Chicago Pokémon GO Fest Recap

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Quote Truck Insurance today in as little as eight minutes@progressivecommercial.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates foreign. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the 724th episode of the Pokemon podcast. It's super effective. And the how. What? Oh, I didn't prep 374. Okay. Yeah. Gave us an extra two. Episode 372 of the Gocast podcast. Yeah. There we go. We're. We're together again at a Go event. I'm your host, Steve. With me is. I'm Chris and we got Austin here. Hello. I'm here. Kyle's also here. Hi. Hey. We're getting really good at this dual host. Too bad we're doing this show in a new podcast studio. We did the one in la. This one's tight. This one's very nice. Yeah, very nice. Look at high praise already. We're trying to. We're trying to get a discount if we gas them up. We're under a minute already. This is great. Perfect. So this episode is being focused on Go Fest. We just did the morning session of Go Fest and then all City play was yesterday. Yep. So we are in a time limit today. So we won't have three segments, we'll have two segments and then after credits, we'll do our Patreon bonus, which will be free on both of our feeds because it has to be free when it's a share. You're welcome again. If you know Chris is here, then it's free. That's right. That's why we love you, Chris. We really like you around here. You're bringing so much value to the patron. Good. Whatever it takes. You know, I'll take Any points I can get. So pretty much all go fest. I know there was some LEGO news, but you guys didn't seem too interested. I mean, I'm interested to hear what it was. I don't know anything about it. Oh, okay. We can delay the go stuff. We can sure. Go right, right. Where we're at right now is we understand that there are LEGO sets and people were upset about the price, but we've seen all the counter arguments that per brick, it's actually not so bad. Yes. Other than that. Well, I'm not like a huge. Are you. Are you like. I'm not really a LEGO guy. Well, this doesn't. I mean, I like lego. I used to build them all the time as a kid, but I'm not an adult collector. See. I'm sorry. No, no, no. They just announced a bunch of new sets. So like Gengar, Cubone, Jolteon, Charizard, Mewtwo, Bulbasaur, B Doof is a set. Oh, wow. Okay. I, I think as a non LEGO guy, but a big Pokemon guy. Right. I think they look okay. I think there was, there was the, you know, people didn't like the Venusaur Blastoise Charizard kind of thing. Yeah, sure. It was the, was the complaint that people don't like what the small, like the small ones look like. Do people like. I think the complaint was the, the first set of Legos looked ugly compared to Mega Block stuff. Oh, yeah, okay, fair enough. Which is the first time in history anyways, ever said that the, the Legos looked worse than Mega Block. Yes. And I will say that as somebody who owns several Mega Block sets, I'm just saying there's a stigma. That's unfair. I think two Mega Blocks, but people tend to think that LEGO is like wall just because it costs more. And that might be true to a degree, but doesn't mean the sets look as good. You know, I don't know if I've ever built a Mega Block, but I've sure built legos. Okay. So I guess I can't compare, but I do, I think some of the new ones do look good. The Mewtwo one's pretty cool. It comes with like the tube. Yeah. Yeah. So that one's all. Well, they're the. Also the, the ones that like light up and interact with each other. Yeah, that's the smart brick. Did you hear they like. I saw like a tick tock of them showing off. Like the sounds. They sound nothing like the Pokemon. Nothing at all. Is that good or bad? I don't know. I mean, it's fine. Charmander. Yeah, like, okay. I don't know. No, they like went with the in game cries, but it's like pitched weirdly, I think, but I mean, whatever. Interesting. You gotta be careful with that because some of the gen ones are the same cry but at different pitches. Yeah. Like Ryehorn and Charizard. I think I knew you. Yeah. That's why I had you here. Because I knew you would say. I knew you would set you up. That's why I got the double pillow man with the plan. But I will say, Austin, if you've never built Mega blocks, but you have built Lego. Okay. Okay. Functionally the same. Just there. Maybe their designs and the quality of the designs are, you know, when you open up a pack of Pokemon cards from another country that has a different fidelity and you can tell, and you can tell it's very similar to that sort of thing. Okay. I have built the Pokemon Nano blocks. I was gonna say those are not good. They're too small. Those feel like party favors. Yeah, a little bit, you know? Yeah, yeah. But I think they look good. I think the banana. No, no, the Lego. The Lego Pokemon. I keep seeing the pick, the ads for the Gengar and I'm like, I want it. They have. Well, that one's sold out. I know, I know it's sold out. I don't even need to look at it. I know it's sold out. And I'm just like, one day, maybe. Okay, wait. Before we get to the Pokemon go stuff, we gotta delay it as much as possible. Great. Did you guys go to the Field Museum for the Pokemon event? We went around the museum, but we haven't been inside for the actual exhibit. We are going tomorrow. We technically have tickets for tomorrow. Oh, you do? Yeah. Mine is on Monday. Oh, I have not been inside either. Okay, well, let me spoil it for you. Okay. They have the Eevee and Pikachu and Charizard, Venusaur Blastoise Legos in the gift shop. Oh. Oh, okay. Really? Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So the, the. I did. I got a. I was invited. Not by Pokemon, but he had an extra ticket. Okay. Okay. They're like, steve, would you like to use my ticket? I was like, that's so nice of you. Yes. So I went, Had a great time. So I would say this was. Somebody asked me in my DMs, they were like, is it worth a flight for the fossil museum? And I said, no, I don't think it's worth a flight. Like, if you were. If you're like, hey, I'm making a whole weekend out of Chicago. I'm going to Giordano's. I'm going to get. I'm going to get a Chicago dog. I'm going to go to the. The sea, Lake Michigan. I'm going to rent a bike. I'm going to go on that giant tea party bus that we. That we should do. Should do. Yeah, I, I would say yes, but if your only goal is like, hey, I'm going to fly here and go to the museum, I don't think it's. I think it's good. And I went to the one in Japan. It's exactly the same, except it was curated differently. