Here’s everything I loved (and didn’t) about the biggest Pokémon event ever

For one weekend only, Mickey wasn’t the biggest mouse in Anaheim.

The Pokémon World Championships 2025 took place in the California city this month, almost directly across the road from Disneyland. The event, which saw thousands of competitors, spectators, fans, and media descend on the area, was the biggest Pokémon event of all time, according to organizers.

Pokémon’s event business has been slowly growing as the hobby once again explodes in popularity ahead of the 30th anniversary next year, and alongside it, the Pokémon World Championships is evolving.

Championships took place in the Anaheim Convention Center. A sprawling event space that has previously housed Star Wars Celebration. In a testament to how much the event has grown over the years, just a short walk from the Anaheim Convention Center is the Anaheim Hilton hotel, which held the 2006 Pokémon World Championships in a small ballroom. The last time the Championships were in Anaheim, the entire event was contained in one singular hall, the same hall that this year was used for the Pokémon Center alone.

The Pokémon Company invited VGC to attend Pokémon World Championships 2025. Here are our thoughts from a long weekend of card hunting, announcements, and battling the crowds.

Pokemon Center’s scalper issues persist, but what is the answer?

The pop-up Pokémon Center has become a firm fixture of Pokémon’s biggest events. While the excitement around these stores, which don’t have permanent physical locations outside of Asia, is huge, it hasn’t been without its issues.

In order to attend the Pokémon Center, fans had to make reservations at the store weeks in advance. Reservations that filled up quickly. The other main issue around the Pokémon Center is the aftermarket value of the exclusive items. While plenty of fans simply wanted items that reminded them of their time in Anaheim, scalpers are well aware of the premium price that some of the more desirable items can fetch.

One move that seemed designed to calm the madness this year was the relative lack of Trading Card Game products. Where in the previous year the TCG sections of the Pokémon Center had been roundly raided by overzealous scalpers, this year the TCG products were limited, only handed out occasionally, and strictly one per person. While this is a shame for fans who didn’t turn up in the right slot to collect TCG, the state of product availability, especially in the US, has seemed to necessitate this.

As far as exclusive Worlds 2025-themed items, they were largely based on an Americana theming that permeated throughout the event. Baseball jerseys and letterman jackets were the hot-ticket items, and the store itself was themed after a diner. The chance to purchase the most in-demand items, such as an exclusive Bear Walker skateboard, a jukebox, and two Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Boxes, was determined by a ballot that fans could opt into when reserving their slot at The Pokémon Center.

This is a good idea in theory; however, there was an issue with people reserving slots for the Pokémon Center, with no intention to attend, and thus, people were winning the ballot even though they weren’t there. An in-person ballot for next year feels like a better approach to limited items.

As part of the diner, The Pokémon Company created several parody album covers, such as “Regice Girls,” “Papa Barbroach,” and “Luxraydeohead.” It’s a shame that nothing featuring these was on sale, like a poster collection or stickers, but it was a fun touch nevertheless.

It felt like The Pokémon Center had more photo-ops built into it, but when the shop was open to the public, it seemed difficult to actually get pictures at any of these activations due to the number of fans trying to get through the store.

I’ve long argued for a permanent Pokemon Center to return to the West after the 2005 closure of the Pokemon Center New York, but considering the white-hot demand among fans every time a new pop-up center is announced, it’s easy to imagine The Pokemon Company seeking to maintain this level of excitement, rather than potentially dilute it with a permanent attraction outside of Asia.

The all-singing, all-dancing Opening Ceremony set the stage for a jam-packed weekend

Friday began with players and fans being let into the hall for the first time. Classic Pokémon music blared through the speakers, kicking off with Viridian City, a theme from the original anime series, all about reaching your goals of being the Pokémon Champion. The excitement on people’s faces when they saw the hall for the first time was infectious.

This year’s opening ceremony included several musical performances, with artists performing original songs themed after Pokémon. These songs were incredibly cheesy, but totally endearing. Everyone who was in that room, who had spent thousands of pounds to be there, totally bought in.

Chief executive officer of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, then appeared on stage to welcome everyone to the event. He thanked the players, but also the families and friends of those competing for supporting the trainers on their journey. Ishihara appeared twice on stage over the weekend, but it would have been nice to see more of the familiar faces from The Pokémon Company across the event.

