Pokemon has a crowd-control problem. Two years after the Van Gogh Museum Pikachu mob nearly buried staff in Amsterdam, the company has had to shut down a similar Seoul promo event chasing a single Magikarp card. On 8 May, The Pokemon Company stepped in to ask fans to stop the harassment, threats and online abuse aimed at the staff who pulled the plug.
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See how it worksThe Mega Festa kicked off on 1 May at Seoul's Seongsu festival, part of a month-long celebration tied to Pokemon's 30th anniversary. The headline draw was a Pokemon GO stamp rally that handed out an exclusive Magikarp card on completion, the same card already trading on eBay for anywhere between $250 and $2,500 before the event began. The most widely-cited estimate puts the eventual crowd at around 40,000 people, with on-the-ground shop owners suggesting closer to 5,000; either way it was enough for Korean police and firefighters to be called in to manage the surge. Organisers shut the rally and themed areas around 11am at the request of city authorities.
The bigger story for the wider hobby is what's driving this. Mega Evolution and the franchise's 30th anniversary have ramped up scarcity-driven hype to levels Pokemon hasn't seen since the original Base Set boom. A handful of region-locked promos can now move secondary-market prices the way an entire set used to. The Van Gogh Pikachu in October 2023 drew similar scenes in Amsterdam and forced the museum to pull stock; the Seoul shutdown is the same playbook with a bigger crowd.
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Find events near youFor UK collectors, the practical takeaway is the alternate distribution: anyone who completed the rally before the shutdown can submit a form to claim the Magikarp by post. The bigger one is to expect ballot systems and ticketed slots on the next round of Mega-era promos, particularly anything tied to UK conventions later in the year.
Sources: Wargamer | PokeBeach | The Korea Times