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I will say the field though. Yeah. In general, I could spend an entire day in there. Yeah, I almost. Yeah, I spent like after we honestly probably in the Pokemon thing for maybe a half hour, 45 minutes and that was like trying to read everything and. Yeah. And then you can't go into the gift shop until you finish. That's probably a good thing. Yeah, they. They give you an ArchaeOps TCG card. Okay. Which is cool. So you get that right when you walk in. And then when you finish the whole museum, which again is pretty small and short. Also, I kind of feel robbed. I didn't think about this in the Japan one. Again, it's the same, but there's not that many fossil Pokemon. No, no. But there doesn't have to be for an exhibit like that where they're huge. So. So like Omanite and Omastar are there. Spoilers. Kabuto. Kabutop's there. I'd be mad if they weren't in. I'm starting Amoris there. Yeah, no, Amora. Oh, whoa. Okay. Like, okay. But there is a tyrant though. Pretty sure Tyront and Tyrantrum are there. What do they have Tyrantrum next to Sue? Sue's bakehead. Gotcha. Oh, okay. So Sue's real head is in the sue exhibit. Cuz it's in the glass. Right. And then. So sue has like two fake heads. Yes, yes. They've gone through many iterations of sue, unfortunately. Well, it's not unfortunate. I mean, it's a requirement. Okay. I think it's spectacular they're able to make so many casts from it. And that whole. Yeah, that's the correct word. I don't mean to offend anyone. When I say fake, I just forgot. The word is cast. Their casts. Yeah, they're real. Cast from the real archaeology community will be up in arms in the comments. I'M sure somebody every week. I don't mean to offend. Whose turn is it? This? I think sue is sick. Sue is awesome. So wait. Correct. Sue is the most complete a T. Rex fossil. Correct. Okay, cool. That's awesome. And that is the real, like it's not the whole thing. The real skull and body of. That's awesome. Yeah. I can't wait to see that. Yeah. And then they cast the rest of it around it, but. Yes, but it's the most complete. Sure. Yeah. So like Sue's skull is encased in that like fresh air glass thing. So. Yeah. Deteriorate. Yep. And it doesn't cost any other extra. Like when you get the fossil museum, take it. Mm. Then you can go into the real museum. I think I bought two fossil museum tickets for different times on accident, so I might be able to go twice. That would be awesome. They're both on the same day, just different hours. Oh, they're really strict about like, you go in at the time, you're okay. Awesome. Yeah. They don't even want you lining up until. That's actually good too, I think. Yeah. So anyways, you finish the fossil museum and then you get your ticket to the gift shop. Okay. The gift shop was like underwhelming. Well, I mean, like missing like shield on and missing a Morris. Like you only have so many fossil Pokemon. Just you got to get them all. But that's like, again, everything was imported from Japan, so it's not like there's nothing new here that wasn't toured in Japan. So I don't think people would be like, oh my gosh. Although I think a Morris is cool. Like, where's a Morris? Yeah. Okay. Just. Just to close the. The topic or of like, will people show up just for that sort of thing? Is it worth it? I mean, even if you're only coming in for a day and you go to the fossil museum and the field museum, the. The shed aquarium is right there. The planetarium is not too far. A lot of the most interesting places to visit as a tourist. Yes. Right next to each other. So as somebody who lives pretty close to the city, I would like to advocate for it. You could make a day trip out of it, but a flight for one day is pretty expensive. Yeah, Like I said, I guess. Yeah. I think Go Fest plus museum is a good combo museum with the. Absolutely. Yes. Great combo. I mean, Go Fest is enough, I think. Yeah, do that. It's right there. It's right there. It's a 20 minute walk. So you get to the End. They give you the. They give you the voucher to go into the museum, or, sorry, the gift shop. And the gift shop is a little underwhelming just because they were already out of stuff. Yeah, that's what I heard. And they were restocking throughout the, like, 10 minutes I was in the gift shop. So they came out and they restocked, like, five large hoodies, and instantly everyone grabbed one. Yeah. Of course I was like, I don't know when they're going to bring out another five large hoodies, but now they're bringing out five extra large hoodies. So, like, a girl, like, I grabbed a large. I normally wear a medium, but I was like, ah, whatever, it's a hoodie. And then the smaller girl next to me grabbed a large and she was like, I don't even care. I just want this good honor, though. Yeah. Honestly. So you're only allowed five items, but if you were to grab the Lego Pikachu, see, it comes full circle. That counts as one of the five, even though it's not exclusive to the museum. Interesting. So, yeah, only five items. They had plenty of the Pikachu keychains, which is exclusive to the museum. They did have plenty of the Pikachu plushes, which I think you can still get on pokemoncenter.com they had not all the keychains, not all the stickers, not all the hoodies. So. And then there's like a tote bag that you would ideally put your stuff in because there's a Tyrantrum on it or whatever, but that counts as one of the five. Oh, my God. I'm not buying that. I mean, I don't know if. If all I got was the Excavator Pikachu plushie, I'd be happy. Yeah, I was. Also, it's one of each. So even if it was like, well, I just want two Pikachu keychains. Yeah, you can't do that. Gotcha. Yeah. This sounds frustrating, but I think it's for the best. I agree. I think we had this conversation. I think Worlds should do something like that, too. Yeah. Not even for, like, the general public for Worlds, but when they do the creator preview, and I have no clue if they're doing that this year, I always felt like maybe the creator should only get, like, five or ten things, and if they wanted something more, maybe they should wait in line. Yeah. Like everyone else. Because it did. I thought it felt dirty. Gross. To see, like, a creator come out and be like, I bought one of everything. And then somebody who's been waiting in line for three hours. They're like, oh, I. All I wanted was a hoodie. And they. They were sold out. And that feels bad. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Part of the privilege of going in early is that you get to cover the content of, like, the. Everything that's in there. Yeah. I think saying, okay, you guys are here, might as well grab one or two things. Sure. But no armfuls of stuff. Yeah. You know, one bag full or something like that. Every year. Every year for. Because I have the privilege to go in early. Yeah. And every year I've stood in line with friends and that experience is kind of miserable. And I know they're trying to make it better and there's a lot of moving parts, but. Yeah, like, there's such a difference of, like, the privilege of going in early, getting a bunch of stuff, and then I would encourage people to, like, hey, stand in line and like, see how this actually feels. It doesn't feel great. Yeah. No. Nope. Any I see my first time I stood in that line and I just jumped in with another group. That was not great. It was cool. Like, I love the setups, though, at those Pokemon centers, like at Naic and stuff. I haven't been dual worlds, but those. Those setups are beautiful. It was really cool. Cause they had a whole, like, CD display of, like, records and like, they, like, made like a whole cafe type thing, restaurant thing there. It was really fun. Cool. I like the layout of it. Yeah, there's like, photo opportunities in. In the shop. That's pretty cool. I went to the Poke park store in Japan. We'll talk about this on our Patreon thing. But they also, again, photo opportunities in the store. Yeah, I think that's just like a Pokemon thing. I thought the 100 Thieves thing that also had photo opportunities. Yeah, I did. It had that really cool neon Go Chicago, Go Fest. Yeah, that was really cool. Yep. Are you gonna go out to New City for. Yeah, probably. I haven't made it out there yet, but I would like to. