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London pop-up Pokemon Centre seeing “four to five hours” queue time

Unprecedented demand

London pop-up Pokemon Centre seeing “four to five hours” queue time

London’s pop-up Pokemon Centre has been reported to have queues between “four to five hours” for those looking to gain admission to store.

As reported by Eurogamer, due to the amount of demand for products at the location, the Pokemon Centre store has now reduced its opening hours from 10am to 10pm to 10am to 6pm.

Sundays will also be reduced down to the same closure time but will only open at 12 noon.

On opening day, videos emerged online with queues circling outside the building and further down the street. Ongoers reportedly were told of a six hour wait time before gaining access to the shop.

Launched by The Pokemon Company, the temporary store will only be open for a limited time from October 18th to November 15th, 2019 and features exclusive Poke-designs not found elsewhere.

Purchase restrictions

As another precaution, The Pokemon Centre has limited purchases to six items (excluding Nintendo accessories and hardware) alongside one item per customer across the London Pikachu range.

Several attendees have requested the store whether they could camp overnight in preparation for opening hours, however the firm has advised against this and said camping bags or tents are not permitted.

The next mainline entry in the Pokemon series is due to launch this November with Pokemon Sword and Shield.

The game sees trainers exploring the Galar region, which is based off Britain and will feature several new Pokemon inspired by the country.


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.