Is this an accidental leak?
The location is supposedly…
San Francisco
The tournament, whose location has not been announced officially by organizers, is scheduled for Aug. 28-30, 2026 , according to hotel records. The annual invite-only tournament will be back in San Francisco for the first time since it was hosted at the 1,500-room Marriott Marquis in 2016.
I kinda hope this is true. I’d love if it came back state side for a year or two.
I turned it into a spoiler 
We don’t even know the location for 2025 yet, right? 
I was being pay-walled but got around it
San Francisco will host Pokemon World Championship for first time since 2016
San Francisco’s largest event venue for citywide conventions, the Moscone Center, has recently been selected to host the Pokemon World Championship in 2026 — adding to a resurgent and much-needed calendar for that year which includes large tech conferences and NFL’s official party for Super Bowl LX.
As 49ers fans learned this weekend, you can’t win them all. But another Super Bowl of sorts is coming to downtown San Francisco in 2026.
Organizers of the 2026 Pokemon World Championships have recently committed to fully book out the Moscone Center and contract 21,000 hotel room nights tied to the event in late August, internal hotel records obtained by the Business Times show. The global esports competition, with a prize pool of more than $2 million, is poised to bring thousands of professional gamers and fans of the Nintendo series to downtown San Francisco, boosting what’s been a challenging convention schedule for the city’s largest venue.
The tournament, whose location has not been announced officially by organizers, is scheduled for Aug. 28-30, 2026, according to hotel records.
The annual invite-only tournament will be back in San Francisco for the first time since it was hosted at the 1,500-room Marriott Marquis in 2016. At the end of last year’s championship, held over three days just outside of Tokyo in Yokohama, Japan, Nintendo’s Pokemon division announced 2024’s event will be held in Honolulu.
The 2026 event is being put on with the help of experience marketing group George P. Johnson, which is based in Detroit but also has offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The company did not respond to requests for comment on Monday, though an employee confirmed that GPJ was working with the event.
The San Francisco Travel Association, the city’s tourism bureau and handler of citywide convention bookings for the Moscone Center, likewise did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Nintendo’s Pokemon media line.
The hotel planning records suggest that Pokemon World Championship organizers were considering last year whether to bring the event to San Francisco in 2025 or 2026, ultimately choosing the latter.
The tournament adds to a resurgent lineup of local events shaping up for 2026 after several years of pandemic softness — including a slew of cancellations or shifts to other cities — that have significantly affected the prospects for hotel business in San Francisco.
Would make sense in my opinion to repeat 20th anniversary location now for the 30th
Sounds like they are expecting it to be huge with an expected 21000 rooms. I thought Worlds only had around 10-15K attendees yearly? I assume that many rooms usually means at least double the amount of attendees when you account for people who wont be staying at the hotels.
Wow this is crazy! I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but 2016 in San Fran was probably the worst worlds I’ve attended. It felt crowded, with a fraction of the attendance. The downtown area was rough, and it was the most expensive. A positive, its nice to have it back in the US mainland!
I live in Cali and would love to try and attend one of these events!
edit: Not sure why i replied to you @smpratte compared to just making my own post. My bad!
Man id love to go to worlds. Somewhere within the states would be super cool, toronto would be the dream lol.
I’ve heard San Fran was an option for 2026. Seems like this supports it.
As Scott mentioned, San Fran wasn’t the best city or venue compared to the most recent few. There were still a lot of great memories. Held my first raw Illustrator (Scott’s) that later graded a PSA 9. Met several collectors there that I now see at every Worlds. It’s a fun memory.
Definitely a lot of great memories! Hanging out in that presidential suite was a blast!
Might actually try to attend a Worlds if this is true. Since I live in the bay area in California.l, it would be remiss of me not to go!
I want to take a second to appreciate your 2.5 years of planning for a local event.
All jokes aside, I’d highly recommend Worlds for anyone who has never been. It’s the only event completely focused on Pokemon and the fan experience. It’s good vibes through and through. If you can make it to one event per year, I’d put World’s up there.
I am generally averse to travel, so anything to massively lower the barrier/activation energy helps (a lot).
Sounds like a good first event to go to for me then!
International (South Eastern Hemisphere) location for 2025 please. (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia)
Japan and Hawaii are close to Australia you bozo
This is what I was thinking at first too, but the article says “21000 hotel room nights.” I feel like that probably means it’s some fraction of that number in terms of number of rooms, but for several nights per room.
Now we just need to confirm that worlds 2025 in going back to Europe. And hopefully Spain😂
I think I am just depressed bro, please just let me complain.