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yeah, Pop over there. It's neat. Yeah. Yeah. They have, like, every shirt from, like, pretty much every event. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. Now my shirts aren't worth anything anymore. I don't feel special. Put them right next to my ancient muse. That would go up in value. I only got a shiny from La Tour shiny shirt, so I'm. I'm sad they didn't have any shiny shirts available. A shiny shirt. Yeah. You just die at home. This green styrene also was like, what do you mean shiny? He really threw me off. I was good. You were so earnest. I was like kind of into it. We never talked and about anything where you've been like, I can't tell if he's serious or not. Oh, all the time. All the time. That's what I wanted. Okay. Pokemon Go Fest. Yeah, I guess. Well, well, I went to Chicago. I went to Japan, so this is my second one. I have thoughts about that. But again, we'll save the Japan stuff for the Patreon bonus. We did city play yesterday and we all had morning session. I need to disclose. Oh, yeah, me too. I need to disclose that Niantic paid for my flight and my hotel and my ticket. Yeah, Niantic paid for my ticket. Niantic also paid for my ticket. Austin, did Niantic pay for your ticket? So Niantic, if you'd like to hit me. Up, up. Happy to invoice you. Yeah. You're like, I got it. You know? So the only opinion that matters is going to be awesome. Absolutely. And let me say the best part was the air conditioned car ride here. We're starting off strong. No, it was fun though. I had a good time. I did have a good time. I had two hours of meet and greets. So shout out to everyone who said hi to me at the meet and greet. That was very nice and everyone was really nice, but you guys had like the full four hours. So how was. Do we want to start with city player? We want to start with the park. The park's fresh when we do. The park. Yeah, the park. Yeah. Plus we all were at the park together, so. Yeah, that's cool. Just to kick it off, it was supposed to rain a lot, but it only rained a little, so I was expecting a lot more rain. Yeah. So I just want to say up front, whoever was in charge of that decision, Niantic, thanks. Niantic. How dare you make it rain. No, no, no, no, no. They. They could have been worse. No. Thanks for holding back the rain. That's right. Yeah. That was great. It was great. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to co. To go to this go Fest and not compare it to the last time it was in Grant Park. And I. You can see little things around the park that indicate that somebody still works there and or remembers how that was because there's in the team Rocket hideout area, it's like a recessed like almost retention area. And that when it rained then the 2019. Yeah, 2019 was a mud Pit. An absolute mud pit. People were slipping slide. It was awful. And they laid out some plastic walking paths this time. Okay, well, that's like really like a full one. So it's not like even a short distance. It like will cover until you get to the very. Walking down a hill on plastic? No, like, it's like steps down, like down steps down and then flat. But the flat area at the entrance is like all mud. There's no grass left at all, so. Well, it's not mud right now. It's dirt. Sorry. Be realistic about this to a degree. But there was an attempt made, you know, and I think it was pretty successful. Again, we didn't have a lot of rain, so. Did they have food trucks back in the team? They did. There was food trucks, but I don't think they were with Team Rock. It was like in the in between area. Between the fountain and rocket. Yes. Okay. Because in 2019, they were back of Team Rocket, back of the mud pit. You had to like walk through mud to get like. There's like a street that they have blocked off for the event, and it's. It's. They're parked on that through street. Right. Oh, okay. Right. But I don't think they had food options on the other side of the park. I think it was just the one street. Yeah, it was just the one. There's one on both sides of the fountain. But the one on the north side of the fountain didn't have food trucks, at least not this morning. Oh. But they were doing some, like cutting down some trees or something during the event. So maybe that was why there's a crazy truck. Yeah. I did not make it out to the team Rocket. That's where your mewtwo. Yeah, my Mewtwo Ray was there. And then I had to run all the way back. Oh, my gosh. Just. Thank God it wasn't the year we were in Lincoln Park. You'd be still running to find us. Probably. Oh, yeah. The only other Go Fest I went to, I can't remember the exact name of the location, but the New York 2023, I think it was. Oh, yeah. Randall's Island. Yes. Yep. That was the one. That was the only other one I've been to. And I actually. I do like the layout of this one better. Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh, because you. Yeah, you skipped the New Jersey one. I did skip. We tried to sucker you into that. Couldn't get there. But I made it to this one. But no, because in Randall's island, there was like places that you couldn't turn back around and walk the other way. They wouldn't let you. Yes. And so if you, like, forgot something or realized you had to do something else, you. You weren't allowed to go back. You had to walk all the way around. Yeah. Yeah. This one's not bad. You just go wherever you want. Yeah. And it really wasn't like stem to stern. Wasn't super long. If you had to do. I mean, you had to. And running is a lot, but if you had to take. If you could take your time. Yeah, it wasn't super. I do think that's the first time I've ran In over 10 years, if I'm being honest. And we're very grateful. You're just so excited for the. I had to go. No, but literally we were standing there by the. By the big Pikachu after our mewtwo are done, and the first time I turn around, go, where's Austin? You're just running. It was great. It was great. Carry my bag. I got everything. I'm running along. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was interesting that the stage that they booed a John hankey on in 2017 looked like a zombie apocalypse. No, I didn't know that was the same. That concrete stage is the water ball. I don't understand why they didn't do anything with that. I do. Come on. And that's fair. I think that's fair. I think they should have put a John Hanky Sandy up there. They should have put the Eevee meet and grease up there. Who's going to throw a water bottle at Eevee? Wait, are there me there? Are there? Yeah, I did see walking around. