Niantic has announced that the Chicago anomaly set in May of 2019 has had its date changed. The new date will be May 25th, 2019. Though the reasoning was left out of the post and they just cited, “Due to circumstances beyond our control”, we believe it is because of some major conferences already causing booking issues for local hotels. As Niantic is trying to work out hotels and group rates for Agents, not only would they not be able to get a good price, they may not be able to get hotels at all. So, as much as we all might hate change, this is a good move and we were given plenty of time to deal with it.
And if you already booked tickets and hotels and have to go now, you might get yourself a ticket to either the National Restaurant Association Hotel-Motel show or the NCA’s 2019 Sweets & Snacks Expo. Together they will bring an extra 100,000 people to Chicago filling up the hotels and streets.
You can read the announcement on Ingress Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/+Ingress/posts/GEtMPA4swqZ
Due to circumstances beyond Niantic’s control, the date (https://plus.google.com/+Ingress/posts/GEtMPA4swqZ) of the Chicago May 18, 2019 Anomaly will be changing to May 25, 2019. The proposed Anomaly faction POCs have been consulted and all parties are aware of this change. Niantic recognizes this is Memorial Day weekend in the United States and weighed the pros and cons heavily about this change before making the final decision.