To celebrate the upcoming release of the first live-action adaptation of everyone’s favourite 90s Gameboy game and animated series, Warner Bros. opened an amazing Detective Pikachu themed pop-up event in London!
The film studio transformed a two-storey building, that was located just around the corner from Covent Garden station, into a bright yellow heaven for Pokémon lovers, opening for two days to the public from Friday 3rd – Saturday 4th May.
As well as the many attractions on offer, Warner Bros also put on a couple of different workshops throughout the two days, with GBBO’s Kim-Joy teaching sessions on Pokémon cupcake icing (so gutted I missed tickets to this!) along with yoga with Frame, Mr Mime inspired mime classes with Electric Cabaret and Psyduck inspired massages courtesy of My Beauty Squad. All off these sessions were ticketed but were very limited due to space!
Being a giant Pokémon fan since I was a kid – I just had to go to this event! I was even more excited for it after seeing a special multimedia screening of the film earlier in the week (read my review here) thanks to the team at Warner Bros. UK. So after getting the train from Rugby to London on the Friday afternoon, I met up with Neil and Martin from Get Your Comic On website and podcast at Covent Garden and we excitedly walked to the event!
Upstairs
As you walk into the building there’s the most amazingly fluffy yellow wall complete with fun props including Pikachu ears and detective hat. At this section you can have photos or gifs taken of you posing in front of the wall with a simple to use photography machine, once taken you pop your email in and the files are sent straight to your inbox! You do unfortunately have to give the hat and ears back though…
Absolutely loved the #DetectivePikachu pop up event at London earlier this week with @getyourcomicon, unfortunately we weren’t allowed to keep the ears though…😂 @WarnerBrosUK pic.twitter.com/uN1s24zmXu
— We Have a Hulk (@wehaveahulkpod) May 5, 2019
Next to the yellow wall was the intriguingly named infinity room, think the house of mirrors at the fair, but instead filled to the brim with lit yellow lighting bolts. Much like the yellow fluffy wall you were given a pair of Pikachu ears and a hat to wear, this time around they were plastic, but once you stepped inside the room they instantly lit up neon yellow and brown! After stumbling around for a while trying to find the actual walls (yes I’m pretty clumsy), you can take so many fun neon photos from different angles. It was a bit of a trippy but fun room, but due to the popularity of the event, you don’t actually get a lot of time in the room.
Once out of the infinity room, it’s onto the Detective Pikachu-inspired coffee bar (he’s addicted to the drink in the film!) which was serving mango bubble tea, cappucino, latte and flat white coffees, hot chocolate and pineapple juice. Thankfully they had a whole bunch of alternative milk options available (soya, oat and almond), so I went for the hot chocolate with oat milk – and it was delicious! The baristas then put your drink into a special machine which imprinted a Pikachu themed design on the top of your beverage, with two designs available – the slogan ‘Pika Pika’ or an outline of detective Pikachu! Also next to the bar was the cutest and fluffiest Pikachu I’ve ever seen!
While you were waiting for your drink there was a large wall that was wrapped with the promotional poster and was customisable with different magnetic photos of detective Pikachu and his lines from the film, which you could have your photo taken with which was a nice idea.
Downstairs
Once you’ve enjoyed all of the photo opportunities, attractions and drinks on the first floor, you head down the stairs to the basement level which was inspired by the neon noir style of the film’s Ryme City. The main wall featured a number of brightly lit neon signs alongside the movie’s main logo. This room was significantly smaller than upstairs and featured three Jigglypuff interactive karaoke booths and nail art tables by Wah Nails, who were doing nail designs inspired by the film including Pikachu’s tail – these sessions did have to be booked in advanced though. We didn’t pluck up the courage to do the karaoke but it did look like quite a lot of fun and you could record your session.
Verdict
Warner Bros UK put on a lot of great events for the fans, like the Justice League experience and the Shazam! fun fair at the Bernie Gardens, and the Detective Pikachu pop up event was no different. As I mentioned before I’m a huge fan of Pokémon, so this was definitely my cup of tea! I had so much fun at this event as there was just so many different things to do and so many photo opportunities on offer (for all you Instagram lovers out there.) It was great to see such a mix of ages there too, as Pokémon has spanned so many years in pop culture. They made a great use of the space upstairs, fitting in a lot of things to do, but downstairs did seem a little bare in comparison. The only criticism I can really point out is the fact that the tickets for the event were released on a Saturday morning and Warner Bros. didn’t really post out about it on social media, which meant I ended up booking the tickets quite late and missing out on the opportunity to do the session with Kim-Joy!
Overall I really did have such a great time at this event and can’t wait for the next one Warner Bros UK put on – I wonder what they’ll do for Godzilla: King of the Monsters!
