This past weekend, Pokémon fans in L.A. gathered at the Intuit Dome for an—I can’t believe this is real—official Pokémon rave. Entitled Pokémon Night Out, this concert promised an evening of EDM by Marshmello and Alison Wonderland that would “immerse the audience at the center of the Pokémon world.”
There was only one problem. According to an awful lot of fans posting on social media in the wake of the event, the Pokémon-themed rave was missing a key element: Pokémon.
“I paid $300+ for an early-bird GA ticket expecting an actual Pokémon x EDM experience,” wrote yingtaohua77 on Reddit yesterday. “Instead, it felt like a couple of DJs playing their regular sets while VJs threw some Pokémon visuals on the screens.”
“What do you mean I spent 300 dollars on GA tickets for a pokemon rave for them to play a total of 2 pokemon songs💀” wrote ZackMcCool in a separate post.
Numerous other posts and comments back up these claims elsewhere. According to those who went, the event (which cost attendees $300 a ticket just for general admission) didn’t really feature a lot of Pokémon. Marshmello, they said, didn’t incorporate any Pokemon music into his set at all, and instead just performed what seemed to be a regular set with some Pokémon visuals on the screen.
A lot of the commenters mention that Alison Wonderland’s performance was more appropriate to the theme. You can watch it here if you like; she does the iconic anime theme song at around 6:20 (and seems genuinely delighted about it), and at 27:46 she does a sick remix of the Lavender Town theme:
If you just watched Alison Wonderland’s part of the performance, you might be confused as to what everyone’s upset about, but taking a peek over at Marshmello’s section…yeah, okay, I see why folks are less thrilled. While there are a few sections that have cool effects (Mewtwo seeming to make Marshmello float above the crowd was kinda neat), much of the rest of his set is not recognizable as a Pokémon show. I see why maybe people were a bit frustrated!
“This was a Marshmello show that was Pokémon-themed, not the other way around (despite being marketed as being ‘curated for audiences seeking a deeper connection with the brand’),” wrote plzadyse on Reddit. “Sure, some of the visuals were great, but some were insanely lazy (but well-executed).
“Many of the visuals lacked a cohesive creative direction that would’ve elevated it all. The absolute best visual was a fight between Groudon and Kyogre that synced with the lighting and pyrotechnics. Only about half the songs even had any Pokemon visuals at all. At this point with SO many pokemon and games/concepts to draw from, there are so many possibilities with how they could’ve themed everything. All of Alison Wonderland’s visuals were literally just flashing names of pokemon and showing 2d pictures.”
But even if the visuals worked for you, it seems like the main complaint is the lack of any actual Pokémon music apart from the two songs Alison Wonderland played, at an official, two-hour-long event. It does feel like a weird omission, given The Pokémon Company could absolutely license them to do some really awesome stuff with the many, many wonderful tunes across all the games. Like, really? Not even a remix of the main battle theme?
There are still some tickets available for the London show on November 10, and they are thankfully significantly cheaper than the $300 general admission tickets fans in L.A. seemingly had to shell out for. For £38.35 you can be on the floor for the rave, which does seem pretty fun if you’re going in clear-eyed about what to expect. Still, that requires you to, well, be in London. The rest of us might be better off just watching a musical Pokémon parody on YouTube for free instead.
