Pokemon Go Delays Safari Zone Events

Pokemon Go isn’t looking to repeat the mistakes of Pokemon Go Fest, even if that means delaying several planned events. Niantic Labs announced they were postponing several Safari Zone events planned for August. These events, which were to take place at select shopping malls in Germany, France, and other European countries, were supposed to feature special Raid Battles and regional-exclusive Pokemon like Kangaskhan and Tauros that don’t usually spawn in Europe.

“In order to guarantee the best possible gameplay experience for European Trainers, we have decided to postpone the events in Europe scheduled for August 5 (Copenhagen and Prague) and August 12 (Stockholm and Amsterdam) until a date later in the Fall,” Niantic announced in a brief blog post. The Safari Zone events in September will still take place, as will a “Pokemon Go Stadium” event to be held next month in Japan.

Pokemon Go won’t be refunding travel or lodging costs for players that already booked their trips to the Safari Zone events. Since tickets weren’t released for the Safari Zone events, there’s no ticket costs to refund either.

As an apology of sorts, Pokemon Go did announce that several regional-exclusive Pokemon would start spawning in select European cities “for a brief time.” We’re guessing that those cities are Copenhagen, Prague, Stockholm, and Amsterdam since those were the cities where the Safari Zone events were to take place.

Players were already growing concerned with Safari Zone, in part because of the issues surrounding Pokemon Go Fest. Each Safari Zone event would have 3,000-5,000 players crammed in a mall, which sounds like a recipe for cellular network issues. Pokemon Go Fest had similar issues, and was seen as a major embarrassment for Pokemon Go and the overall Pokemon franchise.

We’ll provide more updates about the Safari Zone events, and the temporary spawn of regional-exclusive Pokemon in the coming days.

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