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Got them. More like in the middle of the park in a particular tent, if I remember correctly. I didn't. I don't know where they were moving, but. Yeah, yeah, they were moving. Yep. No, the park. The park seems great. They had the. The inflatables. I saw Jigglypuff. I saw the birds. Jigglypuff had a giant line and Piplup was right next to it. No line. How do they. I know. And Piplup is so small compared to Jigglypuff too. Maybe that's why it was also a syndico. We can't forget. We got Chris's sending a cool picture. We did. Yeah, I got my send picture. No, I think. I think the park looks great. Yeah, the park was great. Even with a little bit of rain, the grassy area wasn't super bad. It's. Well, tread. Let's just say, you know, which in this. In this instance is a benefit. Wait, did you guys go to the first Go Fest? Yeah, I was. I was there. You did. I did not. Yeah. Okay. And before our show, before you started. Yeah. I wanted. As a. I went as a player with no interest in making a show. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Because there were a lot of other Pokemon Go podcasts at the time. Yes, there were. I don't know how many of them exist nowadays. Hey. All right. I do. How much time you got? I don't know. What was the new season called? Forward thinking. Forever Forward. Forever Forward. Forever. Thanking this guy. He doesn't even play Go Forever thinking about how we can raise the prices of this game. No, I still stand by. I think the first Go Fest was kind of awesome. Well, Chris remembers it finally, because he almost got sun poisoning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's not. That's Niantic's fault, too. It is. I held John Hankey personally responsible for my son poisoning. Thank you. There was. There was a. There was like a huge wave of memories coming back to Grant park because I. I don't even live an hour away anymore. I used to live in Milwaukee. Yeah. And I could just come to Chicago pretty much anytime I wanted to. Yeah. Now I'm in Minneapolis. But, like, walking Michigan Ave. And thinking, oh, man, like, 10 years or not 10 years ago, nine years ago, I was catching unknown for the first time and there were no shinies in the game and everyone was having a good time. Yeah. And our ticket was refunded and they gave us $100 and. And Lugia. And they left it running for 48 hours. So even at, like, 3am in the streets of Chicago, you could just be playing. And it was great. And I kind of feel a little bit bummed that the event ends at six o' clock every day. Yeah. Because it doesn't get dark until, what, 8, 45, 9. Almost 9. I agree. And in Japan. I sound very pretentious when I say that in Japan it was from 10am to 8pm Yep. And Japan got dark at six every night, so they definitely were playing in the dark. I mean, there's a big cultural difference, you know, I mean, this was the first time I played in the dark in Japan. Otherwise, they were wrapping up at 6. Yeah. But I just feel like they have more leeway with that sort of thing. I feel like the idea of asking somebody in Chicago to play after dark could lead to some sort of liability issue. Maybe because you're implying. Hey. That it's appropriate to play during the night, but. It does. But even if they went till 8, it's not dark yet. I mean, you're, you're right. It's just, it's just late on paper, you know, but like at the same time, it's not dark at 8. But if someone plays till 8 now, they have to get back to wherever they're staying after 8. So I can, I can see. I can see why it may have the bad optics. All right. Maybe we watch a little too much Fox News, I don't think. No, no, no, no. Not quite like that. Yeah, well, look, some people have. Some people have airbnbs that are not right across the street from. No, I. No, I get it. I get it. I just, I really liked the, the ten to morning. Like, I think nine is really as. I think nine is early. I. I agree. Especially if you want to get anything. Especially if you just want to get breakfast. Yeah. It took an hour to get breakfast. We didn't eat breakfast. It'd be skipped. All of our options on the way that we wanted to check were too long. Yeah, it was, it was an hour for me to just get a bagel. Yep. And I took one bite. My chest hurt. And I was like, well, see, I picked up like some banana bread last night for the morning. I planned. That's not the true Chicago experience. Sorry. I planned ahead. But I thought, I thought, I thought in Japan, 10 to 2 was great. And then there was a two hour intermission, which I'm assuming it was that long just because Japan was on Odaiba, which is kind of like an island, and they wanted people to transport on and off that island. And then it was four to eight for the second part. And I don't know, kind of playing at night is kind of cool. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, that was our big takeaway from Mega Knight too. Yeah. Is that on paper? Not super great. I mean, the DJ set was awesome, but other than that, the draw was literally just at night. And I. Before we, before we go to break, I already raised my phone multiple times for me to. How did you guys feel about raising your phone? The unity raids. We were on the outskirts of the big crowd. I think it would have felt cooler in the middle of the crowd. I thought it's cool, like seeing everyone. I thought. Yeah, I thought seeing it was cooler than doing it. I was disappointed that I didn't see more people spike their phones into the ground for the slammed down part. Oh, a lot of people, they were just like, I Think it's only this. Well, yeah. At least do this. Come on. Oh, I was. I was. I was doing. Yeah, I was slamming, dude. I think it's cool to see a big group of people working on a big raid together, but to see an action, like, an actual action being done is really cool too, so I thought that was fun to see. It's fun. Did your guys's flash go off? Oh, no, I don't. If it did, I didn't know. I think it's because you guys were playing during the day. Oh, wait. When I played at night, like, people's phone flashes would go off when they lowered the phone. So you would see all these flashes when everyone was lowering, and that was sick. Oh, that's pretty cool, actually. Oh. I don't remember giving Niantic access to my camera flash. It was kind of cool. No, this is the terms of service from 2017, man. I. I actually liked raising the phone and lowering the phone. I know, like, theoretically, you don't have to do it. Like, you'll still get the mewtwo at the end. Yeah, I don't. I think they're. They're asking for one too many rises. When you, like, catch it and then they want you to raise it one more time, I was like, okay, now we're going a little too far. The last rise was a lot. No, I was. I was mid run during my second raid, and I was, like, trying to run and raise my hand at the same time, and I probably looked ridiculous running through the crowd with my phone. Okay. I see plenty of people online complaining. We're all here staring at our phones, playing Pokemon Go. You have given up the dignity of thinking you feel ridiculous. True. That is true. No, I like. I like raising the phone, complaining that I look ridiculous. We're all here doing all day. I thought it was neat. Like, it felt like we were all doing it together. Yeah. I think it accomplished its goal. Yes. I just. Just. I was just disappointed. I thought more people were gonna be like, I'm glad it wasn't like, the ninja at New Year's Eve. I'm not seeing enough movement when he was flossing. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. That could have been bad. That's what the stage could have been for, John. Yeah, I'm not seeing enough movement. I would love. I would like to see more phones in the air, please. Speaking of movement, we're gonna move to a break. All right. And then when we come back, we will talk about City Play and just general. More. More general. Thoughts about Go Fest this weekend, so we will be right back. Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one motorcycle insurer. Did you know? Writers who switch and save with Progressive save nearly $200 per year. That's a whole new pair of writing gloves and more. Quote Today Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $197 by new customers surveyed who save with Progressive between October 2024 and September 2025. Potential savings will vary. Ever wonder who's out there making the world go round? It's truckers. Who unites baristas with coffee beans? Truckers. Who unites dogs with their favorite chew toy? Truckers. That's why Progressive offers truckers even more protection with cargo plus coverage to keep truckers moving right along. 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Some great, some not so great, like when a client cancels their order at the last minute. But here's a surprise you will like. Progressive provides small business owners with 30 customizable coverage options to help keep their business going strong. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes@progressive commercial.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates and third party insurers. Coverage is not available in all states or for all vehicles and coverage selections. And we are back from our break. Where do you. Where do you want to start? Chris, you want to start with spawns the city play so much power here. The the. The money. I want to start with talking about how fantastic Buckingham Fountain is. I'm kidding. What do you mean? It's a nice fountain. It is fantastic. It's a great. I'm not. I Wasn't joking. Just wasn't an answer you were looking for. Okay. I am glad it's not a dead zone this year, though. That's really good. It was it in 2019, you couldn't get spawns. It was supposed to be spawns, but you couldn't get them. Oh, I don't remember that night. I don't. I remember meeting Real breaking Nate for the first time at that fountain in 2019. And he said, I'm such a big fan of your. Of what you do. And I said, I don't know who you are. No way. Please. And he was like. He's like, oh, that's okay. That's okay. And of course, he's like this huge YouTuber. Yeah. Yeah. That is so sweet, though. Yeah, that's really fun. Yeah. No, I love Nate. He's. He's amazing. Yeah. I would say, actually, though, really. Let's talk about the research. The Zara or just in general? No, the park research. Oh, okay. Sure, sure, sure. Because this is always a point of. Of interest. So what we had found, actually. Awesome. At the fur, the set of all of us. I believe you said you got to six of eight. Yes. So I'm at six of eight of Zariora. I'm also at six of eight. Okay. I think I'm at five. Well, did. Yeah, I did do that. Two kilometer one. Yeah. The only one that was really zone specific or park specific was the first one. No, two. Two of eight, because it's 10 of each in every zone. Number one is a gimme. Oh. So, yeah, number two. Correct. Two of eight. We had to catch 10 of each in each zone. Yeah, I messed that up in Japan. Don't. Did you? Yeah. Oh, geez. Well, it was pretty close. All the zones, again, were pretty close. Not in Japan. I imagine that's why this park is great. Yeah. But it seemed pretty doable, and it seemed pretty well balanced to respect. Like, some people want to walk and other people want to walk, you know, and giving a path to success for both of those types of trainers is cool. Kyle, go ahead, look. Okay. I'm one of the ones who wants to walk, but also I'm here to socialize. So I had a lot of. A lot of people stopping. A lot of groups stopping, and I'm like, I got 2 km. I still need to walk. But I have been brought back to Earth because after you complete step two, you can just do all of the rest of it over the course of the weekend. Nothing else is zone locked. So all of my Complaints are kind of null and void at that point. I'm slightly annoyed that there's two.2 kilometer walking steps separated by one thing. So if you want to complete it at the park, you kind of have to hoof it just a little bit to get that done in your four hours. I know for sure. If you don't do it and the event is over, it'll transform into something easier. Yeah, eventually, you know, in, like, two weeks. Your disclosure is, like, nice. It gave us tickets. And so technically, we can go to the park in the morning every day if we wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. But in Japan. In Japan and here, I don't. Like, we have that privilege to go back the next day and be like, oh, I want to finish this. Yeah. So if I'm. If I'm not. If I'm a normal person and I didn't do it this morning, Austin. Hey, if I didn't do, like, step two, which is catch 10 in each area. Yeah. Do. Am I just stuck for the whole weekend because those spots do not exist for you. Yeah, you are. I am unsure if that research is doable for the rest of the weekend or if it's only during your park play and then it changes. Yes. Because if that's the case, then people that have a regular ticket that we played this morning, it would have already transformed. Transformed. They have to manually change that every single year that it happens. Everyone's like, here's the new update. Look at all the new tasks. And it's like, 10 days later or something. Yeah, it is. It does not change. Like. Yeah, but the point. I don't know. But the point I'm making is I think we probably have an. We have more time to do it before it. Like. Yeah. Even it's problematic. Yeah. Like, I didn't. I'm still on step two. Like, I didn't. You are? Oh, I was just about to ask who didn't at least finish step two. I didn't. Yeah. To be fair, you were busy. Yeah, they had me locked in the cage. Yeah. Good. All right. Can we talk about spawns? How does people. How do people feel about spawns? Do you feel okay? I was stoked to see mud bray. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think the spawns are good. Yeah. I think that I. I think they're kind of some of the best. Some of the best? Yeah. I think they're fine. What do you delmise? Mudbray varun. Those are pretty good. Porcelain. That's pretty good. But do you remember a time when you were excited for Every spawn. No, I don't remember that time. Oh, really? Okay. Which is a very hard ask. I understand that. But we were literally having this conversation. Was it last night? Yeah. How did you present it? I don't recall that. I just. You're like. Do you feel like it's not the same anymore? Like a magic well? No, I was talking about because of how much city play. Yeah. Spreading it out and then spreading everything out. Right, right. Are you. Are you guys forgetting, like, every year where they're like, here's a bunch of starters, and some of the starters can't be shiny? No, I agree. Okay. I do think the spawns are, like. They're like, 90% great. Like, actually, it's a great pool. But I feel like I didn't know exactly what I was getting into, even with what they showed. I like that they kept some secrets. I. I think that we're biased because we get to experience all of it. For somebody who's coming and traveling and doesn't know what to expect, not knowing what to expect is probably far more stressful. But