They may also be having load-balancer issues assuming they have front-end servers that are checking whether accounts are supposed to be directed to a specific s

They may also be having load-balancer issues assuming they have front-end servers that are checking whether accounts are supposed to be directed to a specific set of servers. Assuming that they normally load-balance based on geographic location, the check for specialized server connections may be something that they never actually load-tested before after confirming that it worked for their staff in testing. I asked earlier and have asked again whether anyone at the location but not officially attending is having better luck connecting, that would help to narrow it down between carrier issues, Niantic server issues and Niantic server-for-this-event issues Edit: They expanded the area for special/regional spawns to 2 miles around Grant Park but still only for people who "checked in" at the park, and people who've left are reporting much better luck when they're away from the park. That may indicate that most of the issue was insufficient networking.