Pokemon Go New Year’s Event Guide: Costumes, Bonuses & Collection Strategies
Pokemon Go NYE Event Features
Pokemon Go welcomes 2021 with a spectacular New Year’s celebration featuring exclusive costumed Pokemon and valuable bonuses. The event showcases three fan-favorite species with special outfits: Pikachu, Eevee, and the particularly noteworthy Slowpoke with its time-themed glasses.
This year-end celebration marks a significant moment for trainers, offering unique collection opportunities and gameplay advantages.
The event’s standout feature is Slowpoke’s clever costume design. When captured wearing 2020 glasses, evolving it transforms the glasses to 2021 – a symbolic representation of the year’s transition. This mechanic provides both a collectible element and a clever nod to the calendar change.
Several Pokemon will appear wearing festive attire during the event period:
- Pichu, Pikachu, and Raichu with New Year’s hats (special variant)
- Raticate, Wobbuffet, and Wurmple with standard party hats
- Eevee featuring a distinctive party hat
The event also introduces valuable gameplay bonuses that smart trainers can maximize:
- 2× Hatch Candy from all eggs
- 2× Hatch Stardust rewards
- 50% reduced egg hatch distance
Pro Tip: Prepare your egg inventory before the event starts to maximize these bonuses. Clear out 2km eggs to make room for event-specific hatches like Wynaut and costumed Pichu.
How to Get Pikachu Wearing a New Year’s Hat
The New Year’s hat-wearing Pikachu family offers one of the event’s most sought-after collectibles. Unlike standard costume Pokemon, these require specific collection and evolution strategies.
Collection Methods:
- Pichu: Exclusively available through 2km eggs during the event. Hatch multiple eggs to increase shiny chances.
- Pikachu: Found in wild encounters or as Field Research rewards. Increased spawn rates near PokéStops with active lures.
- Raichu: Only obtainable by evolving a New Year’s hat Pikachu (requires 50 Pikachu candies).
Advanced Strategy: Focus on completing “Make 5 Nice Throws” Field Research tasks, which have the highest chance of rewarding the costumed Pikachu encounter. Combine this with Pinap Berries to accumulate evolution candy faster.
Common Mistake: Evolving Pichu too quickly. Wait until you’ve collected enough candy to evolve through both stages (62 candies total) before evolving your first Pichu, in case you find a higher IV or shiny specimen later.
Pokemon Go NYE Event Start Date and Time
The celebration runs from Thursday, December 31, 2020, at 10 PM through Monday, January 4, 2021, at 10 PM in your local time zone. This four-day window provides flexibility for trainers with holiday commitments.
Event Planning Tips:
- Prioritize egg hatching on New Year’s Day when you’ll likely have more free time
- Check for local raid groups organizing meetups on December 31st
- Avatar items become available 31 hours before the event starts (December 30 at 1 PM PST)
Time Zone Note: The event uses local time, meaning trainers traveling across time zones during the holiday can effectively extend their participation window by moving westward.
Related Events
Pokemon Go events schedule for December 2025
Pokemon Go Grookey Community Day guide (January 2026)
Pokemon Go Fest 2025 in-person event guide – Locations, tickets, debuts & more
Looking beyond the New Year’s celebration, January’s Community Day will feature Machop with exclusive moves. Savvy trainers should prepare by stocking up on Machop candies and saving high-IV specimens for evolution during the event window.
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