The Pokémon craze has netted the City of New Westminster its largest crowd to date for a single historic walking tour.
Fifty-five people showed up to the Anvil Centre Saturday morning for a one-and-a-half hour tour, which included many popular Pokéstops, like the CPR Railway Station and the Great Fire of 1898.
The 10:30 a.m. tour was originally capped at 40 participants, but city staff didn’t want to turn anyone away, according to heritage programmer Michelle Taylor. It was so popular that an afternoon tour was added last minute.
“We ended up getting 38 people at that one,” she said. “A successful walking tour is between 10 and 15 people. Before this event, the biggest number was 25, so for us to get these huge numbers is so exciting and invigorating.”
Taylor, a Pokémon player herself, said her department jumped on the Poké-phenomenon immediately.
“New Westminster downtown is just a gold mine of Pokémon,” she said. “Often you see something happen in the world and it takes a little time to prepare. For us, it’s research, it’s marketing, but we knew it was important for us to get on it while it was fresh in people’s minds.”
Taylor noted the age demographic of players and participants was mixed.
“We had six year olds to 60 year olds. We had elderly couples, a family of five with kids. We had a teenager take the SkyTrain from Surrey,” she explained. “I really have never seen such diversity. Many of them never had been to Anvil Centre, about half, which was really great for us.”
She said not everyone was playing the game, but those who were on their phones, didn’t shy away from putting them away when it came time to listen.
The tour went from Anvil Centre to Hyack Square, the Samson V Maritime Museum down by the boardwalk, Westminster Pier Park, over the Fourth Street overpass and back down Columbia Street.
Asked if the city plans to host another Pokémon walking tour, Taylor said there’s nothing planned in the immediate future.
“It was so popular, we probably should,” she said with a laugh.
