You can find out more about Pokémon XP at the official website and on Twitch. You can find out more about playing Pokémon competitively at the Play! Pokémon official website, on X, on Instagram, and on YouTube.
This past weekend, The Pokémon Company held the 2026 Pokémon World Championships at the Moscone Center and at the Chase Center in San Francisco, California. Aside from the world finals for Pokémon Unite, Pokémon GO, Pokémon Trading Card Game, and Pokémon Champions, there was a brand-new experience that 50,000 Pokémon trainers got to explore for the first time across the three-day event: PokémonXP. I was there for only one day, Saturday, but I took the time to experience as much as I could during those short hours. PokémonXP bills itself as a “celebration of community and all things Pokémon,” and I am going to be completely honest when I say that it definitely hit the mark on that even if it was occasionally very rough around the edges. There was so much to do you simply could not get through it all in one day.
For Friday and Saturday, the event was split across the North, South, and West Moscone buildings. The World Championships competitions/side events/prize wall redemption took place in the underground large exhibition space in South Moscone, and that entire room was themed red. In the large connecting hallway and in the North Moscone exhibition room, PokémonXP filled the area.
The World Championships area was definitely condensed, and it felt like it was segregated away from everything else to the point where you could just do the Pokémon XP content and never visit the competition side if you did not want to. The competitions on the main stage were exciting to watch, as always, and it is a true shame that this is the last year Pokémon UNITE will be part of the Pokémon World Championships (it is breaking away its own separate tournament, Pokémon UNITE Aos Crown 2027 Tokyo, that will be decided in February 2027), as the Pokémon UNITE fans consistently had the loudest cheers throughout the day.
While I did not participate in any side events this year like I did last year in Anaheim, they were arranged through OpenTable again and offered a variety of prizes depending on how you placed. I checked the side events randomly throughout the day, and I was pleased to see there were quite a few digital openings for draft events, side tournaments, and the like through the day. However, the actual side events registration and the prize redemption wall was definitely understaffed. There were consistently long lines at both.
PokémonXP was a different experience, though. This was really the first ‘official’ Pokémon convention that when it worked, it really worked, and when it failed…well, it was bad.
There were no shortages of activities to do on the expo lower levels, as there were a variety of booths present that had activities you could do and enjoy. Did you want to learn about LEGO and build your own trophy to take home with you? There was a booth for that. If you wanted to see the history of Pokémon over the past 30 years for the Pokémon Trading Card Game or for the franchise in general? There were two large booths for that, too. Nintendo had a huge outpost in the corner set up to celebrate Pokémon Pokopia and the new Bubbly Basin DLC that just came out. There were photo opportunities with different Pokémon ranging from Lapras to Mimikyu on the first level, and there were even opportunities to buy a Pokémon Build-A-Bear plush (with outfits!) and models from BANDAI NAMCO on the expo floor. These activities were all set up with all ages in mind, and it was clear The Pokémon Company was really concerned with making sure everyone who came, no matter how old they were, could have a good time. Each of these events were varied and really cool to experience — if you didn’t mind waiting in the lines for them.
PokémonXP, unfortunately, had lines. A lot of lines.
There were lines for everything, and they often became incredibly long. I spent close to 50 minutes at one point waiting to get into the Celebrating 30 Years of Pokémon Exhibit, and that was because I really wanted to see the complete base set of Pokémon Trading Card Game cards on display inside. One exhibition, the Pokémon Trading Card Game: 30th Celebration, had a queue that wrapped around the exhibit and then had a separate staging area they would periodically open to an incredibly mad rush of people to get into before they would close it up again. Even smaller booths, such as the photo opportunity with Sirfetch’d and Pichu at the Pokemon Tales: Sirfetch’d and Pichu booth had incredibly long lines when they were open. And honestly? I gave up at completing the stamp rally at the Nintendo booth since that would have been the only thing that I did that day due to the lines.
