On 22 July 2017, the first Pokémon GO Fest opened in Chicago's Grant Park. The event promised a shared, real-world version of the location-based mobile game. Yet the first thing many players encountered was not a rare creature on a screen, but a very physical line leading to the entrance gates.
One attendee's dated account describes joining the line beside Grant Park at 9 a.m., an hour before the scheduled opening. TechCrunch later reported that only a small number of entry turnstiles served many thousands of ticket holders, leaving the outside queue in place for hours after the event began. Network failures inside the park then produced another line for customer support and refunds.
The game asks players to roam a map in search of virtual creatures. In Chicago that morning, the players first had to stand still together and wait their turn. A festival built around digital movement began with one of the oldest shared rituals of any public event: the entrance queue.