Last year, just as Pokemon Go (Free) was hitting critical mass, the powers that be at Niantic came up with an idea that sounded amazing on paper: The Pokemon Go Fest. It was held in Chicago, and folks from around the world flew to Grant Park to play Pokemon Go at what was supposed to be the place to play the game. The event was a complete disaster, resulting in refunds, lawsuits, and a general PR nightmare for Niantic. This year, the Pokemon Go Fest had nowhere to go but up, and I’m happy to report that the 2018 iteration was significantly better in every way- Which isn’t exactly a hard benchmark to beat.
This time around, the Pokemon Go Fest organizers picked a way better venue, which likely played a major role in the success of the event. Grant Park, where it was held last year is where music festivals like Lollapalooza call home. At those festivals, they pack hundreds of thousands of people in front of a set of stages, which works great for listening to music- Not so great for thousands of people trying to play a connectivity-centric, data-hungry game on their smartphones. Lincoln Park, on the other hand, is a massive lakefront park with loads of walking paths which spans for miles on the north side of Chicago. This meant that everyone attending was nice and spread out, leading to no one area really being packed with too many people and a nice distribution of devices connecting to all the difference cell towers, cell towers on wheels, and Wi-Fi access points ...