It's a huge year for the Pokémon brand, with the IP celebrating its 30th anniversary and the fandom gearing up for the release of Winds and Waves in 2027. Pokemon GO. With the hit mobile game released over a decade ago, many players haven't been able to keep up with the usual PokéStop spins and curveball throws, but there's still a dedicated community that proves Pokémon GO's staying power. Nowhere is this more evident than at Pokemon GO Fest, a festival celebrating Pokemon GO. You can't understand it unless you see it yourself. So I did.
Pokemon GO Fest will travel around the world three times before the global version launches for all players in mid-July. My destination was Chicago, Illinois for the second leg of the Pokemon GO Fest tour, an important location given its place in the event's history. Chicago hosted its first Pokemon GO Fest in 2017, and the event was once again held in Grant Park next to Lake Michigan. It's a beautiful place to enjoy a three-day extravaganza where the Pokemon GO community comes together and does what they do best.
Discover the magic of Pokémon GO once again
About a year ago, you could count me as one of those lapsed players who joined the bandwagon in 2016 but lost touch with the game over time. But what I discovered in mid-2025 Pokemon GO It will be a fantastic bonding experience for my son and I. It's an opportunity to get heavily invested in a video game, learn everything you can about an IP as deep and expansive as Pokémon, and spend some quality time outdoors with members of the community.
When I say I invested Pokemon GO It is no exaggeration to say that it has become much more than when it first started. In some ways, Pokemon GO It feels like a side job (or third job if you're a parent), but I love it. And now, as I look back 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 precious memories to share.
My son and I took a trip to Chicago to see what GO Fest was all about, and with one main goal in mind, we went to catch Mega Mewtwo. Or catch Mewtwo with the mega level unlocked. If you're lucky, that Mewtwo might shine, and if you're really lucky, he might even have a backdrop featuring the Chicago skyline at US GO Fest. So what we discovered during our visit to Mewtwo was a community that was as warm and friendly as any I've encountered in a video game, and it was an experience I won't soon forget.
How does Pokemon GO Fest work?
So what exactly is Pokemon GO Fest? Currently recurring GO Fest offline events exist in two forms: Park Experience and Citywide Gameplay. The park experience is like the main event. It's an all-out assault on catching and raiding Pokemon that you won't understand until you attend one of these events. Pokestops abound, raids rotate every 10 minutes, and smaller activities like pop-up Pokémon centers, photo ops, and community events provide things to do in between.
Tickets for park experiences sell out quickly and are split into four-hour morning and afternoon sessions on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Once you arrive at the location (in this case Grant Park) and the session begins, the entire area comes alive.
In 2026, Pokemon GO Fest traded its habitat-focused layout for one featuring zones. Each zone revolves around and favors a specific type of gameplay while also offering a variety of raids.
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Recruitment Area: This area is focused on representing a specific Pokemon GO team, hosting special activities in tents and giving away prizes to team members.
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Conservatory Zone: This zone spawns in large quantities and gives you the opportunity to fill your Pokedex with the added bonus of increased chance of shining.
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Cultivation Zone: Lower distance-to-hatch ratios and unique field studies were part of this zone.
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Battle Ground: Team Rocket owns this area and hosts many Shadow Raids as well as Rocket Grunt and Leader encounters.
This layout encouraged different types of play. If you want to focus on a specific raid target, like Shiny Shadow Groudon, you can spend a full four hours in Battle Ground, excluding the assigned Mega Mewtwo raid. Or, if you want to get a little taste of everything, you can walk from north to south or vice versa, jumping into your favorite raid and catching Pokémon along the way. And if you have Pokemon GO Plus+, chances are you've caught quite a few shiny Pokemon and hatched plenty of eggs during your travels.
