Pokemon Go Road Trip Experience
- A Giant Battle Bus is Roaming Europe
- Special Pikachu's with costume and background have appeared
- Meet local ambassadors and play mini-games
Pokemon Go has really spent the last few years trying to ensure that they are community-first. We saw this with ambassadors and the roll-out of the Campfire app, so seeing the Pokemon Go Road Trip felt like an extension of them supporting and fostering communities.
If you are unfamiliar with this Road Trip event, Pokemon Go has been bringing a giant battle bus all around Europe, having stops along the way so that trainers can meet up. These specific areas have different spawns - Unowns being what I looked out for most.
There is also an increased number of raids, which have Summer Pikachu with backgrounds dedicated to the location, and each location was completely loaded with lures, new stops, and tons of PokeBalls that you can tap for items or Pokemon. Each of these gave out tons more items too!
We got the chance to speak to Jack Wilcock, EMEA head of marketing for Pokémon GO, who explained a bit of the idea behind Pokemon Go Road Trip. "What we're kind of looking at is, are there opportunities to be a bit more agile, to do things, to go to parts of Europe we haven't been to before or cities we haven't been to like Manchester."
For the first stop of the Road Trip event, the battle bus started in Manchester. As I run a community based in Harlow, we decided to road trip ourselves! In my car, we had three other people, and another car of two followed us.
Making the five-hour journey was a really fun adventure - we stopped off along the way, chatted, enjoyed a meal, and all got there exhausted and excited for the event happening the next day. With the Road Trip spawns starting at 11, we had a good time sleeping and preparing, before walking around the area trying to find tasks for the Summer Pikachu and shouting out hundos.
There were tons of trainers at the first location, which was so much fun to see. The bus is amazing to look at, though they do not let people into it, and there was plenty of sunshine to enjoy.
During the day, Road Trip staff handed out small merch items that you would have likely seen if you've attended a Community Ambassador run event: wrist bands, key chains, team pins. There were smaller posters for the event as well, which show off all the locations.
One of the ways that Pokemon Go is highlighting ambassadors, along with the video on ambassadors on the screen of the bus, is by finding local ambassadors to each of the locations and inviting them along to host a little micro-game.
Each of these locations has its own games and events, with Manchester having a massive Raid Train as it was on a Wednesday during Raid Hour. Seeing the various ambassadors from these areas is a great way to connect locals who are willing to travel by bus with their local communities. It's such a wonderful idea and full of good vibes.
One of the things I asked Jack about was having these micro-events in smaller cities, and maybe even more rural. "It's something that we're always looking at, and obviously we want to try and do as much as we can for all the communities, but Europe's a very big continent. I think that's like the work that you, the community ambassadors, do, and Campfire, everything. That's where you can really tap into doing those kinds of hyper-local things."
We also went to the London Pokemon Go Road Trip, where, as an ambassador, I ran a scavenger hunt, which was pretty awesome too! It's neat to see the differences between these events. I do wish Manchester had more of the photo areas and there was more consistency.
Pokemon Go having these smaller, but supported physical events is such a neat way to see the Pokemon Go community and see different individuals that are very interested in this mobile adventure. I feel the connection with the local ambassadors is such a good idea, and everything felt so much fun!
