Nostalgia at Pokemon European Championships

Largest Pickachu trading card

I went to the Pokemon European Championships. I wasn’t a participant but with my passion and growing up with Pokemon I was really curious how such an event would look like. And before I will tell you my findings, I can already tell you the following conclusion: Such events have a lot to learn to make it attractive for visitors.

Don’t understand me wrong. It was amazing to see that Pokemon is still alive. There were many children still playing the card game and I had to behave myself not to buy anymore cards for myself. The trigger was there to start to collect all the cards again. Luckily I could behave myself on this. The children that were playing are more disciplined and better behaved than most adults. It is only sometimes also terrifying how much children of that age already know about tactical playing.

Besides this Junior category in the Trading Card game there were also the Senior and Masters in the Trading Card Game, and Junior, Senior and Masters in the Pokemon Sun and Moon video game. And here comes my main problem with the event. I love to watch the children playing, see the largest Pickachu Trading Card made by smaller Trading Cards. I love as well to see the video game matches on a big screen. However there was no live commentating. Well there is but that is in the live stream and the sound of this live stream isn’t accessible in the hall.

Stage

In the hall there are two big screens, one showing the card game and one showing the Video Game, both without sound. I understand that you cannot give live comment on both games at the same time. But to show the games without sound and while you see sometimes the live stream with the people commenting on the game makes everything less attractive.

I am glad Pokemon is still alive, not only in my generation that grew up with Pokemon Red and Blue but also with the younger generation. The day resulted that I really need to behave myself by not picking up the Trading Card Game and that I still need to do a lot of training before I am even close to participate in the video game competition. But it was a very educative afternoon.