Jo Lawson-Tancred, Pokémon Mania Crashes London’s Natural History Museum Website, Art Net, 27 January 2026
Tickets to the museum’s Pokémon pop-up were swiftly sold out.
The frenzy of excitement over a new Pokémon shop at the Natural History Museum in London caused its website to crash during its public launch yesterday. Tickets to peruse the pop-up shop’s array of clothing, posters, toys, and other pocket monster merch in person, meanwhile, have completely sold out.
The Pokémon x Natural History Museum collaboration marks the 30th anniversary of the Japanese cultural phenomenon, which was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996 and continues to produce hugely popular collectibles. During the products’ launch on January 26, thousands of shoppers—at one time as many as 90,000—rushed to join a queue to access the online shop. This overwhelming wave of traffic meant the queue had to be paused several times before the sale was abandoned in the early evening.