A festival in every home!

This year, the Pokémon Go Fest will be accessible ANYWHERE! In past years, you had to go to an actual location to participate, but Niantic is handling this year’s Fest just as impressively as they have all other parts of this game to cope with social distancing. Last year was held in Chicago, which even for US natives could be difficult to attend.

Worldwide!
Price-wise this Fest is appropriately less. Participation will be a flat cost of USD 14.99 as opposed to the $25 fee of last year. Also different from last year is that it will last for two instead of three days. It will start on July 25th and run till 26th, both days from 10 AM to 8 PM.
As of now, we can infer from the official post that Cherrim, Oddish, Pikachu and Jigglypuff will be among the more than seventy-five species being promoted. Some of these may be part of the special research tasks they have prepared. 
To recreate some of the social charms of these big events, Niantic also announced that they will be creating a smaller website specifically to act in place of the Team Lounges they normally have set up. 
Free and Paid Merch
A “Print at Home kit” is also to be released soon. It is a nice touch of something physical that will probably go a long way to helping people not feel like this event is so sequestered.

Though it certainly is not free, the online store for the Pokémon Center has a brand-new shirt for this occasion! It is going for $24.99. Luckily, free shipping on orders over $20 is on right now!

Front side: plenty to look at!

The back-side is simplistic but sufficient.

Niantic and Social Activism

The ticket money in its entirety will be given to charities. They have committed to at least $5 million, with half of the total sales going to Black developers and the other half to people and communities affected by Corona-19.

Today and Tomorrow

Perhaps this year will change the way Go Fests are handled in the future. Niantic has implemented many new features in response to Covid-19, all of which are widely accepted and appreciated. We can only wait and see.

Will you be buying this pass? Do you think they should have handled this another way? Feel free to drop a comment with your thoughts!