I think if you're planning to travel here, you should look into it. No, not me. I got to Japan, and I was like, I don't know what's going on. But, like, even. But you've done it before. Yeah. Yeah. I knew. I knew I would be okay. Yeah. I don't know. It. Yeah. It did just seem like it was a bit difficult to target and show up for a particular reason. And it sort of then lent itself to sort of general play. Like, okay, just keep moving. Keep playing. Look for more spawns, and you'll probably find what you're looking for. But, yeah, I don't know. I said there were five specific spawns. I'm sure everybody wanted the four you just listed and wrote them. Yeah. Yeah. So those are all great and always great to see, but not. Not. Not a lot of them. Like, I have not seen a lot of dhelmis. I'm trying so hard. I want the shiny dumbass. Yeah. Yeah. So bad. How do we feel about all the unknown being out? I think that's fun. It is cool. It's all right. It's all right. I mean, it takes away. I. I think the. The time between the regular spawns and the U.N. i think they take up too much time because then there's, like, a little bit of time where there's, like, not anything going on. Yeah. There was some dead. Yeah. Yeah. I. I think they're. It's great. The unknowns are great. As long as going forward, they actually have to treat it differently now because doing this where they all spawn all the time, it's not going to be very interesting to show up at an event worth three unknown are spawning or five unknown spawning. Pretty sure there is an event coming soon that only has three unknown spawning. I can't they spell something. I don't remember what it is. That's not going to be that interesting anymore. I think. No, I think like I, I'm in, I'm in a position where I. I've had every unknown for a long time. Yeah. And I think for a lot of people Q was hard to get and explanation part was hard to get and question mark was hard to get. And I'm to the point now where I have every shiny except I'm missing F. And I think F debuted in the raids and I was like, I'm not paying a dollar unknown. I'm just not. So before I went to Japan, I was only missing shiny F and shiny Q and getting shiny Q was whoa. Like I can't believe. Yeah. Because shiny Q and shiny F are I think the rarest ones right now. Yeah. But when I was. Was it Germany? I think because I was with my friend Tone, I had so many question marks. Please our friend. Our friend, please. We love you Tone. And I had all the question marks from the Lincoln park unknown when they debuted quite. It was Celebi question mark. Yeah. Was that then? Yeah, it was, it was celeb question mark. Well, the first, the first one was just Chicago. My memory is so bad. I don't know. The question mark wasn't available for a while. Right. And then. Yeah, it wasn't available for like six years. Oh, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't realize that at the time when I was in Germany for that go fest which was like four years ago, everyone wanted question marks. So I got like literally any Pokemon. I wanted like shiny Luffy, Pikachu, Shiny Umbreon had Pikachu. And I was. And it got so like I became like unknown famous in Germany because somebody on Twitter was like, this guy has question mark unknowns. So I would just be walking around in Germany and people would be like, are you the unknown guy? I'll give you anything for a question mark is a non shiny question mark. Yeah. A non shiny question. Wow. Yeah. But I, I do think because so many people don't travel and so many people are scared to trade, I think there's a lot of people that are just missing the Alphabet. No I absolutely agree. So I think they can do all of them now. And then in the future, do like, okay, here's Pokemon 20. And, like, I think people would still be excited. Also, there's no letters. I don't know why I said Pokemon 20. We. Awesome. We had a. There's no numbers. They can introduce them. We had a conversation about how Kyle was saying that it was kind of a bummer to have the whole amount because if you're trying to target, it kind of sucked for that. And I said, if it kind of sucks a little bit, then this is finally the actual intended unknown experience as it was in the. In the games. The target. Well, like, to have a hard time getting a specific time. You walk around, you just see all of them. Maybe you'll see what you want. Maybe you don't, you know? Yeah, but now it's the point where if they were to, like, again, in my position, I'm only missing F. So if they were like, hey, we're having a Finland event, and it's gonna be Finland, I might actually, like, go to that, because I could get that. But I see. See here. Now you target that F. This is a great point of your talking from your privilege, though, because you just said everyone who needs the Alphabet, they're probably not traveling, so. Yeah, but they're not gonna. Okay, come to me. I'll get you whatever you want. But you already have all of them right now. Yeah, but I. So, like, I'll give away. But now and everybody at this event, if you don't walk away from this event with the full Alphabet, you were not trying. I don't think. I disagree. No, I've. I've seen a lot. I think. I think it's hard to get 26 letters and two symbols. It is two minutes every hour for five days. No, for four days. I think I did two unknown hours yesterday because I kept getting distracted. I was like, you're always distracted. Oh, you're a bad example. Good point. You're a bad example. Look at these laboos. Ah, we missed unknown. Anybody who cares about the unknown has a timer set on their phone for that hour, and you know it. I just don't think. Do people care about unknown that much? I think in go. They do. Okay. I do. I mean, I look. I like unknown. One of my favorites. You're such a liar. No, I do. I like unknown. I think unknown rocks, but not. Not like this. That's fair. I think that's fair. I mean, they're neat. Yeah. Think about poke opia. I want those unknown blocks. Yeah, yeah. They're certainly cool. Also, I'm a Johto. Like, okay. I love Johto to death. My favorite generation. So I can't talk too badly, of course, but I just. What are you laughing about? Nah, just because Johto. But what's wrong with that? We've talked about this. We have talked about this. I like Johto. Yeah. No, I don't. I don't think people are setting timers on their phones. And I think if they are and then they say it and then everybody else in the group. Group is excited. I think the restless people are pretending. I. No, I think you're right. I think if you're in a group where one person reminds you, I think you're good. Yes. Obviously, that person ain't me. No, definitely not me. No. I'm still on step two of I ain't never gonna. You gotta. You gotta get out of the cage, man, tomorrow, you know? Yeah. But I think. I think that I. I think using me as an example, I think people come to Go Fest for specific reasons. And again, maybe because I play a lot, the. I'm okay with the Pokemon not being that interesting. Although, again, I think the Spawns are good. I think Varuma is awesome. Mudbray. Dumb Eyes. Corsola. Yeah. So I'm, like, excited to see those Pokemon. But I like the direction Go Fest is going, and I think they did a really good thing in Japan where they had, like, the concerts and the parades and stuff. And