It's a big year for the Pokemon brand, with the IP celebrating its 30th year of existence and the fandom gearing up for the release of Winds and Waves in 2027, but it's an equally big year. Pokemon Go. The popular mobile game launched over 10 years ago, and while many players haven't kept up with their regular PokéStop spinning and curveball-throwing, there's still a dedicated community that attests to Pokemon GO's staying power. Nowhere is this more evident than at Pokemon GO Fest, a celebration of Pokemon GO that you can't fully understand until you see it for yourself. So I did.
Pokemon GO Fest hops the globe for three separate stops before the global version is released for all players in mid-July. My destination for the second leg of the Pokemon Go Fest tour was Chicago, Illinois, an important location considering its place in the event's history. Chicago hosted Pokemon Go Fest for the first time in 2017, and once again the event has staked its claim in Grant Park along Lake Michigan. It's a beautiful venue for a 3-day extravaganza where the Pokemon GO community comes together to do what they do best.
Rediscovering the magic of Pokemon GO
About a year ago, you would have counted me among those lops players who jumped on the bandwagon in 2016 but lost touch with the game over time. But in mid-2025 I found out Pokemon Go To be a great bonding experience for my son and I — a chance to be heavily invested in a video game, to learn about an IP as deep and vast as Pokemon, and to spend quality time with members of our community.
When I say I'm invested Pokemon Go More important than the beginning, this is no exaggeration. in some ways, Pokemon Go Sounds like a second job (or third job, if you're a parent), but I love it. And now, reflecting on my time at GO Fest, I'm just as excited about the game as I was a year ago, but I also have some priceless memories to go along with it.
My son and I both traveled to Chicago to find out what GO Fest was all about, and with one primary goal in mind: catch Mega Mewtwo. Or rather, catch Mewtwo with its mega level unlocked. If we were lucky, that would be Mewtwo glowing, and if we were really lucky, that might even be Mewtwo's backdrop, which, for US GO Fest, featured the Chicago skyline. So when we came for Mewtwo, what we found was a community as welcoming and friendly as any I've encountered in video games and one we won't soon forget.
How does Pokemon Go Fest work?
So what exactly is Pokemon Go Fest? In its current iteration, GO Fest individual events exist in two forms: the park experience and citywide gameplay. The park experience is like your main event. It's the likes of catching and raiding Pokemon that you won't understand until you attend one of these events. Pokéstops are plentiful, raids rotate every 10 minutes, and little activities like pop-up Pokémon centers, photo ops, and community events keep you busy in between.
Tickets for Park Experience go fast and they are split into 4-hour morning and afternoon sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When you arrive at the venue, in this case Grant Park, and your session begins, the whole area comes alive.
For 2026, Pokemon GO Fest traded its habitat-centric layout for exclusive zones. Each area revolved around and favored a specific type of gameplay, while also offering plenty of raids.
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Recruiting Zone: This zone was focused on representing your given Pokemon GO team, with tents hosting special activities and gifts for team members.
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Conservatory Zone: Spawns in abundance in this area, offering the opportunity to fill your Pokédex with the added bonus of increased shine rates.
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Cultivation area: Lower hatch distance rate and unique area research were part of this area.
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Battle Ground: Team Rocket owns this area, which hosts Shadow Raids as well as plenty of Rocket Grunt and Leader encounters.
This layout encouraged a variety of games. If you want to focus on a specific raid target, such as Shiny Shadow Groudon, then you can spend the entire 4 hours on the battlefield, save for your designated Mega Mewtwo raids. Or if you want to sample a little bit of everything, you can walk north to south and vice versa, picking up whatever raids catch your fancy and catching Pokemon along the way. And if you have Pokemon GO Plus+, you've caught a lot of shiny Pokemon during your trek and picked up a bunch of eggs.
