{"id":508890,"date":"2026-10-26T23:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T23:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/508890\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T23:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T23:36:14","slug":"what-in-the-kanto-region-is-it-like-to-go-to-a-pokemon-rave-i-found-out-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/508890\/","title":{"rendered":"What in the Kanto Region is it like to go to a Pok\u00e9mon rave? I found out this weekend."},"content":{"rendered":"

Lattices of lasers blanketed the arena, columns of fog and flames puffed up along the edge of the stage, confetti blasts fluttered\u00a0onto the crowd and decibel-pushing beats practically rattled your bones. Oh, and Pikachu was there too.<\/p>\n

Pitched as<\/a> a mash-up of dance music and Pok\u00e9mon, the sold-out Pok\u00e9mon Night Out<\/a> brought both of those elements\u2014though often separately\u2014to\u00a0Inglewood\u2019s Intuit Dome<\/a> on Saturday night. The L.A.-area venue is one of only two locations on the planet to host the EDM concert (it\u2019s set to hit up London in November), which is tied to the video game series\u2019 30th anniversary.<\/p>\n

So what does a Pok\u00e9mon rave actually look like inside? Mostly what you\u2019d expect from a big-name EDM show\u2014but with more Jigglypuff and Charizard visuals. Headliner Marshmello stuck to his usual repertoire of songs, albeit\u00a0sometimes surrounded by arena-sized animations of Pok\u00e9mon. But opener Alison Wonderland ran with the assignment: She threw in remixes of the TV show\u2019s \u201cgotta catch \u2019em all\u201d intro and the game\u2019s\u00a0melancholy Lavender Town theme; was persistently\u00a0backed by a parade of character illustrations; and\u00a0even welcomed\u00a0a costumed Pikachu\u2014trimmed with a light-up hat and glasses\u2014onto the stage.<\/p>\n

\"Alison
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutAlison Wonderland at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

\"Alison
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutAlison Wonderland at Pikachu at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

Before diving into the rest of the night in detail, my trainer bona fides: I\u2019m certainly no present-day Pok\u00e9mon Master, but I\u00a0did complete my Pok\u00e9dex (sans Mew) circa 1998. While I\u2019m more of a Pok\u00e9-dilettante in the years since\u00a0Red\/Blue, I have spent the past decade-plus covering music festivals<\/a>, concerts and all sorts of other major events in L.A.<\/p>\n

So initially, walking through the arena\u2019s entryway as fans started to file in most reminded me of L.A.\u2019s former video game convention E3<\/a> with a little bit of Anime Expo<\/a> mixed in: It was clear that the love of a long-running game and anime franchise was the main uniting factor here, with folks dressed in Pok\u00e9mon T-shirts and jerseys or cosplaying as\u00a0Ash, Misty and members of Team Rocket. The\u00a0line for a photo with a statue of Mewtwo and Mew?\u00a0Long. The\u00a0queue for merch outside of the arena?\u00a0Even longer.\u00a0And the number of phones with\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go booted up?\u00a0Uncountable. (On the other hand, the line for the bar?\u00a0Nonexistent.)<\/p>\n

\"Pokemon
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutPok\u00e9mon Night Out at Intuit Dome <\/p>\n

\"Pokemon
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutPok\u00e9mon Night Out at Intuit Dome <\/p>\n

But the second the bass started booming inside, it was pretty clear this was a full-blown EDM concert and not some sort of convention sideshow. And, from my vantage point at least, the crowd sure seemed to think so too. While plenty of people were still filing in to the arena during Alison Wonderland\u2019s opening set, things filled up for Marshmello, with people on the floor and standing in the aisles particularly into it. Social media has become saturated with memes about club kids just standing there with their phones out, but I spotted plenty of\u00a0attendees at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out who were actually\u2014gasp\u2014dancing.<\/p>\n

\"Marshmello
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutMarshmello at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

\"Marshmello
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutMarshmello at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

\"Alison
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutAlison Wonderland at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

Of course, there was still plenty to photograph, especially as folks would cheer and raise their phones whenever familiar characters made their digital entrances onto the screen. Marshmello\u2019s epic-scale visuals seemed to incite the loudest reactions: The titanic duo of\u00a0Kyogre and Groudon waged elemental warfare on either side of Marshmello\u2019s platform, the ghostly Gengar\u00a0commanded\u00a0fireballs in front of him and psychic Mewtwo levitated a digital version of the DJ above the stage.<\/p>\n

\"Marshmello
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutMarshmello at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

\"Alison
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutAlison Wonderland at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

\"Marshmello
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutMarshmello at Pok\u00e9mon Night Out <\/p>\n

It all looked neat, but as someone whose algorithm was overtaken by adorably clumsy costumed characters after this year\u2019s Pok\u00e9mon World Championships in San Francisco, I was admittedly hoping for a tighter integration between Pok\u00e9mon and an EDM show. Pikachu\u2019s early-evening cameo marked the only non-digital character appearance, and Alison Wonderland\u2019s two remixes were the only meaningful nods to the franchise\u2019s three decades of earworms. Marshmello\u2019s set included no musical homages, and while the visuals were often epic in scale, the Pok\u00e9mon tie-ins were sporadic. Keeping\u00a0some of those Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0aspects relatively restrained probably made for a better concert, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t have minded more over-the-top novelty\u2014fill that London stage with a kick line of Geodudes with transparent PNG legs all dancing to a dubstep remix of the \u201cPok\u00e9rap,\u201d and I\u2019ll be there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lattices of lasers blanketed the arena, columns of fog and flames puffed up along the edge of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7579,48,52,51,47,50,49,7995,420],"class_list":["post-508890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-categories-things-to-do","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news-events-festivals","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}