"Helena, Alabama sponsored event visitor report"

#PokemonGO: I went to the Helena, Alabama sponsored event yesterday. I have also been to the Yokohama outbreak event for perspective. We were among the first few to show up, before it had started. We drove approximately 2 and a half hours each way and made a day trip out of it. I want to report on this local event, which I believe to be the first small town sponsored event.It was fun. in terms of being “worth” it we didn’t gain more in-game resources than we would have playing for our two hours each way of driving. For people who lived closer, I have no doubt it was the best place to be in the region.What we also gained, though, was a good dive into the enhanced reality side of the game. Helena is a great little town and the associated self-guided tour we all took while playing was interesting. I brought a 13 year old and he is convinced he wants to move to the town now. This was a great event in terms of just having fun — it was only worth driving from Birmingham for if you just wanted to get ahead on resources.There were increased spawns according to the nice guy who organized it w/ Niantic. No sponsored stops or gyms, but they weren’t necessary at all. Their park has like 9 stops in a small area. The increased spawns manifested in me getting a couple hundred Aron candies and like 100 Lotad candies(it was raining). I didn’t see anything particularly rare. We also did a legendary raid, a Porygon raid, and a Mawile raid. There were lots of evolved commons as well. This was not at all like events I’ve been to with crazy spawns like the Yokohama breakout, but I’m sure it was the best place to play in Alabama for those two hours.Tl;dr if these small town events become common they are great to experience the enhanced reality aspects of the game, but probably not worth driving extreme distances for. I do not regret making a 6 am to 8 pm trip out of going to the event and doing a little shopping in nearby Birmingham, but for a min/maxer this would have been a mediocre event. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2rK4odw