Pokemon Go Announces First Pokemon Go Fest 2021 Details

Pokemon Go has revealed some early details about this year's Pokemon Go Fest event, including that it will be a global event like it was in 2020. Pokemon Go announced that this year's Pokemon Go Fest will run on July 17 and July 18. Like last year, the event will be a "global event" not tied to a physical location. While few other details were announced about this year's Pokemon Go Fest, the blogpost strongly hinted that Meloetta would be the featured Mythical Pokemon. The blogpost told fans to "stay tuned for details" with "tuned" in italics, strongly hinting at Meloetta's musical nature. Musical notes also appear on the logo for this year's event. Additionally, Scyther, Marill, Pikachu, Woobat, and Chespin all appear in the early promotional picture for this year's Pokemon Go Fest.

Pokemon Go Fest is traditionally Pokemon Go's biggest event of the year and is intended to be a celebration of the game and its fans. The event was held in person in Chicago during the first three years, but switched to an online format in 2020 due to the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Players purchased tickets from the events and participated in two 12-hour sessions featuring increased Shiny rates, increased appearances of certain Pokemon, and even some extra exclusives such as Special Research or Pokemon that don't usually appear in most regions.

While Niantic has always enjoyed hosting in-person events, keeping Pokemon Go Fest as a global event makes a lot of sense. Not only was the event a financial windfall for the company (contributing to Pokemon Go's best year in terms of revenue), the company avoided dealing with fallout from limited tickets or technical issues.

In the meantime, Pokemon Go is continuing its build towards adding the Legendary Pokemon from the Kalos region. After several months of teases, Pokemon Go confirmed that both Xerneas and Yveltal would make their first appearances in the game in May.