat it." However, the Pokemon Go developer used the lessons learned at the first Pokemon Go Fest and other past live events to find a successful formula for making this year's event a huge success.

"You may recall we applied a lot of those learnings two weeks later at our series of European Safari Zone events, and then a week after that with over two million people during Pikachu Outbreak for that week," Quigley continued. "Then so on and so forth with our Korean event and Tottori Dunes and things like that. Even two weeks ago with Dortmund, Germany." Over 170,000 people attended the Dortmund event, which suffered some network issues early on, but were clear by the end of the day. "I think what we tried to do is make sure each one of these is a learning experience."

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While it might be tempting to simply repeat the same successful event over and over, Quigley also talked about finding ways to make each live event unique. "We don't want to cookie cutter things and make it the same thing every time," Quigley said. "So what's that balance of getting the good foundational things, like infrastructure as an example, making sure those are rock solid, but also introduce some new kind of gameplay dynamics or maybe some unique Pokemon or other things that people can do?"

While Niantic held both Pokemon Go Fest events in Chicago, they were located at different venues and had totally different vibes. Last year's Pokemon Go Fest was set up almost like a concert, with a central stage and a relatively small space. This year's event took place at Grant Park, with a nearly two mile stretch that encouraged walking. Quigley also noted that this year's event also refocused on the core mission of Pokemon Go. "It's not really about being at a certain place at a certain time," Quigley said of the event. "It's really doing what is at the heart of the mission of Niantic, which is come out in the real world, explore, get a little bit of fresh air, a little bit of exercise, and do it with friends or family, or maybe even some new people that share your passion as a trainer for Pokemon Go and for Pokemon overall."

This year's event was also boosted by the recently introduced research quest feature, which Pokemon Go added earlier this year. Quigley noted that the quests served as a foundation for Pokemon Go events this summer, and helped drive people towards achieving certain goals in the game. "It's nice that we have those elements to kind of lean into as kind of a marketing and live events team that really make the events more fun for people," Quigley said.

Pokemon Go Fest featured 50 different species of Pokemon, ranging from Pokemon featured at past events to usually rare Pokemon like Torkoal or Unown. While Quigley couldn't go into detail about how Niantic choose which Pokemon to include in the event, he did note that there were several different factors that came in play, including catch rates over time and also the region-locked approach that limits which Pokemon players can find in certain locations. Thanks to trading, events like Pokemon Go Fest (which do attract players from all over the world) have become major hubs for adding certain Pokemon to players' collections, even if the Pokemon aren't spawning at the event.

One noticeable feature missing from this year's event was a lack of gym battles. While we expected that gym battles were left out of the event to prevent any sort of network overload, Quigley clarified that they were trying to keep this year's event more casual. "Not that we don't like the competitive spirit, we love raids and we love legendary raids, and battling for gyms and protecting them is a core part of the gameplay, but sometimes it's nice just to have a flavor where it's a lot more social and it's just a lot more about capturing and focus on that," Quigley said.

Pokemon Go Fest was a successful celebration of Pokemon Go and a testament to the game's staying power two years after its release. Pokemon Go has more live events planned for later this summer, and fans who attend should have a fun (and non-stressful) experience, thanks to learning from what came before.

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