UN's weekend Pokemon Go in The Rose Bowl has been the most impressive GO Tour event so far

The Stadium Rose Bowl Pasaden in Los Angeles has hosted several quite famous events over the years. From the Olympic Games to the World Cup, the American idol and Peace Sunday, Rose Bowl has been much more than a year -old college football match. Pokemon Go Tour added another impressive event on a long list and last month returned to the venue to celebrate all things Unova. The fourth annual tour for people has seen that tens of thousands of coaches will take over the stadium and its neighboring golf course for three days of catching, trading and absurd amount of cardio.

I finally got my first Zygard Cell in Pokemon Go and I am completely amazed

18 months late for a party, I see that I did not want to be here.

The personal event preceded by the Global Go Tour, which started the following weekend, was the largest and most impressive so far. I attended Sunday and spent the whole day hunting Shinies, battles with Kyur and fought on his many complicated photographic ops. I also sat down with the marketing manager of Niantic's Actions Angela Ferguson-Martins to learn all about the work behind the scenes that goes to planning such a large event of Pokemon Go.

A larger tour of a better go

While it was the second GO Tour to Rose Bowl, after last year's Pokemon Go: Sinnoh, participants of the three -day event arrived to find more set up settings this time, with other activities and attractions that can enjoy at the Abrookside golf course, where most of the festivities took place.

This year, he will imagine the first time Niantic has built all four of his GO Habits for Go Tour. While the Hoenn event was three, this year's participants were able to explore different parts of the park that represent each of the four seasons – summer, spring, autumn and winter – in the game and in fact. When you moved from one habitat to another, the wild Pokémon would change and give players the motivation to explore the whole park.

Four seasonal forms of deerling would only appear in their corresponding habitats during the event, which was a great way to tie a seasonal theme to a real world survey.

When players traveled between each station, they discovered various activities, photographs and gifts that can participate. The first stop directly outside the stadium is a summer holiday or autumn masquerade, depending on what direction you want to go. In the summer, coaches could play various carnival games, refreshments on several different trucks or even ride a Russian bike. The autumn masquerade represented an incredible display with the theme for photos for photos, along with information and technical stand, where players could pick up bracelets and key fobs.

As the tour evolves

This division between summer and autumn was just one of several changes in the layout compared to last year's event, which also included narrowing the rear end of the game space to keep things more. Ferguson-Martins says that this year many modifications came directly from the player's feedback. “I read so many reddit thread AX comments I didn't want to read,” he says with a laugh. “It's a bit of a self -creation, but we got really great feedback that players would rather prioritize their time again and music a little bit, so that's exactly what we did.”

Ferguson-Martins says that designing layout for 2025 GO Fest was like a giant puzzle solution. Over four habitats were approaching a dozen Power Bank Stations, a moisturizing station, five toilets, various artists, celebrities and meeting characters and greeting tents, walking, walking, team lounges and more. Much is happening and must come in handy and flow together to complement the patterns of trainers' games and at the same time ensure good network coverage and continuity with experience in the game. “I swear we reorganize things like 20 times before we decide,” he says.

Each detail must be carefully considered, even small touches that may not occur to players. Ferguson-Martins says the Russian round is a great example. “We wanted to make sure that the coaches who were waiting for the Russian round were all clinging together, did not lose connectivity,” he says. “You have to think about the coach of the coach and how you get from point A to point B at the weekend.” While some Pokemon GO personal events have struggled with connection problems in the past, Niantic cooperates with local carriers such as T-Mobile and AT&T to ensure that networks can support the specific needs of any event.

So much to do, so little time

One of my favorite activities during the weekend was a number of time research tasks based on Thundurus, Landorus and Tornadus. Players got a leash about Pokémon – usually detail from his Pokedex input – then they had to find and spin the poketest with Pokemon's picture on it.

Ferguson-Martins says that this activity was inspired by side tasks in the legends: Arceus, which was looking for a Pokémon with specific characteristics. “It's fun for those fans of Trivia and people who want to get to know their Poovex a little better,” he says. “I like the idea of learning more about my Pokémon, what they like, what they don't like.” It's fun to get a little on every Pokémon. ”

I got a serious training and was looking for all those pokestops all over the place and at the same time grinding the raids for fusion energy and hunting mountains (the biggest score: Shiny Hild's Hat Pikachu). Fortunately, there were plenty of opportunities for stops on the way. One of the coolest can be found in winter caves: a cold walk through a crystal -loaded cave, accompanied by a snow machine and snowmen who wear all three team colors at the entrance.

I am also frequent stops in team lounges that were the main business nodes of the event. The host on the speaker would shout Pokémon, who were looking for players in the hope of facilitating a shop. Later in the afternoon, these lounges hosted Pokemon Trivia for exhausted coaches.

Association

Personal events like Go Tour and Go Fest are great reminders that the community is what Pokemon does so special. Back in the spring Soiree, just behind the photo Flower Garden Photo Ops for each team (never line for Team Instinct, Sorry Yellow), there was a huge community map where players could leave the PIN to represent where they traveled. While Los Angeles had the most difficult concentration of pins, in almost every country and on the continent there were a group of pegs in the world. Pokemon Go is no longer a hot new game, and many believe that it has passed its first -class, but when you are surrounded by thousands of excited players from around the world, they still feel like an incredibly strange game that is part of.

Ferguson-Martins says that capturing this feeling is about what the Go Tour is about, and this year's event is leaning into a particular type of nostalgia Pokemon. Like the current Pokemon Go, Black & White came out years after the initial Poke-Mana disappeared. As a child playing Pokémon for the first time, Ferguson-Martins felt a little isolated from other fans. “It was something I had to do for myself,” he explains. “But now I'm an adult and come here with tens of thousands of other people who also played the black and white day they released.” They also chose Oshawott as their first Pokémon partner. Something really beautiful about this nostalgia. You can't literally get it anywhere else. ”