I was kind of hoping to see something here. Yeah. And I don't think they have that. But in, like, Copenhagen, they're gonna have the, like, Lego stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, what? What? Maybe because they have the Field Museum stuff going on here, they know that's going to take people's time. Oh, maybe. Yeah. But, like, I agree, though, for sure. Like, I had friends come out that in Japan and they were like, oh, we forgot it was Go Fest weekend. We saw you went live. Have. We can't. They didn't have tickets and they were still able to watch the Pikachu DJ show, and they could see the parade and they could still do photo opportunities. There's not really anything like that here. No, not at all. No, unfortunately. And there's an unused stage, literally gated off. I don't know why they didn't use it. They could have put Pikachu up there. But I. I think I've been saying this on the. On my show for years. Like, I do think, think. A 15 minute concert in the morning, a 15 minute concert at night. I do think a parade. I do think like 5k. 5k. You've been asking forever. I, Yeah, I, I think there are so many more things they can do with Go Fest because, you know, forward thinking. Was it forever? Forever forward. Forever forward. I think there, I think to Kyle's point, there's a point that, To Kyle's point, the. There is a point that's a bad. Sure. I'm not getting anywhere. Forever thinking there's a point where people are not going to care about certain things. Like I don't care about unknown or they don't care about unknown. And so you kind of need other things to do. Yeah, I mean, when you think about it, we are very close to catching up on everything possible in the main series games in Go before Wind and Waves comes out, like at the current trajectory, minus the, you know, holdouts like, like Arceus and stuff like that. Arceus. Thank you. Please. I, I forgot. Remember where you're at. Sorry, I've had to learn my lesson. You have to as well. Maybe start on Aegis last three years ago. I will not, I will die. I know. I'm from Premium Studio. We paid for the document. But yeah, they really do need to be thinking about that because GO is going to have to innovate, like to stay relevant because they won't have the main series games to fall back on all the time. Says who? Says the rate that the main series games come out in. Oh no, I meant that they have to innovate if they want to live. I guess they've been innovating. It's called raising your phone up. No, I, no, I, I, I agree. I. The first couple Go Fests, it just seemed in Chicago, specifically Lincoln park, it was everyone looking down at their phone, walking. I think Lincoln park was the first Go Fest where shinies were a thing. Right. That very first Go Fest, there were no shinies and people were only excited about Unknown. Well, people were excited about a lot of stuff. Haircross unknown. Like getting a hundred dollars standing in the movie. Yeah. Raids were broke, but they were excited about them. Yeah. Lugia made its debut. And now because I've been to so many Go fests and I've been to like the Kalos tours and the Unova tours and I've been to safari zones and stuff. It's just interesting to see people come and still have a good time. But laying on the grass or just taking pictures or. Yeah, and that's like the Natural progression. Like I don't think Niantic or Scopely or even Pokemon is like dumb enough to be like they only care about shinies. Right. But I think we hear from the people that are. The spawns are bad, the raids are bad. The, the, the. I didn't get as many shinies as I did last year. I think those people are very loud and vocal. But I think there's so many people that come to Go Fest and they're like, I got a picture with Pikachu. I got a picture with a giant blow up Maltrace. I did a trade and I had such a great time. Yep. Yep. And I really felt that way in Japan with the, the parade and the concert of that very first day in Japan. And this is why I didn't get my Zer aura done. I, I got there, they started the parade. Parade took like 15 minutes. And then after the parade I was like, okay, let's start walking and doing stuff. And then there just Growlithe and Sanshu were like dancing around. Yeah. And I didn't have to like wait in line and Sanshu came up and he was sniffed my like sniffed my camera. And I thought that was so cute. Yeah. And then, and then all of a sudden the, there was. And I'm watching the, the. I'm watching EDM at like 11am in Japan and that was sick. And then we did Mewtwo and all of a sudden I was like, I didn't do anything today. Yeah. Like I didn't do Zera Aura because I was doing all these other things. But I like to me I felt like this Go Fest was awesome and I didn't actually like participate in the Go part of Go. Yeah, no, that's completely. Well, I think it's, it's a funny thing to say because we say Go Fest all the time. What Fest stands for and it's you know, festival. Like that's kind of like the idea behind it. And all this stuff that gets held in cities, usually there's more stuff to do. It's stuff to engage with the crowd that's showing up and hopefully they, I mean, yeah. But like having the Pop up in New City is a step in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pop up in New City was the step in the right direction. Pretty cool. And there's like stuff. It's usually like local businesses putting stuff up. Yeah. You know, maybe not like official but. But right. Yeah. Although I do say, I think like Pokemon events for me and I, I've said this before but A lot of it is community based. I love going to see everybody. Yeah. And I got to meet a lot of cool people today. So I was like, you know, it's a good event. Right? But yeah. 100. Yeah. I think over time, it's become less about. I mean, we're excited about the Pokemon. We have our chase. Right. Like, oh, shiny room. That's awesome. Very happy about that. But Kyle's better about this than I am. But more than half of my time, my phone is in my pocket and I'm just talking and walking with people. And I was like, I was stuck on my first two kilomet one because I. I was talking to too many people. I could not walk. Yeah. But it's like the one annual time you get to see some of your. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, it's just. That's it. So you got to take advantage of it. That's just a. That's just a priority call. