Niantic announces real-world events for its Pokémon and Harry Potter games
Niantic’s real-world events for 2019 were so successful that they generated $249 million in tourism revenue across Chicago, Dortmund and Montréal. That’s what the company has revealed in a new events website, which it launched alongside its festival lineup for 2020. Niantic has several events in store for Pokémon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Ingress players across the globe in the coming months.
Pokémon Go fans can look forward to four festivals in the first half of the year, starting with one that coincides with the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung from February 6th through the 9th. Next is a Safari Zone event, where players can catch region-exclusive Pokémon, in St. Louis from March 27th to 29th. Tickets for the event will be available starting on January 24th. Liverpool players are also getting a Safari Zone event from April 17th through the 19th, with tickets going on sale starting on January 31st. The last entry in the Pokémon Go calendar is another Safari Zone event in Philadelphia from May 8th through the 10th.
Meanwhile, Harry Potter fans can look forward to the second Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Fan Festival. It doesn’t have a date yet, but the first one took place over Labor Day weekend last year. Finally, Niantic has three international events planned for Ingress players. Perpetua Hexathlon is happening on February 29th, while Lexicon Hexathlon is scheduled for April 25th. Both events will take place across multiple locations in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. There’s also Requiem Anomaly Munich, which is happening on May 9th.
In addition to revealing the economic impact of its real-world events, Niantic also dropped other relevant stats. The developer said it hosted more than 2.7 million attendees across 77 festivals held in 32 countries and that they walked 6.5 million kilometers together. Since its new website was created specifically for officials interested in bringing Niantic’s events to their cities, we might see more get added to its festival calendar for the year.
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