Unofficial Pokémon fan event drags ill Make-A-Wish children in front of a crowd, suffers invasive camera crews, and is haunted by the Ravioli Man

Pokeverse, an unofficial, fan-run Pokémon event in the Philippines, has been a disaster of such catastrophic proportions for some attendees that it's being mentioned in the same breath as the ill-fated DashCon—which produced a picture of a lonely ball pit so infamous as to be instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with con culture.

As revealed in an extensive thread by attendee BintuRita on Twitter, Pokéverse was allegedly plagued by a swathe of issues so vast that I'm going to have to be selective in what I include here. Let's start with the prices.

As Rita explains, Pokéverse tickets cost P6000, or around $100, for a single day. Three-day tickets, meanwhile, cost P19500 ($331). Even with the inclusion of various unofficial Pokémon tat, judging by the backlash from prospective event-goers, that's pretty expensivefor an event of this size.

Event organisers, Rita says, justified the premium price as a cost-covering measure to manage expenses like «rental, international headliner fees, flights, hotels, transport, setup, and logistics''—as you might've surmised from the headline, said logistics appeared to fall by the wayside. The event's sponsors included Kaloscope (an NFT firm in Dubai) and lucky charms shop Frigga.

What follows in the thread is frankly a comedy of errors. For starters, 3-day pass owners were given unicolour wristbands, despite each day requiring a different colour band—which didn't matter much, because apparently by day 2 they'd run out anyway.

A cosplay contest was also announced less than a week beforehand, with discounts for cosplayers—though Rita claims at least one cosplayer was denied said discount „because staff didn't recognize his character“.

Later on, it turned out that cosplayers had been brought into the event on the same day as child-centric attractions and events: „If you wore a costume, or a onesie, there is a guarantee that at least one child would start following you around or grabbing your clothes and props.“ Rita also says