Invitations were sent to 2,000 Pokémon Go players in the five boroughs of New York City through community ambassadors. (The event was invitation-only to avoid crowding in what is already one of the busiest places on Earth.) Players were only aware of themed raids taking place in the vicinity of Times Square, according to Mark Van Lommel, Scopely’s director of marketing communications.

At a certain point in the evening, notifications were sent through the game asking players with tickets to head to Times Square for a special event, where they were invited to a live EDM concert by Loud Luxury, after which Mega Mewtwo Y took over the many screens and began a united battle. (Mega Mewtwo Y was finally defeated.)

The event was livestreamed across all Pokémon websites and social channels, and this weekend a special Pokémon Go Fest Global virtual event will bring the same Mega Mewtwo Y gaming experience to all trainers, without the Times Square screens. “Everyone around the world can play for free this weekend,” says Van Lommel.

Scopely says more than 800 million people have played Pokémon Go over the last decade, with over 1 billion Pokémon captured to date. By 2024, it had over 100 million active players and by 2025 it generated $1 billion in revenue. Daily active player engagement is around 45 minutes and players have walked over 62 billion miles searching for PokéStops and Pokémon.

Kim Adams, vice president of game development at Pokémon Gosays that in the last two years, the company has grown from 50 community ambassadors (vetted volunteers who lead and organize local real-world gaming groups) to more than 3,000 worldwide.

For live events, a standout feature that makes it unique among other mobile games,Pokémon Go sold nearly 1 million tickets in 2024. And since last year, the company says, it has seen double-digit engagement growth, with a 10 percent increase in daily play time and a 29 percent increase in real-world exploration.

The ability to handle thousands of players simultaneously participating in a raid has not always been easy. Howie Ragunton, a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration worker who has been playing since it launched in 2016, says he remembers the first Pokémon Go Fest in 2017 in Chicago, which was a disaster due to overloaded cellular networks and unstable servers. “They’ve learned over the years,” he says.