Thousands of fans from near and far traveled to Chicago for Saturday's much-anticipated Pokemon Go Fest, but serious problems forced organizers to apologize — and offer refunds — after just four hours. 
 
 Plans called for as many as 20,000 Pokemon Go players to converge in Grant Park, with the ultimate goal of unlocking a sought-after "legendary" monster for the first time in the augmented-reality cellphone game. 
 
 But throughout the day, festival attendees repeatedly complained about issues that prevented them from catching Pokemon or even logging into the mobile game in the first place — frustrations that resulted in the booing of John Hanke, CEO of the game's developer, Niantic. Those problems were magnified by hours-long lines to get into the park. 
 
 At about 1:30 p.m., Niantic Chief Marketing Officer Mike Quigley announced that organizers would be refunding the original $20 ticket cost, as well as offering $100 of in-game credits. 
 
 “Obviously, today has not gone as planned,” Quigley told members of the media shortly after the announcement. “It has been a really unfortunate situation.” 
 
 The refunds would be issued via email to every player who registered a wristband for the event, he said. When asked by Blue Sky how many people that would be, Quigley said: “We don’t know right now.” 
 
 Some players paid much more than the $20 to attend the event, as tickets were being resold for hundreds of dollars online. Many players traveled from across the country and the world to attend the event. 
 
 Although he apologized for the technical problems during the Pokemon Go Fest on Niantic’s behalf, Quigley wasn’t ready to call the event a complete failure. 
 
 Despite the gameplay issues that many attendees struggled with, others were still able to enjoy the festival and catch “lots and lots” of Pokemon, he said. 
 
 “We’ve had a number of technical issues today that have cropped up,” Quigley said. “The good news is that there are a lot of people in the park who are playing Pokemon Go.” 
 
 Many Pokemon Go Fest attendees had trouble getting the augmented-reality cellphone game to work. 
 
 The event Saturday at Butler Field featured lounge areas for each of Pokemon Go's three in-game teams. It also had photo booths where attendees could take pictures with Pokemon, along with concession and merchandise stands. 
 
 Attendees Mark Haberkorn, of Chicago, and Kieng Iv, of Toronto, are members of the Official Pokemon Go 40 Club, an international online community of more than 1,000 high-level Pokemon Go players. Haberkorn and Iv began waiting in line for Pokemon Go Fest at 6 a.m. Saturday, they said. 
 
 “I’m glad that they actually recognized that there was an issue,” Iv said. “But I do feel that it was very late, and I do feel that they did it after a significant amount of people booing them.” 
 
 In addition to Canada, Haberkorn said that his organization had members fly into Chicago from Australia, Denmark, France, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Singapore and “half of the United States.” Ticket refunds and $100 of gaming credits will hardly be enough to compensate them for their travel costs, he said. 
 
 “We put together money and stockpiled gifts … in order for these people to be able to make it,” Haberkorn said. “The excitement has just been drastically minimized because of what we’ve experienced today.” 
 
 Shawn Caution, who drove nine hours from Buffalo, N.Y., to Chicago with his girlfriend, said he bought tickets online within five minutes of them becoming available. 
 
 "We were expecting the servers to stay stable,” Caution said. “The worry was about what would happen in the game." 
 
 The technical difficulties were "worse than day one" he said, when the game was first released. The game was notably plagued by technical difficulties for weeks and weeks after it first came out, due to its unexpected popularity. But similar problems hadn’t been seen in 2017. 
 
 While Caution took a selfie with Hanke and got his autograph after the CEO apologized, Caution said it wasn't much comfort. 
 
 "It's definitely not enough," he said. "They had more than enough time to make everything stable. Am I going to go to another one? Probably not." 
 
 As the fest approached the evening, Quigley took the stage again with another announcement: All players who scanned a QR code when they entered the park — verifying their presence inside Pokemon Go Fest — would automatically receive the legendary Pokemon Lugia. 
 