There were a variety of panels that happened on the PokémonXP Stage, and I honestly LOVED that. I attended the 9:30 AM Pikachu Dance Party, and it was an absolute delight to watch professional dancers dance and bounce and weave across the stage with four Pikachu alongside them. I also attended the Celebrating 10 Years of Pokémon GO panel, and I really enjoyed the deep postmortem dive into the early days of Pokémon GO and how the live in-person events are created. There was plenty of seating available, and even if you couldn’t find a chair, then there was a lot of standing room available. I kept peeking into the panels throughout the day as I explored the twin events, and I was happy to see there never was really a dull moment on stage.
There were a lot of meet-and-greet, craft-a-long, and other opportunities that took place in the segregated Creator Zone on the show floor. Those were not first-come-first-serve like the PokémonXP Stage was but instead were initially drawn from interest lotteries you had to register for beforehand. I was not drawn for any of them with my ticket. But new this year was an in-person waitlist for if there was space open at the meet-and-greets. I loved this change from 2025’s World Championships, as it meant that if you really loved someone like the amazing GlitchxCity (who was the DJ at Mega Nights back at Pokémon GO Tour: Kalos – Los Angeles 2026), you could have a real chance at meeting them if you were willing to wait for the ticketed people to clear out first.
For me, I think my favorite overall officially scheduled part was the digital Pokémon HOME medal rally. There were six Pokémon HOME stations scatted throughout the different floors of North Moscone and South Moscone, and there were anywhere from five to six medals at each location to get. I had a lot of fun hunting them down and obtaining all of the medals after waiting through (another, but short) line. I had never gotten a Pokémon HOME medal before this year’s event, and I am excited to have gotten a bunch exclusive, in-person, medals now. My only regret is that because I did not have a ticket for the Chase Center on Sunday, I could not get the final medal that was exclusive to those ticketholders. (If anyone has a spare one, please hit me up for the trade!).
On the second floor of North Moscone, there was a giant merchants section where vendors were selling Pokémon plush, Pokémon items, and mostly Pokémon Trading Card Game items for more MSRP. It was surprisingly crowded in there, and it felt like a vendor hall in any convention that you’ll see. Next door, there was a trade space almost completely dedicated to people trading Pokémon Trading Card Game cards. You could wait in line to be assigned a numbered table space to set up, and you could otherwise wonder around and trade cards (you weren’t allowed to buy/sell there) with people. I unfortunately discovered no one was trading video game Pokémon there, as I had my heart set on obtaining the three keys I needed from Pokémon Black Version 2 for my Pokémon White Version 2. This was a really intense, but well-monitored, trading zone that had staff constantly wandering around in, and I was glad there was a dedicated space so it didn’t spill all over the Moscone underground floors and into every available spot.
Creatively, The Pokémon Company took over the roadway that normally runs between North Moscone and South Moscone and turned it into Rayquaza Road. They threw down a LOT of fake grass, put up Pokéball umbrellas and white bean bag chairs, and then hosted everything from skateboarding to photo opportunities and an outpost Pokémon Center store to even a live concert series on the Wharf Stage. In addition, at the nearby Terba Buena Gardens, there was Furfrou make-up opportunities, ring throwing, and so much more to see and do.
One of the memories I will absolutely carry with me forever is watching Carlos “insaneintherain” Eine and his band (along with a special appearance from Toastymarshmellow) perform the music from Pokémon Legends: Z-A he arranged on the Wharf Stage. Experiencing the daytime/nighttime music of Lumoise City and hearing Toastymarshmellow soaring vocals as she sang KISEKI (the ending theme from Pokémon X/Y and Pokémon Legends: Z-A) took me back to when I first played those games and all of the emotions I felt as I started my own Pokémon journey. This is a show that could have easily been a 15-to-20-minute set, and everyone would have been content. Instead, Carlos Eine and everyone played for a full HOUR, and I left feeling like I got my admission money’s worth from that alone. I cannot overstate how wonderful that was, and how much care Mr. Eine and everyone else present put into putting on an amazing show. If there is one thing that I hope you try to find on TikTok or on YouTube to watch from PokémonXP, it is one of those concerts that he (and there were others, but I unfortunately did not see them) did on the outdoors Wharf Stage.