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it took him so long to figure this out with Worlds. Oh, yeah. Because I remember going to Worlds in Nashville, and that was the first one, like, official Pokemon center. And that was where you could, like, demo. Let's go Pikachu. Let's go Eevee. And I think they had some other games, but I was like, oh, this is, like, starting to feel like a convention. Nashville was like, pre Covid. Mm. And now, like, this is where they'll do Pokemon xp, which is an actual convention. And I feel like Niantic is a little slow on this. Like, it does feel like each Go Fest is getting better and better. To me, it feels like they're getting better and better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it. But it. There just has to be something more than just catching rotom catching varum and being like, I got my Mewtwo, and that's good. I'm not saying it's bad, but again, like, stopping to play, to watch pikachu dance for 15 minutes. Yeah. I was like, this is sick. That is pretty sick. Do you. Because you've been to a lot of Ghosts Go Fest in a lot of different places. Yeah. Almost two a year. If you filtered out all of them down to just the ones in the States, does your statement they've been getting better every year still stand? Yes. Okay. I think. I think New Jersey was a step up from New York, to be fair. I think Seattle was a little bit better than the New York ones. I think Seattle was better than both of them. Both the New York ones. But I think Jersey was really Good. It was, it was way better than Randall's Island. And you have to think because we were expecting Randall's Island. Yeah. Did that help it? And that's fine. That's. That's strategy. I get it. But I, I really. We talk about this all the time. The Seattle Go Fest was an exceptional layout. Yeah. I think Seattle Go Fest was probably top, really good. It had great infrastructure for people that wanted to take a break. There was a place to go in and eat and sit down and use. Oh yeah, that's so nice. And it was, it was great. It was clean, wonderful. And you were around landmarks of Seattle like the Needle. And so you really felt like it was in the heart of Seattle. And then the city play was. Was truly just explore. Because Seattle's cool like that, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think like Chicago does a good job and it's hard for me to sort of filter my bias. But this, this one, as opposed to the three we had here year prior to Covid, this one feels much more city centric. But I think that's good. Like, I think that the four areas of like go to these areas I think is good because I think there, there's probably 10 hardcore people out there who probably don't listen to the show, but it listeners. Yeah, they listen to you, not me. But I would imagine there's very hardcore people out there or just grinders in general that are, that are like, well, well, we're just going to focus on this block. This block has the best spawns. By the time we walk around this block, the spawns will reset. This has the most gyms. Right. And I think encouraging people to go to different areas of the city, especially with a city that has good public transportation like Chicago, I think is the right thing to do. Like, hey, go up here to new city. Yeah. Mall and like look at what's over here. Like more restaurants, more. And then that, that ideally I would think prevents you waiting in line for an hour for a bagel. Because it's across the street. Yeah. Because people are now spread out. Yeah. And I think that helps the city and I think that encourages people to. I think there are a lot of people that need direction. I don't think any of us would disagree with that. I think that's true. We've just had this conversation where we thought it was a bit reckless to highlight the entire city limits as playable area because it sort of encourages people to go to certain areas that are much more residential than they are city. Oh, okay. Especially in the friendship District, but we don't need to get into that. No. But to be. To be completely honest, any direction you go, it turns into neighborhoods, and very quickly you're walking, like, in. In people's, like, front yards and stuff. And it's just. It seems a little invasive, I guess. And there's no way for somebody who has never been here to get a sense of like, oh, I might want to turn back around and hop on this street and then keep going where there's more. Yeah. City, like, infrastructure. Yeah. What was the thing in the Friendship District? They had two highlights. What were. They was field museum and then solar field. I thought it was Ratefield. Right. Oh, it was. It was the second rate field. Yeah. Was it? It was Ratefield. I mean, second Ratefield. Look, they know. They know how I feel. That's okay. I don't care about sports at. But I am born and raised on the north side, so there is that sports. It is the Cubs and the White Sox. Field is called right field. Yeah. So it's pretty south, but it's not near anything else. Really. Yeah. So it's just. It's a weird thing to mark on the map to, like, be like, hey, you should go here, you know? Yeah. There's nothing to do there. I mean, like, with, With. With Tokyo. It was. Here are. Here's the. The red, green, yellow, and they're all where people imagine Tokyo would be like Shibuya, Shimbashi. And then there's the blue part, which was like, huge, the whole thing. And that's still Tokyo. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so it's all technically city limits, but it's like, don't, don't go there. They keep pushing the city limits out further and further because it's more taxable area. Yeah. I don't know if that's like, an encouragement of somebody in a residential area being like, oh, I'm in this district and now I'm maybe working my way over maybe. Because it. It would be nice if you are in a residential area to be like, okay, I can get this done, and then on my train ride in, I can plan out my day. Could you imagine living there, though? That'd be awesome. Just, like, be able to stay home and do it all. Oh, that'd be sweet. That'd be awesome. That would be sweet. Yeah. Well, I. I think for the sake of time, we should pause here. We'll wrap up the show. We are going to do a Patreon bonus. It'll be free this week on both of our patrons. Yeah. I don't know how you guys do it for the feed. I just put it out. Oh, okay. Well, if you're listening on the. If you're listening to the premium version, after the credits, the Patreon will roll. So thanks for hanging. You don't. You don't need to pay any money. You just have to make a free Patreon account. Yep. And then you'll get the bonus episode. If you're already. Like I said, if you're already on the premium feed, it will start after the credits on my end. Yeah, for us, it'll just go to our Patreon page and it'll be there for you. Whatever is easy for you. Patreon.compkmncst on my end patreon.com forward/gocastpodcast. There you go. Thanks for listening. If you saw us this weekend, thank you for saying hi. If you avoided us this weekend, thank you. How. How dare you. I think he was about to say thank you, Chris. Thank you, Kyle. Thank Steve. Thank you, Austin. Thank you, Austin. Thanks. Yeah. This has been another episode of the Pokemon podcast slash Gocast collaboration. Always forward thinking. Always forward thinking. It's forever forward. Yep. Somebody say it's super. Well, I was gonna. I'm trying to figure out a way to raise our phones up. We gotta raise them up to build our friendship level or whatever it is. Super. We're super effective. There we go. Slam down. This podcast is brought to you by Patreon. If you'd like to be a producer of the show and get your name read at the end of every episode, you can head over to patreon.com pkmncast to support the show. A huge shout out to our producers of this episode, starting with Stuart, Courtney, Tone, Federico, Josh, Cappy, Christopher, Jared and Steven. Thank you so much for your support and we will see you all next next week. You're listening to this podcast so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash. Back back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. 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