500 photos with Pikachu: San Francisco wraps up first-ever Pokémon convention 

Jessica Trinh and her friends spent the last day of San Francisco’s Pokémon XP extravaganza dressed up as Hatsune Miku, the Japanese computer-generated popstar who has a crossover as a Pokémon trainer. After enjoying the three-day convention, she showed off her handmade costume — which she took a week off from her role as a lab scientist to create.

Trinh’s costume required dyeing, gelling and styling a wig, painting blue designs onto the white dress and sewing it all together. It was her friend Wesley Guo’s first time dressing up like Miku. But Trinh helped him along the way, even when he asked: “How do you sew?” 

Guo said their friend group has many interests, but the one that binds them is Pokémon.

“Just being together, being out with friends and connecting over stuff everyone really enjoys, it’s great,” Guo said. 

San Francisco hosted the world’s first-ever fan convention for Pokémon, the global franchise that started in the 1990s and involves human trainers catching and battling “pocket monsters,” this weekend. The franchise evolved into TV shows, movies, games — and now a convention. 

The face value tickets to  Pokémon XP were around $120 for a multiday pass. Instead of the typical tech events that are hosted at Moscone Center (or conventions of dentists, gastroenterologists or insurance brokers), nearly 50,000 millennial and family Pokémon trainers took over every corner. 

Of the fans who attended, many could not stop tapping their phones, a sign that they were all playing Pokémon GO, the mobile virtual reality game that launched in 2016 and allowed people to catch Pokémon using Pokéballs on their phones. Many people whom Mission Local interviewed did not stop tapping while speaking and continued to do so long after bidding adieu to our reporters. The initial hype of 2016 is clearly not over — at least among these fans. 

One competitor, 15-year-old Carlo Miglietta, traveled from Italy to be part of the Video Game Championships — the convention hosted four kinds of Pokémon gaming competitions that were invite-only. While he wasn’t part of the finals at Chase Center, he said some of his friends made it, and he was happy for them. 

And it was Miglietta’s first year competing — he was happy to have even qualified, an arduous process that required competing in at least three tournaments and doing well. He was in a lower age division, which he said made it easier. “It’s a way to make friends, a way to play and just it’s a really complex game,” Miglietta said. 

Beyond watching international Pokémon competitors play various online and card games, attendees could wait in lines for photo ops with a larger-than-life Pikachu or LEGO Charizard. One staff member said they had taken around 500 photos that day in front of an outdoor Pikachu. Others waited for freebies or exclusives from Crocs and Build-A-Bear. 

Many fans could also be seen trading cards and memorabilia on the floor of the event, thirsting over “one of a kind” merchandise and vintage cards sealed away in plastic casings and binders. Others on the floor opened card packs on camera for their YouTube channels and live streams, screaming for joy when they pulled shiny “EX” cards — meaning their character was ultra rare and more powerful than your typical Pokémon. The most dedicated collectors walked around with cardboard signs that read “in search of,” naming a specific character and year in which it was printed. 

In an area next to the active competitions, televisions were set up alongside Nintendo 64s — consoles released in the 1990s — as many waited their turn to play older Pokémon video games such as “Pokémon Snap,” “Pokémon Puzzle League” and “Pokémon Stadium.” Those who preferred to use a console from the present decade opted for the Nintendo Switch 2 area, where attendees played the new “Pokémon Pokopia” game, exclusive to that system. 

Some opted to wait in long lines for the Pin Rally, a giveaway of 12 exclusive pins around Moscone Center. Even on Friday, staffers tried to corral the crowd, yelling at those not following the rules and trying to cut lines of hundreds of costumed people. Some begged on Friday for Charizard — a  popular Pokémon known for flying and fire— pins, which were unavailable until 8 a.m. Saturday. The rally was eventually canceled on Sunday, according to an email to attendees without reason. Some on social media said it was due to safety concerns.  

Even longer lines were seen at a registration-only Pokémon Center store across from the main convention. Brian Chung and Kevin Speaker spent $2,200 at the store on Thursday — not a particularly unfathomable sum after witnessing fans attempt to carry four or more bags of merchandise unassisted.

Chung and Speaker had costumes for all three days, dressing up as Rayquaza and Pikachu on the last day, respectively. Rayquaza, a legendary snake-like dragon, was also a theme across the convention, taking over his own road on Howard Street and getting his own trolley. Chung didn’t know that ahead of time and had already had the costume on hand. 

The two have traveled before for Pokémon GO events. The two appreciated the expo event, since they could see all aspects of Pokémon come together through one weekend. 

This time they didn’t have to travel far and love that — they hail from San Francisco. Speaker called it a “home-court advantage.” 

For many fans, from near and far, it was a lifelong obsession realized in one weekend. Some recounted stories of their babysitters putting on the TV show while others traded cards in school. 

Asking many what it meant to them, a common answer was: “Everything.”