- Written by James Walters
 |
| Posing with the
mon himself, Dapperchu! |
This year marks a
special occasion in the world of video games and Pokémon because a brand-new
Pokémon Center has opened up right in this country (albeit a pop-up store).
Yes, between the 18th October and 15th November, Pokémon
fans across the country (and beyond) can go to Westfield shopping centre in
Shepard’s Bush, London to buy exclusive merch and even sample the upcoming
release, Pokémon Sword and Shield. This is all in aid of the new games as the
generation 8 titles are set in the Galar region, which is heavily inspired by
the UK. Lining up well in our schedules that my partner had a long weekend and
it was my birthday (Happy birthday to me!), we took a trip down to the big
smoke and pay the Pokémon Center a visit over opening weekend.
Now
I know what you’re thinking, “Travelling to a pop-up store for the most popular
media franchise ever on opening weekend? Are you mad??” And the answer to that
is a resounding yes. Of course we didn’t go JUST for the shop, we used one of
our days there to visit that (which I’ll get into more later) and the others
were for general shopping around London. This was an area of the city I’d never
been to before, so it was nice to see another side of our nation’s capital. The
outline of our journey was travelling down by train on Friday, staying at a
hotel in Hammersmith until Monday and returning on train back home. The journey
itself wasn’t too bad, but I discovered two things about myself; 1) I can’t
ride backwards on trains for long periods and 2) Don’t eat before a long train
ride at high speeds.
So, Saturday morning came, 19th October 2019. We
woke up, had breakfast at the hotel and headed off to the shopping centre at
around 9am, expecting the walk to be half an hour. I had read a few articles
talking about the store already saying the queues were immense and that the average
wait time was around 6 hours. 6 whole hours! But we were prepared none the less
to be there for a while, bringing along food and drink as well as entertainment
in the form of my Nintendo Switch.
As I mentioned, we had never been to this place before so
the first obstacle was getting inside. It involved us walking through some
residential areas nearby until we eventually found an entrance dubbed “The
Village”. Clearly this end of the building was for the higher ups in terms of
finances and disposable income. Quickly we moved on and found ourselves on the
1st floor walking down the length of the centre when I could hear
some commotion further up. Bearing in mind that this was about 9:35am and the
shops weren’t due to open until 10am, we assumed rightfully that this was going
to be people queueing for the Pokémon Center.
Turning the corner proved that we were right as a huge crowd
of people were lined up against the railing stretching down to the opposite end
of the area and around the corner. There was a guard stood at the end and we,
I’d argue rightfully assumed, that this was where the queue ended.
It wasn’t.
He informed us that the queue was “downstairs and outside”.
Okay, we thought, this queue is clearly going to be longer than we thought but
let’s move on. Down the escalator we went and out the doors to find a whole
crowd of people, lined up in three hefty lines in front of the building. Wow,
we said to each other, this is gonna be a long day but still we were
determined; the main reason for our journey was to visit the store for my
birthday so we had nowhere else to be. Another guard at the end of that gaggle
and we made our way toward them.
This wasn’t the end either.
Even further back, across two roads and past even more
people lined up against flower beds and leading up next to a children’s
playground outside a John Lewis store, we FINALLY found the end of the queue. We
asked another nearby guard about the waiting time and he said, and I quote
“About 5-6 hours from here”. So the reports were accurate at least. Good news
was we had somewhere to sit with all the flower beds around the site. The bad
news was we were situated in the shadows so the English breeze felt extra cold
and we were both armed with only simple jackets.
The queue continued to form behind us. Before long it
reached the other end of John Lewis and rounded the corner. Murmurs travelled
up the line and we heard that they had eventually closed off the queue. The
appointed hour came, 10am, and we had anticipated the queue to start moving
along or even have a sudden move forward at least… but nothing happened. Sure,
the queues did shuffle forward slightly in that area, but most if not all of
that was from people who had given up and left already. And so we waited…
4 Hours Later…
Suddenly everyone stood to attention; something was
happening further up in the next queue section. Various people cheering and
shouting as they rose to their feet and moved towards the building! The guard
heading up our section beckoned us to move toward and down to the next waiting
section where we dutifully lined ourselves against the new walls and flower
beds. Then it all moved again; across the courtyard and towards the road
crossings, we now headed up the queue for our sections.
It was at this point that mother nature reared her ugly head
and the heaven’s opened up on us all, with numerous people raising their
already packed umbrellas high above the crowd. Suddenly people the general
vicinity grew a lot closer to one another as they took shelter from the rain. It
was at this point that we began to make friends with the people around us in
the queue who we had great conversations with during the rest of our time queuing.
After what felt like another hour (but was probably only
half that time), the queues shifted again and we cross the roads over to the
aforementioned three-line queues. Finally, the end was in sight! Well, the end
of the outside portion at least. Even after this long excursion, others in the
queue gave up hope and left. It was most effective to tackle this level of queuing when you had someone with you or at least made a friend so you could
take bathroom and food breaks. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d have actually
survived if I didn’t have my partner there with me. Of course, she wasn’t best
pleased with the whole situation but we made the best of it.
Going into the day, I had already laid out what I wanted
from the store; I planned to get a couple items from the shop and sample the
demo room upstairs. I thought that as this wasn’t the first pop-up store the
Pokémon Company had done, they would learn from last time and ensure that
enough people got what they wanted for their troubles. Suddenly cries rang
around the queue; the stock had ran out. The premier item on everyone’s mind,
the London Centre Pikachu plush, which had once in the day lined shelves inside
was now barren. Any of the limited edition items had been given a ‘1 per
customer’ buying limit. Members of the crowd were following events on Twitter
and numerous tweets and photos went up showing that the store had been cleaned
out. More people began to lose hope and left, claiming there was no point in
waiting when the only thing they wanted was gone. But I held out hope; they
won’t make the same mistake twice, there will be more stock somewhere and if
not, they’d get more delivered soon.
