Niantic’s first convention partnership in Europe was a full success! Nearly 10,000 visitors came to the MAG convention in Erfurt, Germany, which took place on October 5 through October 8. Those who visited our booth experienced a variety of activities, traded Pokémon with YouTube influencers and even caught a first glimpse of Ingress Prime!

Outside of the convention, more than 44,000 Pokémon GO Trainers visited Erfurt and its historic inner city throughout the weekend to catch Pokémon and enjoy our PokéStop walkway to and from the convention center. A combined total of over 1.6 Million Pokémon were caught in Erfurt throughout the event–especially Unown, which had a new form available for the first time in Europe! Thanks for sharing this awesome celebration of community, anime and gaming with us.

European YouTube influencer Sturmwaffel and the popular Twitch collective Pietsmiet hosted a special tour bus that took eager Trainers around the area to do Raid Battles throughout the weekend, challenging the Legendary Pokémon Mewtwo among other powerful Pokémon. Plus, a few lucky Trainers even got the chance to trade Pokémon with the influencers, making for a one-of-a-kind souvenir for the trip.

There were also many highlights for devoted Ingress Agents! The city of Erfurt hosted a special Mission Weekend that Ingress Agents could complete together with Niantic Community Managers from across the globe. Hundreds of Agents explored the city of Erfurt throughout the weekend, hacking a total of 1247 Portals and making progress on their Mission Day Medal. In total our, Agents performed 133,730 hacks throughout the weekend, and participated in great cross-Faction fun. Great job, Agents!

The infamous P. A. Chapeau was also spotted by Niantic employees at MAG, and he even attempted contact at the Niantic booth. As a Truthseeker with information on the upcoming Recursion Prime events, he took the convention as an opportunity to learn more about a technology that we gave an early preview on-site: Ingress Prime. We want to take this opportunity to refute P.A. Chapeau’s claim that XM can be dangerous. No participant of MAG Erfurt was harmed by extended XM exposure, even throughout the Mission Days. Perhaps P.A. Chapeau is hiding something? Only time will tell...

Thanks again for coming to our booth at MAG Erfurt to talk to us about our games and the future of AR gaming! Meeting our Agents and Trainers in person always makes for an awesome, exciting experience for our team. See you again soon!

—The Niantic team