Update: Now renamed the Hot 101.5 PokéCrawl, the bar-hopping event will kick off at 2 p.m. July 23 at downtown St. Pete's Jannus Live with a performance by DJ Spindiana Jones. Since a huge crowd is expected, at 3 p.m., the party will move into different "zones" that stretch down Beach Drive and First Avenue North. Specific times and zone locations are listed in a post on the Facebook event page.
Pokémon, the '90s Nintendo-game-turned-lifestyle has made a resurgence in pop culture through a new mobile game — Pokémon Go. Using a smartphone's GPS and clock, the game allows users to catch the original 151 Pokémon when they show up on the screen, encouraging people to get out and explore the world around them.
Or ride their bikes around the same block for hours, whatever.
The game is so well-liked that it's about to breeze past Twitter in terms of daily users, according to Forbes. And that's saying a lot, as it's only available so far in the U.S., New Zealand and Australia. In the U.S., it was downloaded on 5.6 percent of all Android devices days after its July 5 release. Currently, Nintendo's stock is up 25 percent.
It's pretty popular in Tampa Bay, too.
This past Saturday, Ryan McGibbeny, producer for The Miguel Show on HOT 101.5, created a Facebook event as a drunken joke after the Modest Mouse-Brand New concert in Tampa. Twenty-four hours later, 529 people responded as attending the Pokémon Go-inspired bar hop, and more than 2,000 marked themselves as "interested." At the time of publication, that number rose to more than 840 attending, with 3,000-plus people interested.
CL talked to McGibbeny (who still has all of his Pokémon cards, by the way) about his plans for the crawl and why the idea came up in the first place.
"It's a community now," the 26-year-old said. "You go out and you see somebody [playing the game] and you make friends."
He thinks Pokémon Go is so popular because it pairs itself with modern technology. Whereas the game used to be reserved for Nintendos, Game Boys and trading cards, it's now accessible on people's phones, in a simulation of reality sort of way.
"People used to wish it was real," McGibbeny said. "Now it's tangibly real."
Plans for the hop's route, which he said will be sponsored by The Miguel Show, are still in the works, but tentative stops at this point include the EDGE District's Green Bench Brewing Co. and The Bends.
McGibbeny's working on getting beer sponsorships and aims to have a website, titled ThePokeBarCrawl.com, up within the next few days. He'll continue to update the Facebook event, which people should check for information.
Participating gamers are encouraged to wear their team colors (red, blue or yellow), as well as play — and drink — smart.
