After a few days of catching up with the real world, I wanted to write up a few things about the activities over the past weekend.

I tend to overplan: Chicago Blackhawks Fest, Pokemon Go Fest, Roger Waters Concert, Hilton/Fairmont Stays and the Chicago White Sox played the other team in Chicago.

But it really worked out! The Blackhawks Convention was conveniently located a few blocks from Grant Park, where the Pokemon Go Fest was being held. That made it incredibly convenient for the family to attend. We would miss part of the Blackhawks Convention, sure, but this was the first live global event!

Over the past few weeks, I found several others would be coming to Chicago: Charles “Rock God of Podcasting” McFall, THE Terry Wolf and a surprise guest driving in from Wichita. I even had the distinct pleasure of picking up Charles and driving him into Chicago. He is an amazing person and we struck up great conversations on the way in. We even had some fun navigating the maze of East-side Chicago in pouring rain (getting to the “mareep-up” at Howells and Hood)

After we arrived, we met up with several dozen people and bonded with more members of the community. Even if the event wasn’t happening the next day, this alone would have been worth it. We all shared stories about Pokemon Go, but also about our families and friends, laughing most of the time.

We met one of the wristband winners, Zachary, and another Zarchary (Zachary prime). But the surprise was ANOTHER Zachary (Anderson) who is a very active member of Charles’ podcast community. He drove ten hours to get to Chicago!

Pictured: Zach Prime, Zach from Wichita and Zach the Wristband winner.

After several hours, we departed to get some sleep for the next day…

… which ended up being one of the stranger events I’ve attended. Charles met up with us for breakfast and we headed down to Grant Park. Most people were lining up early with a 10:00 (CDT) opening time. People who went to specific Sprint stores at special times were able to get an “early access” wristband allowing access starting at 09:00.

I didn’t have these initially, but a delay in Charles’ flight allowed me to try and get to one of these stores. Fortuitously, a space opened up right in front of the Sprint store just as I was pulling up! I was able to get bands for our group (and two for Terry and his daughter).

Back to Grant Park: lines! Around the block. And another block. In two directions from the entrance. We discovered one was for general admittance at 10:00 and the other for 09:00. Both had thousands of people. We headed to the back of the early entrance line (I would say we got there sometime after 08:30). The line started moving at 09:00 and moved relatively quickly and we were in a bit after 09:30.

I won’t get into all the details of entering/scanning/starting here, but generally speaking we were in and ready to start capturing Pokemon and enjoying the day.

What you probably have heard elsewhere was the number of network and server issues that occurred throughout the day. I won’t get into all of the details of that either, other than to say with T-Mobile, I was able to connect a bit more than others.

As frustrating as this was, it also gave us time to talk and hang with other members of the community. When the game was inaccessible, we chatted with each other, walked around and explored. What started out with rain very early in the morning turned into a gorgeous day. The weather was warm, but not too hot, especially for late July in Chicago.

By the afternoon, Niantic gave updates and eventually agreed to do refunds and we were able to start to get into some raids. For some of us, we were able to start raiding. This worked probably 50% of the time, but it really lifted our spirits. Pockets of time were spent playing the game and the network/server issues would be temporarily forgotten.

Around 16:30, Niantic announced that all goals had been met and that they would start releasing legendaries. All in all, we ended up receiving every option that we could have earned. It’s quite likely that we got a lot more than they were planning, but Niantic realized anything less could be disastrous to their image.

Charles suggested we head back and grab some dinner before his flight: good idea! So we walked back to the hotel area and settled in before he realized he should head back to the airport. Zachary from Wichita joined us for tapas. After dinner he headed back to Grant Park to see what was happening and we headed back to the hotel.

Soon after, Zach texted me to let me know that legendaries were now appearing in raids! We went down and there were hundreds and hundreds of people streaming all over Michigan Avenue in Chicago. A couple passed us screaming “Articuno was just spotted around the corner!” We followed and saw several hundred trainers between the Hilton and the theatre across the street. Game ON! I haven’t seen this level of intensity and interest since the game debuted last year.

Very quickly groups of twenty trainers would get into a group and battle the legendary bird of Mystic. It had a CP in the high 30,000s and took a concerted effort to defeat it. Shouts of joy were heard as it was defeated. Could we capture it? We did! Our first legendary raid was a success.

Soon we heard word that Lugia was down the street. Could we get one now? Niantic said we would get one in our accounts, but in a raid?ua

Sho ‘nuff, there was a Lugia raid on Michigan Avenue! The Lugia had a CP of over 42,000! Could we do it again? Look at the size of this thing!

It’s thrilling to see how all the Pokemon look during the battles, but this looked daunting. Fortunately with the legendaries, you get 300 seconds instead of 180. Each second is precious and needed when fighting against these behemoths. It went down to the wire… success! We defeated and captured Lugia. My heart was pounding and everyone around the area was happy.

This is the magic of Pokemon Go: to be with thousands of people bonded together in spirited gameplay.

People played quite late into the night. Even the next morning, dozens of people were out at day break and by mid-day, the streets were again filled with hundreds of players. Raids were everywhere and people within a two-mile radius of Grant Park could enjoy the spoils of Pokemon Go Fest.

We did find out later that capture rates and flee rates were set to make the legendaries easily catchable. That seems reasonable: after all the challenges of the event, to see a legendary and not catch it would be heart breaking. Good call on their part.

To sum up the weekend (and to quote Charles) this was “an experience that will last forever.” The community around Pokemon Go is unique. Thank you so much to Niantic, Nintendo, Charles, Zach (x3), Terry, Joe Ard, Brian Ibbott, dozens of others (I’m bad with names, sorry) and of course my family.

Here’s hoping for Pokemon Go Fest Chicago 2018!*

* w/better cel coverage and servers :)