Merchandise sales for this year were primarily held in the Pokémon Center on the second floor of West Moscone (where badge pick-up also took place). This was better than last year’s merchandising experience, but there was still a lot of room for improvement. This year, only people who had tickets to PokémonXP were able to be get a link via email to try to access the reservation system to get a shopping slot for the Pokémon Center. The reservation system was a frustrating disaster, as the servers were quickly overloaded and a lot of people ended up not getting a time slot at all. I was able to, after much refreshing, able to get a slot on Thursday afternoon to go into the store.
On site, the security staff was letting people queue up around a half-hour early beyond a dedicated barricade on a side street, before being brought through metal detectors and into another queue on the first floor of West Moscone. Then when the queue above was emptied out, the lower-level queue was able to go up the escalator to wait in line on the second floor to go inside. For my time slot, I showed up at 1:30 PM at the outdoors barricade, and it was approximately 1:55 PM that I was able to go inside to shop. As a side note, I will also state that I did not see an obvious ADA accessible line on site for people with visible and non-visible disabilities to utilize in conjunction with their registered timeslots.
Inside the store, you were given 45 minutes to shop before they shooed you to the check-out line, and the whole shopping experience was a snaking line that did not permit you to go backwards in areas to buy more things from. Each of the event-themed items (and Elite Trainer Boxes/Booster Boxes) were limited to one-per-person as well. They then had a staging area where a staff member verified you only had one event-themed item of each type per person, and then you went to pay before exiting the building.
The overall actual waiting and shopping experience was very smooth, at least for my time slot. From the time I first approached the barricade at 1:30 PM, I was out of the Pokémon Center by 3:42 PM. While I know that it is impractical to have a free-for-all anymore, I felt like this new system was incredibly well managed and it proceeded in an orderly fashion. I really took my time shopping, and it still felt like 45 minutes was almost too much time. I also loved the sheer variety of merchandise available. There were plushes, t-shirts, Hawaiian shirts, baseball jerseys, pins, card binders, and really anything and everything you could imagine. I felt like there was something for everyone, even if they didn’t have a PokémonXP and/or Pokémon World Championships-themed magnet I could take home. There were also additional items (such as skateboards) that you could enter into a lottery to be given the opportunity to buy before you ever arrived on site.
The biggest issue I had (and I know others with later time slots had in the weekend) was that there was a real shortage of event-themed things in various sizes people wanted. For example, I went on the second day, and there were no more Pikachu baseball jerseys available in my size. PokémonXP and Pokémon World Championships are the two events that you know you are going to sell a ton of themed and exclusive merchandise at, and it is frustrating that not all people could get the pins they wanted or the clothes they wanted in the sizes they needed. The staff on site were as friendly as possible, and they hunted more than once in the back inventory to try to find me an item in the size I wanted. But it is still frustrating that things simply ran out so quickly of highly desired items. This frustration was only compounded by the fact multiple people literally set up shop on the walkway outside of West Moscone to resell that sold-out event-exclusive merchandise (and Pokémon Trading Card Game cards/boxes/ETBs) out of suitcases at marked up prices in a bizzaro street market.
The biggest issue with Pokémon XP, though, was the pin rally. I participated in the pin rally at Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim last year, and I loved it. This year, it was an awful event. I showed up at 8:30 AM on Saturday and found out the Charizard pins were already out for the day, and I found myself quickly swallowed up into a massive, unorganized, and dangerously aggressive line for Flutter Mane that became a combined line for the Elekid pin. People were arguing and being aggressive, and the staff outside were doing their best to organize and handle the massive crowd of people who wanted a pin set. After I got both Flutter Mane and Elekid, I headed inside and down to the underground level of Moscone North/South to discover the middle hallway had a massive, looping, line for the Jirachi pin, and it was already closed for the day. After trying to get into the Kirlia line and finding out it was closed, I gave up. At 10:13 AM, a message was set out across Pokémon Events app that the Pin Rally locations were closed for the day, and it turned out they would not be opening again for people who were going to be there on Sunday. This ultimately was not a surprise as it turned out the fire marshal had gotten involved.
