A Giant Pokemon Go Meetup Swamped The Bean Sunday... For 20 Minutes

By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 18, 2016 6:56PM

The crowd at Sunday's meetup (photo via Facebook)

Thousands upon thousands of Pokemon Go players descended on the Bean Sunday afternoon for a meetup, billed as the "First ever Pokemon Go meet up." However, the raucous fun—which included teams (Valor, Instinct and Mystic, for those in-the-know) with their own banners and chants—only lasted 20 minutes, Forbes reports. That's how long it took before the game's glitchy server to crashed for a few hours; after that, the hordes of Pokemon Go participants slowly dispersed (to the presumable relief of critics who had
safety concerns about the meetup last week).

While it lasted, though, the event had a gigantic turnout. TechCrunch estimate 5,000 people went—even though, keep in mind, this was during Pitchfork—and Pokemon Go Chicago Twitter account estimates more than 10,000 people attended.

12,000 people said they were attending on Facebook, too. Not that Facebook RSVPs are a binding contract.

Whatever its exact size, the crowd represented the three teams from the Pokemon Go game, each with its own banner: Team Valor, Team Mystic and Team Instinct. (Forbes reports that each team was chanting its name, and that Team Valor was the loudest. #gossip)

The event's founder, Sam Guerrero, told TechCrunch he didn't expect the event to grow to the proportions it did. (He's not the first Chicagoan to go Facebook viral by accident.) He probably didn't expect it to end so quickly, either. But that's the beauty of Pokemon Go—you have to expect the unexpected, or you'll be crushed in a stampede.

One other thing you can expect: More Pokemon meetups. Clearly, there's a demand.