At first I found the experience a little overwhelming. Crippled by choice, I simply set my sights on raiding Mewtwo. Because that was our initial goal. But once I learned the benefits of each area, I started doing the loops I was talking about. And by the end, my feet were tired, but my heart (and Pokemon storage) was full. And boy, what an ending. Mega Mewtwo was a big ticket item at Pokemon GO Fest 2026, making it a perfect choice for its 10th anniversary. Each Park Experience attendee was given a set of two gyms marked on the map where Mega Mewtwo Y and Mega Mewtwo X would be held 30 minutes before the end of the session. Niantic knew what they were doing here: bringing players together in an environment filled with dizzying excitement. While the Mega Mewtwo raid that will be included as part of Pokemon GO Fest Global is assumed to be a Super Mega Raid, the hands-on showed off the new Unity Raids without a lobby cap. I imagine watching the player count soar to over 1,000 and counting down the final seconds until the raid starts is like being in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Instead of waiting for the ball to drop, we waited for the most iconic Psychic Pokémon of all time to appear and furiously pounded the screen until it was defeated.
But tapping isn't everything in Unity Raids. When Mega Mewtwo reaches a certain health threshold, the game asks players to unite and generate special energy to break the Pokémon's shield. To do so, you must lift your mobile device into the air as if Prince Adam was transforming into He-Man. Cynics will tell you that this is a baffling mechanic, and I don't know how it would feel to do this in a crowded mall with “normal people,” but among other Pokemon GO players, it captures the sense of community that the game claimed to provide in the first place. It's quite a visual to see the phone floating in the air with the camera lights on. A little stupid? Maybe when you look around, all self-consciousness has disappeared. Once you have Mewtwo, you'll have some time left to catch more Pokémon or do a few last-minute raids, but the job doesn't end there. Citywide gameplay is as much a part of GO Fest as the Park Experience.
Chicago becomes the playground for Pokémon GO Fest
Pokemon GO Fest attendees don't just fly in from all over the world for a four-hour park experience. There's so much to do all weekend. Niantic divided the city into four zones focused on the main pillars of Pokemon GO like trading and routing, with each zone offering timed research and its own medals. Completing two of the four timed studies will unlock another that will reward you with either Mega Mewtwo X or Mega Mewtwo Y. So even if you aren't lucky enough to get a park ticket, you can at least get one Mega Mewtwo. In addition, many of the same Park Experience Raids were spread out across the region and there was an increase in PokéStops. And just like the Park Experience, the community was in full swing, regularly filling raids within seconds of joining. This is where the community showed its greatest strength, finding ways to coordinate various gatherings and raid trains at major hubs around the city. If you're dedicated enough you can go from 5am to 8pm and you won't be alone. There were still many people working in every corner and even during active times of the day.
While the park experience is the main event of Pokemon GO Fest, citywide gameplay helps keep the excitement going. Without it, the event might have felt flat and you wouldn't have had an important opportunity to see and explore Chicago. Providing a seamless gameplay experience is just as important as improving tourism.
Like most Pokemon GO Fest attendees, I jumped in for early and exclusive opportunities, especially considering my son's favorite Pokemon is Mewtwo. But my experience in Chicago wasn't defined by the sheer number of Pokémon that filled my storage space, but rather by the communal aspects that the event allowed. No doubt this was a special experience for my son and I, but it was made even more special by the people we met along the way. No matter where we were, someone would ask about our use of Pokemon GO, share anecdotes about our experiences in Chicago, and brag about our most prized catches of the weekend.
For a game that some might find embarrassing to show off in public, Pokemon GO Fest had more people with their fingers on their phones. Even Chicago natives who couldn't tell the difference between a Pikachu and a Pichu were welcoming, friendly, and curious about our experiences in the city. If you've ever been to Comic-Con or a large fan event, 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 they were all very friendly and friendly, and it was a real joy to be around other Pokemon GO players. I've had glimpses of the communal aspect of Pokemon GO at home, but here it's taken to enjoyable extremes. I'm already waist-deep in Pokemon GO thanks to the bond it's created for my son and me. But Pokemon GO Fest showed me an aspect of the game that I knew existed but had never experienced firsthand. Being in Chicago was invigorating at a time when the world could feel uninviting and cold. The weekend event offered a variety of things to do and experiences, but it was the community that made it memorable. We attended Pokemon GO Fest hoping to catch Shiny Mega Mewtwo, and that mission was accomplished. But we also brought back precious memories that will last a lifetime.
