Pokemon GO Fest 2018 took place over the weekend, giving attendees a chance to catch Celebi, make friends with fellow players and just enthuse about the game. However, even those who were unable to snag tickets to the hotly anticipated fan event have something to celebrate this week as the Pokemon GO Fest Global Research Challenge rewards are now available for everyone.

The Pokemon GO Fest Global Research Challenge was a series of objectives that every Pokemon GO player - whether at GO Fest or not - could take part in. The challenges tasked players with completing as many Research Challenges as they could, with challenges including catching Pokemon using berries, battling Gyms of a certain level, taking part in a number of Gym battles, participating in a Raid and capturing Pokemon with a weather boost. Players had just two days to achieve the milestones (15.1 million research challenges needed to be completed in total) and unlock the rewards.

Players did successfully manage to complete enough challenges, though, meaning that the following Global Research Challenge rewards are now available for everyone until July 23:

  • 2X Candy for catching Pokemon
  • 2X Candy for hatching eggs
  • 1 Bonus rare candy from Raids
  • Egg hatch distance has been decreased by half

Additionally, on July 21, Pokemon GO players will be able to take part in Zapdos Day. On Zapdos Day, there will be a three hour period of Zapdos Raids and shiny Zapdos will be available. The game will also give players five free Raids passes, giving them five extra reasons to take part in the fun. As of the time of writing, July 21 is just four days away meaning that now is a good a time as ever to prepare by reading this Zapdos Raid guide.

Pokemon GO players will also be thrilled that this year's Pokemon GO Fest went off without a hitch. Last year's event went down in (metaphorical) flames as major technical issues meant that attendees were just unable to actually catch Pokemon or take part in the global challenges that developer Niantic had set.

But as this year's GO Fest was relatively problem free, it has meant that there is no need for Niantic to issue any apologies or any freebies to make it up with fans. Instead, players managed to unlock all of these rewards themselves, using nothing but their hard work and effort. Many players will argue that this makes these rewards a whole lot sweeter.

Pokemon GO is available on Android and iOS devices.