Pokemon Go Fest hits problems as players can't get game to work, crowd boos Niantic CEO

The possibility of severe weather in Chicago didn’t dampen the vibe for Pokemon Go Fest Saturday — but problems with the game’s servers might.

The event, held in Grant Park’s Butler Field, was planned to connect players of augmented-reality cellphone game Pokemon Go. Crowds gathered early; lines to get into the festival stretched several blocks well before the event kicked off and persisted throughout the morning.

But by 11 a.m., some players at the festival were having trouble getting the game to work, and took their frustration out on officials from the game’s developer, Niantic.

Players began chanting “fix the game” during an opening presentation at the festival, and the crowd booed Niantic CEO John Hanke when he took the stage.

Niantic officials told Blue Sky the company is working with its server providers to fix issues on the back end.

Serious line issues remained through midday. As of 12:30, the line to get into the festival wrapped back and forth near Buckingham Fountain seven times and then stretched down Columbus for blocks. Some attendees getting into the festival at 12:30 said they’d been waiting two and a half hours to get in; others said four hours.

Before the troubles began, Hanke said in an interview that an event like Saturday’s has been in the works since the very conception of Pokemon Go.

“From the very beginning, from the day we conceived of Pokemon Go, we wanted to do events for it,” Hanke said shortly before gates opened at 10 a.m. “Today is something we imagined over two years ago, so it’s really awesome for us to finally be here.”

Pokemon Go “trainers,” or players, attending the festival have the opportunity to catch rare Pokemon, including a chance at catching a “legendary” Pokemon monster if certain gameplay goals are reached worldwide.

Tickets to get in to Pokemon Go Fest initially sold for $20, but were snapped up in minutes and later resold on eBay for hundreds of dollars. To keep players from participating by faking their GPS location — a prevalent way to cheat — Niantic distributed a special QR code for attendees to scan that gave them access to the festival’s perks.

Hanke said Niantic plans to keep Pokemon Go running for “many years.”

“Last summer was this incredibly weird convergence of social media and a new game and a new idea, and it just exploded,” he said. “Then it kind of came back to a normal size in terms of being a hugely successful game.”

Pokemon Go has about 65 million monthly active users, according to Niantic.

While Niantic hasn’t said how many tickets were sold, between 15,000 and 20,000 players are expected to attend Pokemon Go Fest, according to a permit application filed with the city of Chicago.

Attendees traveled from all over the country — and world — to take part in the festival Saturday. A survey of attendees found players who came from Texas, Ohio, Arizona and Germany.

“I drove two-and-a-half hours to Seattle and then took a flight straight from there to the airport in Chicago,” said Rubait Sarker, from Vancouver, British Columbia. “This has already been the single greatest gaming experience of my life. There’s like 15,000 people in this park … I’ve never seen this many people playing Pokemon Go in one place before, even at the start of the game.”

The event Saturday featured lounge areas for each Pokemon Go team, three in total. It also had photo booths where attendees could take pictures with Pokemon, along with concession and merchandise stands.