GO Hub Guide to Community Days

What is Community Day?

Once a month, Niantic hosts Pokémon GO Community Days. On Community Day events, for three hours, a special featured Pokémon will appear.

As well as increasing spawns of the highlighted Pokémon, there are bonuses during that period of time, including the highlighted Pokémon having an increased chance of being shiny, and the ability to teach the highlighted Pokémon’s evolution an exclusive move.

Featured Pokémon

2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. local time

The featured Pokémon will appear more frequently in the wild.

The featured Pokémon will appear more frequently in the wild. If you’re lucky, you may encounter a Shiny one!

Exclusive Attack

The Featured Pokémon will also learn an exclusive Attack when evolved during or up to 5 hours after the end of the event. This Attack can only be learned through evolution during the event or up to 5 hours after. The move will then only be attainable with an Elite TM.

Shiny Odds

The featured Pokemon on Community Days gets a boosted shiny rate of around 4% or 1 in 25. If you want to catch a shiny version of the featured Community Day Pokemon, there is no better time to catch one.

Shiny Pokémon can be identified before being caught. They have a symbol similar to tiny stars next to their name and they show a ring of white stars when encountered. Similarly, those stars shop up next to their portrait inside your Box.

You can easily identify the Pokémon you’ve already shiny-checked and run from as they change their stance to face directly at your trainer avatar. This is true of all Pokémon but Nosepass, which turns to face north after a moment or two.

Community Day Classic

The Community Day Classic means the return of a Community Day that went live early on in the event cycle. This is a chance for trainers to catch previous Community Day mons with its original Community Day exclusive attack. 

A Community Day Classic does not take up the monthly Community Day slot. Months with a Classic event will usually have 2 Community Days in total. Community Day Classics tend to occur every 3 months, but there is no set schedule.

Event Bonuses

During Community Day, there will be certain event bonuses active. They are usually along the lines of the following but do sometimes change. It’s worth checking our upcoming community day posts to see what the bonuses will be.

2× Candy for catching Pokémon.

2× chance for Trainers level 31 and up to receive Candy XL from catching Pokémon.

Lure Modules activated during the event will last for three hours.

Incense (excluding Daily Adventure Incense) activated during the event will last for three hours.

Take a few snapshots during Community Day for a surprise!

Trades made during the event will require 50% less Stardust.*

One additional Special Trade can be made for a maximum of three for the day*

*While most bonuses are only active during the three-hour event period, these bonuses will be active from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. local time.

Community Day Research

Paid Research

• For US$1.00 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), you’ll be able to access the Community Day–exclusive Special Research story from the in-app store.
• Don’t forget: you’re able to purchase and gift tickets to any of your friends that you’ve achieved a Friendship level of Great Friends or higher with. To gift a ticket, tap the Special Research ticket in the in-game shop, then tap the Gift button instead of the Buy button.

If you purchase this Special Research, you do not need to complete it before the end of the Community Day event — it’s permanently available. However, when the event finishes and event spawns disappear, it is more tricky to complete the research.

You are able to complete Community Day without paying for this special research if you are free to play. The purchase does not affect shiny rates, it just gives trainers access to encounters with the Featured Pokémon with an IV floor of 10/10/10 and other items such as Pokéballs and Revives.

Field Research

Community Day-themed Field Research is available from spinning PokéStops! Catch the featured Pokémon to earn rewards such as additional encounters, Stardust, Ultra Balls, and more!

How to Prepare

Community Day Trio

Community Day is an old-school, grind-friendly, type of event, that features boosted Stardust and Candy from catching Pokémon. Your most important item is a Star Piece. Be sure to have Star Piece, Lucky Egg, and Incense (if needed) on for the entire duration, and make the most of this bonus. Also, stock up with Pinap Berries to collect more Pokémon candy along the way.

Of course, Lure-up as many PokéStops as you can along your play route, and pop an Incense if you are experiencing spawn downtime.

