News: Worlds 2016 Closed to the General Public

[Rivvon]

Very poor handling of the situation on their part. This should have been made public months ago. Definitely not the way I expected them to handle Worlds on the year of their 20th anniversary.

 

[donavannj]

That's a shame, really. Sounds like poor planning all around on their part, from booking the hotel for the tournament on down to not communicating this to the public months ago.

 

[Guest123_x1]

Sad that they had to make this kind of decision for what would be a highly popular event for a major media franchise. Were there no other venues they could use for this?

In hindsight, I do wonder if the foiled mass shooting plot from last year's Championships was a factor in this decision, and the real reason is not what the official statements claim?

 

[Hikamaru]

Like Rivvon and Don said, not warning the public about this restriction sooner was a poor move from the company, in what is Pokemon's 20th anniversary year nonetheless, about not leaving a warning that the venue is so small that it's causing space concerns. The event will be streamed, but that's not enough to stop the sour taste left in the mouths of those who were planning to go the event to spectate. The restricted size also made sense in why there was no local wi-fi event Pokemon announced, in what is meant to be the final Worlds event before the move into 7th Gen.

Hopefully the company will learn from this and have a much more sizable location booked for the 2017 Worlds event.

 

[Brendino]

As someone who got a chance to go to the Worlds when they were hosted here in 2013, I've got to say it's very poor planning on their part, and I can only imagine how many fans are going to be left disappointed because of their decision. You'd think that the size of the venue would be something they had to consider when deciding to host the championships in San Francisco, and if they weren't able to find something suitable, they should've tried somewhere else.