that Pokemon Center Online stores are currently facing unprecedented traffic. Some ridiculously long virtual queue wait times can reach hours. I personally just tried to access the site and ended up in line with a wait time of almost 2 hours. However, there have also been reports online of wait times lasting nearly six hours. pokemon store. At this point, even though I've put all my birds in their nests and paired my mouse with my keyboard, I can't get past the CAPTCHA. I don't do anything because if I leave the window open it automatically refreshes and creates a revolving door that I can't get out of.
This isn't the first time Pokemon Centers have faced extreme queue times, as users have been reporting this regularly for weeks. But what's different now is that we have a ton of weekly traffic. pokemon The franchise's annual Pokémon Day celebration is just around the corner, and the company is celebrating its 30th anniversary, so there's more interest in merchandise, pre-orders, and merch than on a typical day.
2025 Pokemon Day Wish List
With Pokémon Day fast approaching, there are some things trainers want to reveal and check out during the annual festivities.
What is the Pokemon Center Virtual Queue and how does it work?
As is the case with any high-traffic site, the official Pokémon Center uses a virtual queuing system to manage site access during high-traffic hours. Rather than allowing all visitors to enter the store at the same time, incoming users are placed in a digital waiting room and given an expected waiting time before they can enter, preventing server instability or outages due to a large number of visitors. Basically, it's designed to help keep online browsing and shopping smooth when many people are trying to connect at the same time.
Who is that character?
Check out the silhouette before time runs out.
start
Check out the silhouette before time runs out.
Easy (7.5 seconds) Medium (5.0 seconds) Hard (2.5 seconds) Eternal Death (2.5 seconds)
The Pokémon Center's support document states that expected wait times may be long and may vary depending on how many people are interested in visiting the store at any given moment. Importantly, the wait time displayed on the queue page is only an estimate and not a real-time countdown and will be recalculated when conditions change. As traffic surges and more users join the queue, the system may increase the estimated time, which can sometimes cause the page to refresh automatically, as was the case in my case.
Traffic has definitely spiked ahead of Pokemon Day 2026
One of the main reasons Pokémon Center queue times are currently unusually long is timing. Today, February 26, 2026, is the eve of this year's Pokémon Day, an annual event celebrating the franchise's original release on February 27, 1996. But what makes Pokemon Day special this year is pokemon’s 30th anniversary celebration, this is a particularly high-visibility event with a number of highly anticipated releases and announcements.
One of the main reasons Pokémon Center queue times are currently abnormally long is timing.
Notably, the franchise's major broadcast event, Pokemon Presents, is scheduled for tomorrow and will likely include announcements and reveals about games, trading cards, apps, and various merchandise. In the future, it's much more likely that web traffic will increase not only from the broadcast itself, but also from retail channels like Pokemon Centers. Collectors and shoppers will no doubt be lining up to check out the new Pokemon Day themed products, releases and anniversary merchandise, causing long queue times at Pokemon Centers.
With Pokémon Day 2026 and the 30th anniversary of its launch tomorrow, traffic to Pokémon Centers is definitely higher than on a typical weekday. The queuing system absorbs these surges rather than letting the site crash completely, but the downside is that access slows to a crawl or stops altogether. Maybe things will settle down around the broadcast and anniversary release, but for now the long wait times are just a sign of how much attention it's getting. pokemon I'm drawing from this specific 24-hour window.
