Catchin' 'Em All in Grand Old New Orleans
A live jazz band plays at the New Orleans
International Airport, greeting waves of travelers for one of the city's
biggest events of the summer. The bell cover of the tuba is displaying the
iconic blue and yellow logo of the highest-grossing pop-culture franchise in
the world: Pokémon.
Being shown this by one of the event staff at the
Morial Convention Center was just one example of many by which I came to
understand the scale of the Pokémon International Championships for North
America. Countless fans of the iconic monster catching-and-battling series had descended
from across the country, even across the world, to watch and play on the
competitive circuit of Pocket Monsters. The three-day Pokémon
celebration was first and foremost a competition, with players from the Pokémon
Trading Card Game, Video Game Competition, and the Pokémon GO and Pokémon
Unite mobile games taking enough floorspace to rival the 38-float
procession of Orpheus.
Prizes could be redeemed for victories in the
competition, but the real prize—and the real pressure—came from the
live streamed, filmed competitions on the main stage of the event. The on-stage
bouts received full in-depth commentary of their players strategies, from a dedicated
commentary staff, for both the crowd and an audience of over 700 to 1000 Twitch
subscribers. On the ground, the spectators, with their own Spectator Badges,
were lucky to have the privilege of getting an autograph from the players as
well as the commentary team. For the first weekend of June, the Convention
Center felt host to the most in-depth competition coverage to be found anywhere
south of the Belmont Stakes.
For all of the talk of competition, it's worth noting
that there were several things to see and do for those looking for something a
bit more casual. A "Pokémon Play Lab" was there to offer hands-on experiences
for the various games being duked out a few doors down. An exclusive pop-up
"Pokémon Center"—named after the in-game locations at which trainers heal their
battle-weary monsters—offered exclusive rare merchandise ranging from 2024
Championships mugs and notebooks to designer hoodies and sweaters, as well as
plush miniatures of dozens of different Pokémon species. Visitors in the main
foyer of the venue could pose for photographs with iconic mascot Pokémon
Pikachu and Eevee, and an exclusive Scarlet and Violent poster design
was offered in exchange for testing out demos of the latest Nintendo Switch
series titles.
Upstairs, the Trading Card Game lived up to its name
with both an official card swap meet area, as well as third-party vendors
selling collectibles, booster packs of cards, and professionally-graded
collectible cards that could easily run for hundreds of dollars. Out of
curiosity, I began looking for cards of an old childhood favorite Pokémon:
Articuno. By buying one booster pack and trading around, I ended up with no
less than four different Articunos. If I'd bought a separate collector's prize
Articuno with different stats from the ones that swappers were willing to
essentially give out for free, it would've cost me several hundred bucks.
New Orleans is hardly any stranger to pop-culture
fandom. Fan Expo, formerly New Orleans Comic Con, has been a mainstay of the Convention
Center's winters for many years. The nearby Hilton Riverside still echoes with
the distant memories of the since-disbanded MechaCon anime convention, the
shoes of which have just recently begun being filled in by an event at the
Sheraton named WasabiCon. And, of course, how could anyone forget Chewbacchus' grand Carnival procession from the Marigny to the Fillmore? Pokémon continues
the spirit of all of these, adding in a truly national, even international
attendance—an atmosphere where competitive e-sports teams can regularly be
heard conversing their strategies in Spanish or Japanese. And with a massively
successful event, Pokémon has already confirmed their intent to return
to the Morial Convention Center in 2025. We've got a whole year left to get
those competitive teams ready, or at the very least, to get a little closer to "catchin'
'em all."