While some lucky players managed to run into Junichi Masuda, one of the original creators of Pokémon and current chief creative fellow at The Pokémon Company, I’d have loved a panel featuring Ishihara and Masuda, or perhaps even an appearance from other Pokémon luminaries such as Ken Sugimori or the father of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri.

While I understand why Pokémon is hesitant to put these developers in the spotlight, and that the event is more about celebrating the brand as a whole, we think the appetite for more events and activities celebrating the history of the franchise is huge. That is something we hope they lean into for Pokémon XP, and the 30th anniversary celebrations generally.

This weekend was a beta test for 2026’s Pokemon XP

Once the opening ceremony concluded, players started their matches, and spectators explored the halls. One thing that has grown in recent years is the number of side activities that have popped up around the Pokémon World Championships. This year which included an art gallery featuring artwork from the brand-new Pokémon TCG Black Bolt and White Flare sets, several panels, meet & greets with prominent Pokémon creators, a pin rally, and much more.

All of these side activities make the news that next year will see the introduction of the new fan convention, Pokemon XP, make more sense. These attractions have slowly been introduced at several events to give players something to do between matches, as well as make the show more appealing to fans who aren’t competing.

The Toyota Miraidon Project, which was previously only viewable in Japan, made its US debut at the event. The life-size model of the Pokémon was one of the most popular attractions of the weekend, and hopefully points to more Japan-exclusive events being brought across to the US.

Players also got the chance to play Pokémon Legends Z-A for the first time, and meet a brand-new Pikachu mascot dressed as the Z-A protagonist. For TCG fans, a small art display of some of the featured artists at the event was available. Many of these artists also held signings, which were determined by ballot ahead of the event.

For the first time, Pokémon held a pin rally, which asked fans to visit locations around the arena in order to collect pins featuring 7 different Pokémon. This included taking a photograph with the giant inflatable Pikachu outside or participating in a specific activity. One of the pins was acquired by trading with a creator at the show, each of whom was given Murkrow pins to trade with attendees.

While most of the weekend, this was a well-spirited activity, unfortunately, we witnessed more than one attendee rudely demanding multiple Murkrow pins from one creator, against the spirit, and the rules of the event.

Third-party vendors at an official event feels weird

At the back of the halls, several third-party vendors set up a small market village full of trading cards, plush, and other Pokémon items. We are conflicted on this. On the one hand, it’s a great way for players to pick up last-minute cards for their decks, and it has been a staple of events for years, but in the context of how hard it is for some fans to find Pokémon products in stores, it felt somewhat strange.

Out-of-print packs, classic plush, or extremely rare cards are always going to go for a lot of money, but seeing sealed products from Pokémon Black Bolt and White Flare, which should currently be on shelves, being sold for almost double the price felt at odds with the overall vibe of the event. Perhaps The Pokémon Company could come to an agreement with the vendors that they aren’t able to mark up products that are less than a year old to avoid this.

Championship Sunday is an excellent in-person experience

For the first time ever, Championship Sunday at the Pokémon World Championships took place in an arena. To take advantage of the added space, a brand-new stage and set were debuted, which featured an LED floor. This was used during every match, providing real-time information to spectators about the matches in question or to add visual flourishes to the overall presentation.

Even if you don’t know the rules of the game, watching Pokémon finals in person is an excellent experience. The commentators almost uniformly managed to strike a balance between introducing new players to what they were watching and providing analysis for veterans. This is something that Pokémon has always struggled with because there’s such a disconnect between what a casual player will experience collecting cards or playing Scarlet and Violet, and what the competitive scene looks like.

That’s something Pokémon has been working to fix for a long time, and it feels like it’s closer than ever. Even for games like Pokémon Unite, which many in attendance didn’t play or know the rules of, had the atmosphere of a football match as fans shouted and screamed for every big play.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game feels like it’s still got the furthest to go as a spectator sport, but it’s very difficult to imagine what TPC could do beyond deploying a second-screen experience that allowed spectators to scroll through cards.

All of the trading cards used in the top decks have a lot of small text on them, with detailed abilities and attacks, something that’s notoriously difficult to convey via a stream. Pokémon deployed a new overlay during events that would zoom into prominent cards and attempt to explain what is going on, but the speed of the TCG, and the depth of it makes it a problem that may never be solved.