Shutting down the pin trading had the dual effect of shutting a bunch of queues that would have swallowed up people in lines (forcing them to find other things and other lines to occupy), and making people feel like they were missing out on something exclusive and unique for this event. And honestly, I agree with the people vocalizing their frustration about it at various points during the day. The Pokémon Company knows how many tickets they sold for this event and it is a baffling decision to not have 1) included a full set of pins in the merchandise you got at badge pick-up, 2) to not have them as a reward for a fairly easy to complete scavenger hunt that you can do through the app and have tied to your badge’s QR code so you can do it only once, or 3) to simply ensure there were enough pins on site for everyone who wanted one to eventually get these awesome items during the day.
There is one other thing that I want to talk about with my experience at PokémonXP and Pokémon World Championships. I mentioned earlier that I spent my time trying to find someone who had the three keys I needed from Pokémon Black Version 2 to transfer into my copy of Pokémon White Version 2. Creators Nora, Kwikpanik, and GlaxonXIII hosted and coordinated an event at the end of Saturday called Retro Shiny Hunters that led into a second event hosted by Matt for Pokémon Black/White Version 2 themed around Funfest medals.
Over 250 people, including yours truly, gathered together with generation two through five Pokémon games with one goal: see how many shiny Pokémon you can get within one hour. During that hour, 57,242 Pokémon were caught, and you knew when a shiny was found because there was a large uproar that rivaled almost anything from the Pokémon UNITE stage. By the end of the hour, four shiny Pokémon were found! It was then that the second event started. Not only did I obtain all three keys I needed from Pokémon Black Version 2, but I was able to participate in my first-ever Funfest mission in Pokémon White Version 2. Over 82 people (the counter kept going up with how many people were playing at once, but 82 was what my counter showed) connected together through the power of the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 2DS/3DS, and New Nintendo 3DS families to play the “Find Lost Items!” Funfest challenge, and we ended up scoring over 1,455 points on the second round to get the nearly impossible-to-complete “30 People Funfest” and the “Scored 1,000” Funfest medals. Additionally, afterwards, everyone went around and added each other in game to reach the maximum 32 friend codes registered to complete the “Global Connection” medal!
If you told me before I attended PokémonXP and Pokémon World Championships that I would get to finally experience the content from Pokémon White Version 2 that was locked behind the new defunct multiplayer-experience, I would have given you a funny look. However, I should not have be surprised at the dedication of the Pokémon fan base. Whether it is a massive retro shiny hunting fan-run event or it is giving people like me the opportunity to finally complete obscure content in a video game released back in 2012, the fans who show up were the best part of PokémonXP and Pokemon World Championships.
And really, all of this shows the point that I am trying about this first PokémonXP as an event taking place during Pokémon World Championships. There were so many highs during the event. The concerts on the Wharf Stage, the panels and meet-and-greets, the on-the-ground handling of the Pokémon Center logistics, and the fan-run events were memorable and exactly what you would want from this kind of Pokémon event. It is just unfortunate that the lengthy lines, the failed pin rally, and the fact that other booths such as the Pokémon GO redemption counter (which you had to pay $10 to participate in!) ran out of rewards or freebies so early on during PokémonXP are the lows that will stick in people’s minds.
Pokémon World Championships is heading to Singapore next year, and the teaser trailer shown on Sunday at the Chase Center did not say whether or not PokémonXP would be returning as well. If it does, I really hope that The Pokémon Company takes all of these problems to heart and really works on fixing them for next year. I think they can and will, if only because they took my number one complaint last year — that there were no standby lines for the lottery panel events — and changed it so there was. I am hoping that next year, if I can attend Pokémon World Championships 2027 in Singapore, that I can report back and say ‘yes, these problems are fixed.’
But during the meantime, I can finally head into the Black Forest in Pokémon White Version 2 and see what that is all about.
Did you attend PokémonXP and/or Pokémon World Championships?
What were your favorite experiences?
Let us know in the comments below!
