Report: Side Events at Pokémon NAIC 2026

For the third (and apparently final) time, New Orleans hosted the North American Internationals for Pokémon. As usual, I spent most of my time playing in side events away from the main action. How did that go?

Thursday

Getting to New Orleans involved flying as usual, albeit via a different route than previous years. Instead of flying American via Charlotte and Dallas, I went through O’Hare on United both ways (it was a little odd connecting through an airport I had stayed near the weekend before). I did watch a few episodes of Pokémon Journeys, which I was surprised to find on the IFE. After arriving in New Orleans, I took a ride to my hotel, grabbed a meal at local restaurant Cochon.

Friday

I started my side event experience with a TCG Build-and-Battle, which was a nice experience (especially since I‘ve purposely avoided playing in local prereleases to give space to others),  even if my deck was given little help from the boosters. After a TCG raid or two, I took part in a Chaos Cup, which was made extra interesting when the judge made us play Malamar-style for the third and final round. With side events closed for the day, I headed back to the hotel and ordered food from Oceana Grill.

Saturday

After realizing I had brought the wrong wig for my “Ringo Starr as a Pokémon Trainer” costume, I headed to the convention center and participated in a TCG Raid (I got by with a little help from my friends), then prepared for my Pokémon Center slot. Having spent a fair bit on apparel at the previous weekend’s Go Fest, I decided to focus on other merchandise, including a costume-appropriate Dragonair ring.

Later that afternoon, I participated in a TCG Pocket event, where I actually managed to win a match (admittedly, the 5-heads Misty helped a lot in game two), though I could have done better in the third round with a bit more thought. We did have an issue where there was a long delay between round one and two due to an issue with one of the matches needing its result fixed. Afterwards, I went back to the hotel room and ordered from Daisy Mae’s (no website available).

Sunday

I was getting tired at this point, but I managed to don my Michael Hutchence costume and participate in a few Ditto pack drafts (of course) to close out the weekend. Having collected over 400 tickets over the weekend, I picked up a Detective Pikachu plush (tied to the movie, not the games), some Gen 4 Starter socks, and some packs for the next TCG event at Pegasus Games. Dinner came from Fiery Crab.

Monday

My flight out of New Orleans was at 6:30 am, so I got up around 4:15 (scarfing some leftovers from Fiery Crab) and got a ride to the airport. I decided to peruse the device-based IFE on the flight to O’Hare, and was surprised to find the Detective Pikachu movie on there (it wasn’t on the seat-back screens). The film definitely still holds up. Otherwise, the trip back home was relatively uneventful (a nice change from Anaheim last year).

Overall

As you may have guessed from my summary, side events were extremely smooth this time around, with the issue I mentioned during the TCG Pocket tournament being the only significant issue I encountered. It was really nice that side events were clearly not an afterthought here.

Other Notes:

-I did purchase a pass for the Go Scavenger Hunt, but lost my stamp card, so that’s why that wasn’t included in the report, though I did take some time to play it.
-With the announcement that next year’s NAIC event will be in Chicago, I’m starting to feel really spoiled.
-RK9’s feature to allow match reporting from the website is really convenient and I hope it gets expanded.
-While I had plenty of great food this weekend, the best was probably the Cajun pasta I had from Oceana Grill:

Report: Pokémon Go Fest Chicago-2026

As if having a pinball table and a field museum exhibit wasn’t enough, Chicago was also blessed with a Go Fest for Pokémon’s 30th anniversary. Having attended one in Las Vegas back in 2023, I was fairly certain this would not be a repeat of the disastrous 2017 event, but it remained to be seen how well it would go.

Friday

Like in 2017, I decided it would be better to stay near O’Hare airport and take the Blue Line (which runs 24/7) into the city, as it cuts down on highway travel, and saves on hotel costs. Unlike in 2017, I took a bus instead of driving myself. Other than the bus being quite late (traffic in Madison was a bit heavier than usual, it seemed), the trip went without much of note occurring.

Saturday

My park time slot was in the afternoon, so after sleeping in a bit and getting breakfast, I put on my “Michael Hutchence as a Pokémon Trainer” costume and hopped on the Blue Line. This trip was rather unpleasant, as the cars were very crowded due to the large number of folks headed to Pokémon Go Fest and a soccer game around this time. CTA really should have been running the maximum number of cars on these trains during this time, if at all possible.

After walking a few blocks (I had forgotten to look up exactly where the entrances to the event were), I entered the park area via Jackson Boulevard, then consulted a map to see where things were in the park. After wandering for a bit, I headed over to the merch pickup spot, only to find that the line was incredibly long. I decided I should come back later, and got started completing objectives in the various areas of the event, and meeting with other fans of the franchise.

In terms of mechanics, I had a great deal of trouble completing the tasks that required spinning stops and gyms, as I still had an excessive number of items from the level switchover. Eventually I had to start throwing away Max Potions so I could finally finish those tasks.

When the time came to battle Mega Mewtwo, I was instructed to head to the North area of the event. This was a bit confusing in the UI since the relevant gyms appeared on the map, then disappeared, but I managed to get to the right place (conveniently near a Team Mystic assembly area), and participate in both the X and Y versions of the event. I did have some visual oddities where the battle (especially the first with over one thousand participants) didn’t really animate on my phone screen, leading me to be confused as to whether things were working.