Somewhere between 6pm and 7pm…
At last, we had moved from the cold drab outside queue
inside of the building. Sitting down on the floor was now a viable option and
we no longer needed our jackets to keep warm. Things were good. Some of our new
group learned of a disability queue that got into the store faster and moved on
to find it. They did actually have disabled needs by the way, they didn’t just
fake it to get in faster! Had we known earlier on, they could have saved her
some pain and gotten in much sooner.
Moving up, we came to the point that we had assumed earlier
in the day was the queue’s end. It was here we’d made a second group of friends
who would be the ones we’d make it to the store with in the end. Winding
through the middle of Westfield, the queue moved at a nicer pace than before
and before long, we rounded the corner and could see the store clear as day.
Our excitement only grew more! My recurring desire to play the demo only grew
but, as my new friends and partner were quick to remind me, the game releases
very soon so there wasn’t any point. And, after the length of time we’d been
waiting, neither Loz nor I wanted to spend even more time waiting around.
Rounding the final corner and joining the queue leading straight to the door,
finally we had made it.
Immediately we grabbed a basket and headed straight for the limited-edition
London merch side. Pikachu’s (or Dapperchu as we called him) lined the shelves
once again and I put it straight into my basket. Moving to the back end of the
store, I found the smaller range of Galar Pokémon merchandise and got my hands
on my fire starter, Scorbunny. American style jackets lined the walls,
emblazoned with the new starters and adorned in their colours. Not even looking
at price, only the size, I got my Scorbunny jacket and I had met my desires for
items. To ensure all customers had an equal share of products, the store placed
a 6 item per person limit on everyone. By the time we got in, that felt like
more of a challenge than a limit.
All of a sudden, my heart broke. Loz only wanted 2 things
from the store that day; the large Mimikyu and Mew plushes they had on sale.
Both had been very popular it seems, as neither was on the shelf by the time we
made it in. I felt powerless. She had spent the entire day with me, queueing
for a store than I wanted to visit for my birthday, with the prospect of
getting the only two items she really wanted and they were all gone. I pleaded
with a staff member; “Please, if there is any way I can get back into the store
tomorrow morning, only for a moment-“ but countless others before me had
already asked hundreds of times over and ended up in the same position.
Wishing to not lose out entirely, we found other things she
liked, making up the overflow of items per person between us. The grass
starter, Grooky, caught her eye and she was hooked on him. Seeing the poor water
type, Sobble, being the only one left behind was too much and he made his way
into our basket too. A water bottle/flask combo by a company called Chilly’s
that had been branded with the London Pikachu and a cup decorated with the
Pokemon-ified London signs and signifiers also ended up in the bag. Finally,
the ever loved and ever adorable Vulpix was grabbed alongside an original trio
eeveelution, Vaporeon.
Purchases made,
selfie taken with new friends and Dapperchu, our day at the Pokémon Center
London drew to a close.
 |
It was apparently
customary to take a picture of the items you bought, so that’s what we did.
|
If you have made it this far down, first of all thank you
for reading my story and secondly, you may have noticed a strange pattern about
this piece. For although the title is “My Pokémon Center London Experience”,
the part of this piece featuring the store itself was minute compared to the
rest of what’s written. That is because as memorable as the store itself was,
it took up the smallest amount of time that day. We arrived in that queue at
9:40am, got into the store at 9:10pm and left for home at 9:18pm. We queued for
11 and a half hours that day, for 8 minutes of time in the store. So clearly,
we are indeed insane.While the store has been open for a little under a week at
time of writing, each day since has had people queueing outside of the
building. Never getting quite as far as we did, but outside none the less. Many
people, including ourselves, have numerous frustrations with this and the store
itself, while there are some on the social forums who have been adamantly
defending the store despite its flaws. I wish to emphasize right now that I
don’t think it was a bad shop or that the staff and security did a bad job; all
the guards we met were incredibly kind and helpful and even though the staff
were set on a 12 hour shift they were polite and friendly with us too. No my
issue here is with how the store itself was poorly constructed and managed.
I’m reminded of one Twitter tirade I saw scrolling through
where one person aptly pointed out “Does Pokémon not realise how big Pokémon
is?” and I’m inclined to agree with them. Having only two physical stores in
the entire world and online store catered to Japanese and American audiences, Pokémon
Company has once again made the rather large mistake of underestimating how
much of a fan base they have outside these regions. It happened back in 2014
with the pop-up store in Paris and unfortunately it is happening here in London
2019. Other Twitter users (who failed to cite any sources) have gone on to tell
others that there is more stock coming in but once it’s gone that’s it. This
next batch HAS to last them until the 15th of November and they’re
even going as far to limit sales per day. As of Monday 22nd, an
official Twitter account was created for the London Center that informed
followers the store had altered its opening times. The Sunday hours remained
the same (12pm – 6pm) but Monday to Saturday was now 10am to 6pm, meaning that
queueing is cut off much earlier and anyone wanted to get in must be queuing
from around 10am at the latest to even get a chance.
To sum up, this store was a great idea and an even better
way to market the new games. Its construction and management have been less
than great and I’d honestly be surprised if they lasted until their intended
close date. If anything were to come out from this, hopefully it is that the
Pokémon Company, Nintendo, whoever it is that runs these things will see that
there is a very high demand for Pokémon merchandise in the UK alone, possibly
more so across Europe. It would be wise for them, at the very least, to open an
online store for UK customers so we aren’t charged international shipping. Or
even go as far as to create a retail store somewhere in the country. Clearly
Poké-mania is having another resurgence and the Pokémon Company need to stand
up and take notice.
