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Pokémon Go gives festival attendees a free Lugia after connectivity issues plagued the event

Pokémon Go gives festival attendees a free Lugia after connectivity issues plagued the event

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Not a total loss for fans

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After rough start to Pokémon Go Fest, Niantic’s first in-person event for its breakout game, the company has announced that all registered attendees will automatically have the legendary pokémon Lugia added to their accounts. Prior to the event, the company teased that legendary pokémon are headed to the game, and the reveal for what specific pokémon is coming was supposed to happen in a form of a co-operative raid. That, of course, didn’t actually happen, as connectivity issues rendered the game mostly unplayable by the majority of festival goers.

The free Lugia is in addition to attendees being offered a $20 event entry refund and $100 of in-game PokéCoins, which Niantic hopes will satisfy fans of the game (unless they paid a whole lot more for their entry tickets via scalpers.) The company formally recognized the network issue via Twitter at around 2PM ET yesterday, though players had complained they’d been unable to log in since lining up as early as 6AM local time. (The event was scheduled to kick off at 10AM CT.)

Niantic also revealed that the next legendary pokémon is Articuno, which should now be available to catch in raids across the globe. There is no indication that both Lugia and Articuno are only around for a limited period of time, but if you’re still playing the game (or are able to log in, if you’re within the two-mile radius surrounding Grant Park in Chicago) it’s probably wise to get that taken care of before technicalities — intended or otherwise — remove you of that opportunity.