Pokemon Go Fest Chicago 2026 proves that the game is still huge even after 10 years.

Pokemon Go Fest has always been a presence in my life, just as Comic-Con and Coachella have been. It's one of those large cultural gatherings that you can't truly understand until you see 40,000 adults dressed as trainers in the morning. I found out that people are still playing Pokemon Go. I didn't know they played like this.

Grant Park has become a huge Pokémon playground

In front of Green Hearts is Pikachu from Pokémon GO. (1)

This year's Pokemon Go Fest Chicago broke attendance records, with more than 90,000 tickets sold for the Grant Park experience and more than 700,000 active players participating from across Chicago during the event weekend. Ten years after Pokemon Go first captured the public's attention, the game has returned to the city where the first Go Fest was held. Somehow, against all odds, it still feels huge.

I haven't really played Pokemon Go in years. Like most people who downloaded the game in 2016, my relationship with it eventually devolved into sporadic check-ins. I remembered for 15 minutes that I opened the app while walking, grabbed something cute while waiting for the train, and once had a keen interest in catching a shiny Bulbasaur. I thought the cultural moment had passed. It's not completely gone, but it's become soft and nostalgic, like a fidget spinner or a Vine compilation.

Then I went into Grant Park for the festival. I love Grant Park. Living in Chicago means developing a strange sense of ownership over public spaces, and Grant Park has always felt unique and peaceful to me. Located just south of Cloud Gate, dubbed 'The Bean', it is surrounded by towering downtown skyscrapers and Lake Michigan stretching next to it. It's huge, green, and usually quiet, unlike major city parks. During Go Fest, it seemed like someone had turned the park into a makeshift nation-state.

There was a giant inflatable Pikachu installation towering over the crowd, PokeStops redesigned as physical landmarks, and charging stations disguised as space set pieces. Thousands of people wandered the lawns and sidewalks, staring at their phones, occasionally cheering because someone nearby had spotted something rare. It was mayhem, but in a kind of gentle way.

The real magic of Pokémon Go wasn't the Pokémon.

In front of the green heart is Pikachu from Pokémon GO. (2)

The problem was that it had to look ridiculous. In fact, some did. Tourists passing through downtown Chicago noticeably slowed down to understand why entire crowds of people carrying battery packs and carrying Squirtle backpacks were moving in the same direction. Every few minutes you'll overhear someone explaining a raid mechanic to a confused parent or apologizing after accidentally checking someone's shoulder while trying to catch a shiny Pokémon, but the events moved strangely, somewhere between silliness and sincerity.

The clearest example was the Mega Mewtwo raid. Twice on the day I attended, once around noon and once late in the evening, thousands of players gathered in a central staging area for raid combat. More than 1,400 people participated simultaneously in the raid I ran.

Pokemon Go has triggered a special mechanic that requires players to physically hold their phones up to defeat Mewtwo. Suddenly, thousands of screens rose into the air simultaneously across the crowd. The cell phone flashlight blinked like stars. People started cheering, and even complete strangers were shouting encouragement at each other about pumping the brakes on a giant imaginary psychic cat. It was so banal yet completely magical.

There are some easy jokes to make about modern life here. Thousands of people are gathered in a park, staring at screens. Of course, that criticism isn't all that unfounded, but standing in the middle of it doesn't feel like the technological isolation we typically experience as gamers, but more of a collective imagination. Pokemon Go remains one of the few games designed around the idea that public spaces can become social spaces again.

Perhaps that's why Pokemon Go has survived while many mobile trends have died out. This game wasn't about Pokemon. Not entirely. It was about allowing people to go outside together. Ten years later, it still feels unique.