I found the experience a bit overwhelming at first. Crippled by choice, I only targeted Mewtwo raids since that was our initial target. But once I learned the benefits of each area, we started doing the loop that I talked about. And by the end, our legs were tired but our hearts (and Pokemon stashes) were full. And boy, what an ending. Mega Mewtwo was a big ticket item on the docket for Pokemon GO Fest 2026, a fitting choice for the 10-year anniversary. Each Park Experience participant was given a set of two gyms marked on their map that would host Mega Mewtwo Y and Mega Mewtwo X 30 minutes before the end of their session. Niantic knew what they were doing here, getting players to come together in an environment full of fun excitement. While the Mega Mewtwo raids that are part of Pokemon GO Fest Global are considered Super Mega Raids, the individual experience featured new Unity Raids with no lobby cap. Watching the number of players balloon to more than 1,000 and counting down those final seconds until the raid began was like imagining being in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Instead of just waiting for the ball to drop, we were waiting for the most iconic Psychic Pokemon of all time to appear, and then tapping our screens until it was defeated.
But tapping isn't all you do in Unity Raids. Once Mega Mewtwo reaches a certain health threshold, the game asks players to team up and generate a special energy to break the Pokémon's shield. To do so, raise your mobile device in the air as if you were transforming into Prince Adam He-Man. Cynics will say it's an embarrassing mechanic, and I don't know how I feel about doing it in a crowded mall with “norms”, but among other Pokemon GO players it captures that sense of community that the game originally offered. It's quite a sight to see all those phones in the air and their camera lights on. A little silly? Maybe, but looking around at all those smiles made any self-conscious feelings disappear. Once you get your Mewtwos, there's little time left to catch a few more Pokemon or do some last-minute raids, but things don't end there. Citywide Playground is as much a part of GO Fest as the park experience.
Chicago becomes the playground at Pokemon Go Fest
Pokemon Go Fest attendees don't just fly in from around the world for that 4-hour park experience; There is so much to do for the entire weekend. Niantic carved the city into four districts centered around core pillars of Pokemon GO such as trade and routes, each offering timed research and its own medals. If you complete two of those four timed researches, you'll unlock another research that rewards either Mega Mewtwo X or Mega Mewtwo Y by the end. So even if you're not lucky enough to get a park ticket, you'll at least come away with a Mega Mewtwo. Additionally, the same park experience raids were spread across these districts, with increasing Pokestops. And like the park experience, the community was out in full force, regularly filling raids within seconds of joining. It is here where the community has shown its strength the most, finding ways to coordinate the various rendezvous and raiding trains at key centers around the city. If you were dedicated enough, you could go from 5am to 8am and you wouldn't be alone. Around every corner and at all active hours of the day, there were plenty of people still grinding.
While the park experience is the main event of Pokemon GO Fest, the citywide gameplay helps keep that excitement going. Without it, the event can feel lackluster, and you won't have those important opportunities to see and explore the city of Chicago. It's as much about providing a complete gameplay experience as it is a tourism promotion.
I, like most Pokemon Go Fest attendees, was in it for the early and special occasions, especially since my son's favorite Pokemon is Mewtwo. But my experience in Chicago would be defined not by the abundance of Pokemon that precluded my hoarding, but by the communal aspects that the event allowed. Of course it was a kind experience for my son and I, but it was made very special thanks to the people we met along the way. No matter where we are, someone will lean over and ask about our Pokémon GO exploits, share anecdotes about their experiences in Chicago, and show off their most prized catches of the weekend.
For a game that some might be embarrassed to reveal to the public at Pokemon Go Fest, many people were twiddling their fingers on their phones. Even Chicago residents who couldn't tell the difference between Pikachu and Pichu were welcoming and friendly, curious about our experience in the city. If you've ever been to Comic-Con or a large fan event, then you know what it's like to be among “your people.” I met people from all walks of life — grandparents, couples, young children, international travelers — and everyone was extremely friendly and kind, and excited to be around other Pokemon GO players. I've seen little glimpses of that communal aspect of Pokemon GO at home, but here it's taken to a fun extreme. I'm already waist-deep in Pokemon GO for the bonding experience it creates for my son and I, but Pokemon GO Fest showed a side of the game that I knew about but hadn't previously experienced. At a time when the world could feel inviting and cold, being in Chicago was exhilarating. The weekend of events offered plenty to do and a diverse set of experiences, but it was really the community that made it memorable. We went to Pokemon Go Fest with the intention of catching a shiny Mega Mewtwo and that was mission accomplished. But we also came back with precious memories that will last a lifetime.
