Got back from the Chicago GO Fest, I had a blast there. Caught a bunch of Unown and Pachirisu for the community that need them. Got my lovely Jirachi. Also came out with a lot of shinies: Geodude, Mawhile, Horsea, Machop x2, Shuppet, Lapras, Duskull x2, Bronzor, Snubbull, Sableye, Psyduck, Lotad, Grimer, Pineco, Magikarp, Poochyena (traded for Drifloon which became lucky), Absol (don't remember what I traded for it tho), and a shiny Ho-oh for my shiny Lugia. The group I went with had some better luck than me, one of which found over 25 shinies (two before we even entered the park!). Two of them also found a shiny Snorunt which I wanted the most out of everything there.
The place was booming with people. If you got Tropius, Relicanth, Chatot, Torkoal, Volbeat, Uxie, or Mesprit, then you're gonna have a lot of people begging to trade with you lol.
Our group played non-stop from start to finish during the Fest, only stopped for a bit to grab some merch while we were there (hint to anyone going, go get merch quick, otherwise the cool stuff sells out fast). We completely skipped breakfast AND lunch which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do considering we probably walked for well over a dozen miles during the event lol.
It seemed like the event was organized a lot better than previous years. It sounded like shiny Abra and shiny Clefairy were accidentally put out early in the event but we didn't see any shinies of those sadly. Luckily it didn't rain during the event so we didn't have to worry about that, but there was rain earlier so the sand area was kinda muddy. My probably one complaint about the entire event was that there were no raids, I think it would have been fun to have exclusive gyms in the park (but not be able to put Pokemon in it cause it might glitch the Pokemon inside away once it's taken down), but with like 10,000 people there I'm sure there would have been some problems.
But yeah, despite my legs feeling like jello, I had a great time there and I'd do it again if I had the opportunity and time again.