Mega Evolution for Candy XL

You’ll receive more Candy and XP for catching Pokémon that share a type with a Mega-Evolved Pokémon during its Mega Evolution period. At a high enough Trainer level, you can also gain an increased chance to earn Candy XL for Mega-Evolved Pokémon that have reached High Level or Max Level.

Each Pokémon that can Mega evolve has 3 Mega Levels: Base, High, and Max. To reach the base level you only need to mega evolve your Pokémon once in order to reach the Base level, then another 6 Mega evolutions to reach the High level, then a final 23 more evolutions to reach the Max level. See our Complete Mega Evolution Guide for more information on Mega Evolutions.

What to Bring

Here’s a quick list of things you might want to take out with you for community day:

• Portable charger and lead
• Auto-catcher
• Water
• Weather-appropriate items (SPF/hat/coat)
• Comfy shoes

Places to Play

When deciding where to play Community Day, there are a couple things you should consider:

• Is there good phone signal?
• Is there usually a good amount of spawns? Or are there frequent dead spots?
• Are there plenty of PokéStops, to allow you to stock up on Pokéballs and other items, collect field research, and place lures?

Usually, our Community Day location advice is always similar: pick a spot with ample spawn zones (preferably a park) and with enough PokéStops to benefit from the CD-exclusive quests. 

Perfect examples of these areas are parks filled with PokéStops along a trail, or urban areas with long streets that are “walking friendly”. As a general rule, you should look for “cluster spawn areas”, aka areas with lots of network traffic where Pokemon often spawn in groups. These areas tend to be perfect spots for CD events, and they’re perfect if they’re easy to lure up.

I have a route that I default to for community day, where I know the hot spots in terms of spawns and that I will access enough stops along the way. I also like to use Community Days to take local gyms that I don’t pass on a day-to-day basis.

4-Star Raid Battles

The featured Pokémon’s evolution will appear in four-star raids! After the three-hour Community Day event ends, Trainers will be able to take on unique four-star Raid Battles. Claiming victory in one of these raids will cause the feature Pokémon to appear around the Gym that hosted the raid for 30 minutes! 

5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. local time

You can only join these raids using Raid Passes and Premium Battle Passes. Remote Raid Passes cannot be used to join these Raid Battles.

Pokémon that appear under these circumstances will have the same chance of appearing as a Shiny Pokémon as those that appear during the Community Day’s three-hour event period.

Tips and Tricks

Don’t catch Pokémon before the event starts

Pokémon you have not caught before the event start can turn into the featured Pokémon, which means it is best to arrive at your spot early, and wait to catch it until the event starts.

Restart the app before the event

Be patient – there will often be errors and bugs at the start of the event. It is best to restart the app in most, if not all, cases.

Don’t forget to spin PokéStops

Remember PokéStops give out field research that is very beneficial on Community Day, giving you rewards for Stardust, Great and Ultra Balls, and Pinap Berries, all things that can help you if your stocks are low.

Don’t activate lures before the event starts

To ensure that you have Lures up the entire duration, do not set your lures before the start of the event, as those will only last 30 minutes. The Lure has to go up after the event has started to last for three hours. Not to mention it will block the boosted CD spawns from spawning until it has depleted. We would recommend using normal Lures, rather than any of the typing based Lures, to optimise the CD spawns.

Use an Incense

Use Incense to attract even more Pokémon to you while you’re out hunting. Do not set your incense before the start of the event, as those will only last 30 minutes. The incense has to be set after the event has started to last for three hours. If you are wondering, yes, Incense can spawn Community Day ‘mons, that can be shiny. There is no reason why you should avoid Incense if you have it.

Don’t forget to enjoy the event

• Chat with your fellow Trainers and grow your local Pokémon GO community. Make good use of the QR code feature to make some new friends!
• Promote the new Pokémon Go features and events to Trainers who are just starting their adventure or haven’t been playing for a while. People are coming back around due to trading, new Pokémon, PvP, the numerous events, and these community-based events.
• Most importantly, have fun, get some shinies, and hope for no game-breaking glitches!