 That's a much different process than the event originally promised, with a slew of tasks and challenges for players to face throughout the day and a possible payout at the end. 
 
 But Brian Dodge, who works with Spartan Elite Advertising, an agency that represents top video game influencers, said he'd take it. 
 
 "After a long day, for everyone to come and get a Lugia, for sure, is a huge win," Dodge said. "If you had this horrible, terrible day and at the end didn't get a Lugia — that would be devastating." 
 
 Robert Holly is a freelance writer. 
 
 Twitter @robertwadeholly 
 
 UPDATES: 
 
 5:55 p.m.: Revised and updated with quotes throughout. 
 
 2:45 p.m.: Updated with news of refunds to attendees. 
 
 This article was originally published at 11:35 a.m. ||||| Heading into Niantic’s Pokémon GO Fest — a gathering of roughly 20,000 Pokémon GO players in Chicago’s Grant Park — everyone seemed to have the same concern: the weather reports said a thunderstorm was coming. 
 
 The weather turned out fine. Most other things, unfortunately, did not. 
 
 As a result, Niantic has just announced they’ll be refunding attendees their admission cost, in addition to crediting them $100 of in-game currency (or Pokécoins). Estimates from Niantic leading into the event pinned the crowd at around 15-20,000 attendees. 
 
 (Update: It’s currently unclear if Niantic will be automatically refunding attendees, or just those who ask. Niantic says they will send an email with details to attendees.) 
 
 First and most notably: The game simply didn’t work. Within minutes of the first attendees filing into Grant Park, the cell networks got shaky. Within 20 minutes of the doors officially opening, every network was down. I’ve done my fair share of live blogs over the past decade, so I’m used to getting around network congestion and finding some semblance of signal. There was nothing. 
 
 If you could get online, Pokémon GO itself was having issues. Tapping a monster to catch it would result in nothing but an error screen — a particular punch in the gut to many a player who traveled far in hopes of completing their Pokedex, as the park was set to spawn some of the game’s rarest monsters. You’d tap an Unown or a Heracross (usually only available in very specific regions, and certainly not in the middle of Chicago), and the game would crash. 
 
 Meanwhile, real-world logistical issues were abundant. Hours before the event started, the lines stretched around the block. Three hours later, much of the line remained outside. Massive displays meant to show which teams were ruling the in-park gyms were instead simply turned off. 
 
 When Niantic’s John Hanke took the stage, he was greeted by an audience a few thousand deep, many of them chanting “FIX YOUR GAME” or “WE CAN’T PLAY!” Some more aggressive attendees approached the stage to personally share (read: shout) their discontent. 
 
 As of 2pm Central Time, Niantic plans to continue with the event’s agenda in hopes they can get things working. 
 
 Story developing…
– The first-ever Pokemon Go Fest—held Saturday at Grant Park in Chicago—was forced to refund its approximately 15,000 to 20,000 attendees after it proved near-impossible for them to actually play Pokemon Go at the event, the Chicago Tribune reports. According to TechCrunch, every cell network was down inside the park within 20 minutes of the festival starting. Kotaku states connection errors made the popular game "unplayable." For those who somehow managed to get online, the game itself was also having issues. Attempts to capture a monster—part of the draw of the festival was the chance to catch rare Pokemon—resulted in error screens. John Hanke, the CEO of Pokemon Go developer Niantic, took the stage to boos and chants of "we can't play" and "fix the game." But it wasn't just the people inside the park having a bad time. Lines to enter Pokemon Go Fest stretched for blocks, with some people reporting waiting four hours to get inside. With problems mounting, organizers announced all attendees would be refunded the $20 ticket price plus an extra $100 in in-game credit. Many attendees traveled from across the country or paid hundreds of dollars for tickets being re-sold online. “It’s a small gesture, but we’re sorry,” Niantic's chief marketing officer told the crowd. “We didn’t envision the day going this way.”