'Pokémon GO' Fest News: Technical Glitches Plague Live Event; Niantic Offers Ticket Refunds, Freebies, Legendary Pokémon
Unfortunately, the first ever real-life event to celebrate the anniversary of "Pokémon GO" ended up being quite a disaster. A massive technical glitch prevented attendees from participating in activities that needed access to the app, and the organizers were later on compelled to refund the cost of the event tickets and offer in-game freebies.
About 20,000 people attended the "Pokémon GO" Fest last July 22 at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, and most of them encountered immense difficulty in logging on to the game by the time the scheduled activities supposedly leading to the release of the first Legendary Pokémon started.
Fans were so disappointed about the technical glitches, that when Niantic CEO John Hanke hit the stage, he was welcomed with loud boos and thousands of people angrily chanting: "Fix the game."
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To its defense, Niantic reportedly told Business Insider that the problem was primarily rooted in the network signals provided by carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
The mobile game developer said they requested the telecommunication companies to "direct more coverage" to Grant Park in time for the live event. Apparently, they did not deliver well. However, there were some attendees, and especially those who were using T-Mobile, who claimed they had a fairly better experience in accessing the game that day.
To make up for it, Niantic will refund the $20 that attendees shelled out for each ticket to join the event and promised to give players in-game freebies that amount to $100. Niantic also told participants they will soon get the Lugia Legendary Pokémon.
The event was supposedly divided into Challenge Windows or time periods for each set of task until Legendary Pokémon became available for everyone around the world.
The original plan was for the attendees to catch enough Pokémon within the Grant Park area until a Legendary monster appeared. Once the first Legendary Pokémon appeared in the venue, attendees would then have to defeat it collectively with a given period of time through a Raid Battle. Niantic would then release Legendary monsters in the game. Unfortunately, many things did not go accordingly.
