The Pokemon World Championships are meant to be a global celebration, which is why it makes perfect sense to change the venue. Recently, fans have been wondering where the Pokemon World Championships will be held outside the U.S. in the future, since the event has always taken place in California in recent years. Chris Brown, Head of Global Esports and Event Operations at The Pokemon Company, says they really want to bring the event back to other locations. It’s just becoming increasingly difficult to find cities that can handle the enormous scale of the event.
THE POKEMON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS HAVE BECOME HUGE
It was no coincidence that the event took place in California two years in a row. Brown explained to us during a group chat at the 2026 event that they did this to keep things simple. Organizing such a large event is a massive undertaking. “We’ve been in the U.S. for a few years now, and one of the reasons for that was to ensure the success of this event, as it simplified our operations a bit,” Brown explained. “That’s why we’re in California two years in a row. It was intentional, to maximize our success this year.”
It’s easy to see why they have to be careful. For the 2026 event, over one million square feet of space was used for the expo, plus the Chase Center for Sunday’s grand finale, which drew 15,000 fans. That’s a massive amount of space to find in a single city. It puts a lot of stress on the team to organize everything.
“Pokemon XP” was also a new addition this year. Brown isn’t yet sure whether they’ll always hold this event alongside the main event in the future. They want to wait and see how it goes this time around. But even if they decide to skip the additional program, the main event will still be massive. Brown said, “The convention as a whole won’t get any smaller, even if we no longer have this XP experience, so to speak. We’re probably still talking about, well, 30,000 attendees, 40,000 attendees—maybe on par with Anaheim, for example.”
And this is where the headaches begin. They need about 800,000 square feet of space plus a basketball arena. Both of these must be available at exactly the same time. Setting up the arena takes a week; setting up the convention center takes nearly two weeks. It’s really hard to find a city that offers both, especially if they also want to rotate the event globally.
“There are only a limited number—not just of cities that have this infrastructure, but also of dates when these two things align,” Brown said. “And so there will be years that may not be as big as others, because in the long run, our intention is to host the World Championships in different locations.”
POKEMON DOESN’T WANT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS TO STAY IN THE U.S. FOREVER
The event’s success is almost a problem. They’ve built something so big that it’s hard to find new host cities. Still, they want to visit other countries again, just as they’ve already done in Japan, London, and Canada. “We’ll certainly be looking outside the U.S.,” Brown said. “We have to, because the World Championships are meant to serve the whole world.”
Changing host cities makes the fans happy. It gives players the chance to participate when the event comes to their region. “For this to work as effectively as possible, the event needs to rotate among different markets so that fans and players everywhere know there’s a chance the World Championship will eventually come to their area,” Brown noted.
SOME FUTURE POKÉMON WORLDS EVENTS MAY HAVE TO BE SMALLER
Planning for the coming years is already underway. One idea is to do away with the large arena entirely. Instead, a huge exhibition hall could be used to set up temporary seating. While this would change the atmosphere, it would make it possible to host events in more locations. “We may have to move to a very large convention center and set up bleachers to create that arena feeling, and maybe on the final day we’ll only accommodate 8,000 or 10,000 fans instead of 15,000,” Brown said.
Some people might be disappointed if they can’t get a seat. But if that means the World Championships can finally visit more countries, I think that’s a great compromise. It’s great to see how much the sport is evolving. Let’s hope they find a way to keep the spirit of the sport alive while also seeing more of the world.
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