The Pokémon Video Game Championship was the main event of the weekend, and also highlighted an issue that Pokémon faced for the first time in a stadium. As players left the arena during the day to get food, or to take a break between matches, whatever mechanism was being used to track how many people were in the arena was inaccurate. As such, while there were still hundreds of seats left in the arena, a fire marshal declared the arena full, and ordered fans to watch the show on big screens in the convention center.

This became an issue when fans inside the arena started posting images on social media of empty seats, while signs outside the arena claimed it was sold out. While this likely came down to a safety issue, for 2026, a more rigid ticketing system needs to be introduced to avoid this, one of the very few teething problems amidst an excellent final day.

The Closing Ceremony was like Summer Game Fest for Pokémon

If Championship Sunday was the highlight of the event, a close second was the Closing Ceremony. Chief executive officer of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, appeared on stage to thank everyone for coming. All weekend, rumours had swirled about what announcements may be made as part of Sunday’s action.

While most were fairly confident that we’d hear more about Pokémon Champions, the upcoming competitive battler, few expected the announcement that the new Nintendo Switch 1, 2, and mobile game would become the default game used in the 2026 Pokémon World Championships. Pokémon Champions is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to the competitive side of Pokémon video games. This is the thing that’s going to make competitive Pokémon mainstream.

If the game is able to actually teach players the basics of the competitive VGC, and explain why it’s can be so exciting, the number of players who register for the VGC in the coming years is going to skyrocket.

Similarly, many expected news on Pokémon Legends Z-A. While rumours of more Mega Pokémon announcements didn’t come to fruition until a few days after the event, the brand-new four-player multiplayer mode, Z-A Battle Club was met with excitement in the arena.

With every new announcement, the closing ceremony felt more and more like a live very of the Pokémon Presents presentations. Like a Summer Game Fest live show exclusively about Pokémon. After watching Pokémon announcements with thousands of other fans, it makes us wish that the big Pokémon Presents shows that take place every February for Pokémon Day could be viewed with an audience.

Sure, these are the hardest of the hardcore, to the point where a lot of this news wasn’t actually news to plenty of them, but the excitement and noise that flooded the room when Mega Dragonite’s first TCG appearance was confirmed, and Vaporeon was confirmed for Pokémon Unite, was infectious.

One of the final major announcements was the news that Eternatus would make its first appearance in Pokémon Go right there in Anahem, California. Not only was this a great way of clearing the building as thousands of Pokémon Go players spread out onto the concourse outside the Anaheim Convention Center, but it’s the closest we’ve felt to the vibe of 2016 Pokémon Go since that very first, iconic summer.

Closing Thoughts: A festival of Pokémon

The Pokémon World Championships 2025 was a Pokémon Convention. A stone’s throw away from the hotel ballrooms that used to host the show when it was a few hundred hardcore fans revelling in their niche hobby, Pokémon has never been bigger.

The competitive side of the event is thriving, and the moves that The Pokémon Company to make sure the next generation is just as invested in the game as they are collecting the cards are paying off.

While there were clear issues with fans being able to get into the arena, the presentation was excellent, and will only improve as the years go on. Similarly, while the third-party vendors filled out the show, and it’s hard to imagine what the fix would be, the visual of Pokémon products that should be on shelves for retail price being sold for almost double was unfortunate.

Short of building a permanent Pokémon Center, or keeping it open for a week before and after Pokémon XP 2026, we don’t know how The Pokémon Company will fix the issue of demand. This year, significantly more exclusive merch was printed than ever before, and lots of items still sold out. Short of printing one of every item for every single attendee, then selling the leftovers online, we’re unsure. What is certain is that if The Pokémon Company is serious about product limits, the staff hired at the tills this year certainly weren’t.

What can’t be denied is the sense of community, safety, and fun that TPC managed to generate at Pokémon Worlds 2025. From the first day, the massive Pokemon Center, to walking into the hall for the first time as I’m On The Road to Viridian City blasted through the speakers, till the epic final day, it was a dream weekend for Pokemon fans.

While in the past it was potentially difficult to recommend casual fans spend the money to attend Worlds due to the large focus on the competitive side of the game, it’s clear The Pokémon Company wants to turn the event into a festival of Pokémon, without abandoning serious players. Pokémon XP has all the momentum necessary to become Pokémon’s version of Star Wars Celebration, or even bigger.

We’ll find out next year, in San Francisco. More importantly, what is Pikachu going to be dressed as?

Tickets for Pokémon XP go on sale in September.