Sydney Police Officially Monitoring Pokemon GO

People were asking the question: will Pokemon GO really get people to go outside?

The answer: yes. So much so, in fact, that Sydney police have to officially monitor the situation.

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A walk, as first reported by Rae over at Gizmodo, was organised by the PAX Australia and Oz Comic-Con content manager Guy Blomberg. It started out as a small thing, with only a handful of people.

And then it stopped being a handful of people. First it was a few hundred. And then over a thousand. And then a few more thousand.

At the time of writing: around 4000. That’s the number of Pokemon GO trainers who confirmed their interest in going for a walk around Sydney. The amount of people interested is a staggering 12,000 (approximately).

Understandably, several thousand people can’t just wander around the city staring at their phones without emergency services wondering what’s up. Blomberg told me that the Royal Botanic Gardens’ Admin and Bookings Office reached out to make sure they had the right permissions.

That led to a friendly chat with local police to make sure they were on board as well — after all, the last thing anyone wants is to be stopped when you’re in the middle of catching your 4000th Zubat.

The end result: the NSW Police is now officially monitoring a Pokemon GO walk.

Nobody even knew the game was coming out when this week started. Today, it’s so popular that it’s forced state police to spend a little bit of time just to ensure good public safety. The organisers have also asked the thousands of trainers to respect the gardens and their surroundings, particularly the bits with moving cars.

And it’s all because of Pokemon. What a day.

Update: Just a small reminder from the official Facebook page for the NSW Police.