After the event shut down at 6 pm, I exited the park and used the Blue Line to returned to my hotel, a trip that was considerably less crowded. I took this opportunity to talk to other attendees and get their thoughts. They seem to have been relatively pleased with how the event had gone, much like myself.

Sunday

I had added on Sunday as a city-wide day, but ended staying on the west side of the city, with the intention of visiting several used video game stores. The first one I visited was “Game Over”, a small, tightly packed store on Fullerton Avenue. I ended up purchasing a copy of Hybrid Heaven for the N64 and Lethal Enforcers for the Super Nintendo.

The second location I visited was “Videogames Then & Now”, a larger location technically located in the suburb of Harwood Heights. This was a larger shop with a wider selection, including a number of pre-NES titles, books, and more. After acquiring Jet Force Gemini and a GameCube controller extension cable, I got a small bite to eat at the nearby gyro restaurant.

During the course of the day, I obviously made sure to complete more tasks in Go. In addition to getting my first Mudbray and Cursola, I took part in some Gigantamax Raids while I was waiting for or riding on buses. Since a third store (which I had thought would be open) was closed until Tuesday, I took that as a sign it was time to head out, and I went back to the hotel, then to the O’Hare multi-modal facility, and got on a bus back to Madison.

Conclusion

I had a great time at this year’s Go Fest event, certainly better than the disaster that was in 2017, and much more in line with my experience in Vegas in 2023. I very much recommend taking advantage of one of these events should there be an opportunity in your area.

Other Notes

-Towards the end of the park event, I found myself next to a young woman in a wheelchair. I asked her if she had encountered any issues, and she told me she was unable to enter the Team Go Rocket area due to the topography and a lack of walkways. Since I couldn’t remember, I asked her if the sign-up had any place where you could note the need for disabilities or accommodations, and according to her it does not. I think this is something that should be asked during sign up, even if it’s only used for statistical purposes.

-This is another “I would have understood if I looked closer” thing, but it was confusing to me that both the park and the city were divided into zones with different objectives and whatnot. When I saw the name “Investigation Zone”, I assumed that referred to the Team Go Rocket area of the park, and only on closer inspection did I finally figure things out.

-This was my first time wearing my Michael Hutchence cosplay outside for an extended period. Surprisingly, I was even able to wear the fake leather jacket most of the time-as long as I stayed in the shade-but it did feel good to remove the jacket and wig after the park event. As usual, it was fun to get people to try and guess who I was dressed up as.

-My best meal of the weekend came from Nonna Silvia’s, an Italian restaurant where I ordered this gnocchi dish:

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 82-Discussing the music of "Pokemon Go"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to discuss the music of Pokémon Go, a mobile game you’ve probably heard of. In its nearly ten years of existence, it’s managed to incorporate an interesting range of tunes, from main game remixes to…Ed Sheeran? In any event, as usual, there’s a game discussion after the outro:

Links:
Pikapi Podcast

Slow Scan TV Information:
SSTV audio an be decoded by a variety of software:
Android
iOS
Windows
Wikipedia

Livestream: Discussing the music of "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" w/Pikapi Podcast

The latest Smash Bros. game adds new characters and modes, but also plenty of new music. Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to talk about this soundtrack:

 

A Message from Ditto's Trainer?

 

Ditto Inside

Adapted from “Devil Inside” by INXS

New lyrics by Steven “Pokepress” Reich 

Here come the trainer

With the look in their eye

Raised imposters

To mess with your mind

Making movements

Faster than mine

Makes you wonder

How it hasn’t been tried

(Hasn’t been tried)

Makes you wonder

Wonder, wonder

[Well] here come the leader

With the look in their eye

Fearing nothing

Defending pride

Trading those blows

Trading those kicks

Givin’ their all

Until the other one gives

Ditto inside

The Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

Ditto inside

Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

Here come the town

With the look in its eye

Outcome uncertain

A certain delight

Look at the faces

Watchin’ for the tells

It's hard to believe

It can be done so well

(done so well)

The Ditto inside

The Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

Ditto inside

The Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

Well here comes the victor

With the look in their eye

Used impostors

To break through the line

Wielded weapons

Sharper than knives

Makes you wonder

When another one tries

Ditto inside

The Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

[The] Ditto inside

[The] Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

Ditto inside

The Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

[The] Ditto inside

[The] Ditto inside

Ev’ry single one of us

The Ditto inside

The Ditto inside!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Oh, oh oh...

The Ditto inside!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Dani Chambers Talks Playing Shelly in Pokemon Masters (Anime Milwaukee 2026)

At this year's Anime Milwaukee, I haid an opportunity to interview Dani Chambers, who voices Shelly in Pokemon Masters EX. Watch and find out how she got and approached the role:

Press access was provided for this event.

Felecia Angelle (Anime Milwaukee 2026)

At this year's Anime Milwaukee convention, I got to interview Felecia Angelle, who has had a number of voice acting roles, including in Pokémon Horizions:

Press access was provided for this event.