Pokemon Bar Crawl Is The Best Thing At The SDCC

First Posted: Jul 26, 2016 06:27 AM EDT

There are a lot of things to look forward to during the annual San Diego Comic Con - and during the Gaslamp Quarter, hordes of Pokemon Trainers walked around in the game's distinct red, yellow, and blue caps.

From team leaders to new features, here are 5 things we learned about #PokemonGO at #SDCC! https://t.co/Glnu9GbtZf pic.twitter.com/ONPtMnoHBp

— IGN (@IGN) July 24, 2016

Hundreds of people camped outside the convention center to drink and, of course, play Pokemon Go as part of an unofficial bar crawl put together over Facebook. Pokemon taking over Comic Con is not surprising - at only two weeks old, the game is already a phenomenon. What makes it surprising, however, is that the huge gathering was actually put together by one fan and turned it into one of the best events during the show. "I'm still kind of a little shocked to be honest," Caitlin Teasdale, who plays the game and organized the crawl, said. "I've always planned things, and no one's ever shown up.:

The Verge noted that the bar crawl organizer expected only about 15 people, but ended up with around 2,500 responses and a few hundred showing up. All of the plans were handled by Teasdale, although in the final days, Razer did reach out to offer the use of its booth as the staging area, presumably so that people would use RazerGo, it's Pokemon Go chat app.

Due to the success of her first crawl, Teasdale was already thinking of what's going to happen for SDCC 2017, saying that "It's gonna be much bigger next year. I'm gonna make it crazier."

It sounds exciting, but as Cinema Blend noted, Pokemon Go may not be as big next year - unless Nintendo can make sure that people can stay engrossed in the game. All is well for now - the game is one of the most used apps and Nintendo and Niantic Labs had been adding new territories and regional support for the app to get it bigger than ever - if it can sustain itself in the long run. After all, someone was already able to catch 'em all, and the game hasn't been out a month yet.