Pokémon announces city for NAIC 2026

The Pokémon 2026 North America International Championships (NAIC) is set to take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, the same hosting city as this year’s edition.

According to a report by Game Rant, the Pokémon competition will continue to stay in the city for the third year running, although the venue is yet to be finalised.

Featuring a total prize pool of over $500,000 (~£370,542), the 2025 NAIC took place at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which has a maximum capacity of around 77,000 people, with NAIC taking almost half of the place for the event.

On June 13th to the 15th, NAIC saw top competitors across Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG), Pokémon Video Game Championships (VGC), Pokémon GO and Pokémon UNITE compete for points towards a Worlds qualification. NAIC is a larger event that’s worth more Championship Points than a Regional tournament.

Aside from the competitions, NAIC also had vendors and merchants offering Pokémon-related cards and merchandise, as well as Play Lab, which allows new players to pick up the basics of any game.

In Pokémon TCG, the winners for the three categories were Annabelle Oono (Junior), Gabriel Fernandez (Senior) and Isaiah Bradner (Masters). The Masters tournament had a total of 3,812 players taking part, making it the most popular competition.

For VGC, the three winners were Joaquin Roquett (Junior), Isaac Moreira (Senior) and Federico Camporesi (Masters). In particular, the final match for the Masters category was a full lockout by the Italian organisation NOVO Esports, with Camporesi defeating his rival and teammate Marco Hemantha Kaludura Silva.

The top finisher in Pokémon GO was US player Payden ‘ItsAXN’ Bingham while Luminosity was the top team in the Final Stretch of the Pokémon UNITE tournament. The participants earned key CP that will qualify them for the 2025 Pokémon World Championships, which is set to take place from August 15th to 17th, in Anaheim, California.