Hello, I am a theatre manager attempting to make my theatre a Pokestop. I have been doing so for almost a year with no luck or guidance for a better outcome. Other theatres that I’ve visited (Schererville IN, Chicago Ridge and Crestwood IL) have Pokestops noting how ‘easy’ the process of submitting/nominating as well as seeing their Pokestop appear in-game.
This has stirred me to… once again attempting to submit AND contact Wayfarer support - with no luck.
Across the street of a statue that don’t exist anymore - Reported/Updated. Still a pokestop.
This non-existent Pokestop that has a route including our theatre in its route as it said in the route name - Wayfarer is ok with routes starting at spots that don’t exist yet we’re not a Pokestop
We have members of this community that use our theatre as a walking route - I would like to submit a route for this theatre to include these member’s route
It would help making the theatre an accessible Wayspot, first.
I submit nominations for my theatre and all submissions led with:
A… your submission is a duplicate or
B… your submission is not interesting enough
A disclaimer that our theatre has a Power Spot that is rarely available as it’s for the IMAX and says so on its title. Shouldn’t be confused with as apparently its two different Waypoints.
An inaccessible/unwalkable route at a water tower - Reported/Updated. Still a Pokestop
I’ve talked with customers regarding Pokemon GO as they themselves note being disappointed that our theatre ‘is the only AMC theatre [in our area] without a Pokestop’. It stings having to do all of this jump-through-hoops for nothing from Wayfarer to work with.
Being honest, this theatre is already known for being the red-headed-stepchild as we are very much due for renovations (old seats/outdated restrooms) making our theatre the overflow theatre; meaning things will stay as is and employees have to jump through hurdles to please guests with what all we have to work with.
Our theatre runs on the guest connections and thankfully Pokemon GO being so interactive we can make these amazing connections through the game at our theatre.
I’ve been doing this dance with Way-submissions and now I’m at the fed-up stage.
9201 W 63rd St, Hodgkins, IL 60525 - 41.776688752113024, -87.85898303361819
Wayfarer Support # 42243799 - not my first ticket and won’t be the last
I’ve moved your discussion to nomination support to get you the best help.
Theaters can be great for socializing. Could you share one of your nominations in detail (name, description, photos, and support information). We will be able to give you the best advice that way.
Wayfarer has no influence on Pokemon Go routes. We can give advice to help get a wayspot, but each game has their own inclusion rules.
Adding that I’m sorry this has been so frustrating for you. We would love to give advice and feedback.
Hello and thank you for responding! I understand that route titles are stuck its more that our theatre is in the title of a route yet we’re not recognized for a Pokestop.
Can you please provide the coordinates of the submission that was rejected for being duplicate? A screenshot of the coordinates which can be found below the photos in the initial receipt email.
I cannot see anything near this location that could possibly be treated as a duplicate of this submission.
It looks as though 2 data base points were created on 18th Oct 2024 - this is when there was a mass import of data, that was then used to create powerspots only. It is not uncommon to find there were multiple entries for the same place
1 seems to be called AMC Quarry Cinemas 14 and the other IMAX
These do not appear on duplicate check when wayfinders reviewers are assessing. So these should not have affected it in review.
However my guess is that when you appealed it was marked as a duplicate and your photo added to the AMC spot that seems to be a powerspot.
This shouldn’t appear during normal review.
I think it may need staff to unpick this with full access to the information.
@elijustrying spotted what has happened, which looks simply bizarre, but only Niantic can explain it.
There is a powerspot for the AMC which is imported in October 2024 along with lots of other powerspots. These were imported without pictures, which is genuinely helpful for identifying them as being imports.
Your submission in January 2026 was rejected as being a duplicate of an existing wayspot. This is incorrect, because the imported powerstops do not prevent the POI being submitted as a wayspot in order to create a pokestop/gym. They are not shown to reviewers and reviewers cannot mark as duplicate against them.
Despite this, your submission was marked as duplicate and your supporting photo was added as the photo for the powerspot. Since the normal process when a submission is a duplicate is that its main photo gets (potentially) added to the photo pool of the existing wayspot, this is just another indication that something went wrong.
You need Niantic to comment. There’s always a chance they will say that everything is OK, but it is hard from this side of the system to see how this can be the case.
They read every thread, so waiting for them to respond and posting a reminder if there is nothing after a few days.
The title could be changed though, as it isn’t accurate (the waypoint isn’t approved or visible) - something like “Wayspot submission rejected as duplicate of an imported powerstop - AMC Cinema”
I remember when the imported Power Spot data was first added, there were a few reports of appeal reviewers marking user submitted wayspots as duplicates of them, and then the wayfarer team said that this isn’t something that should be happening, so hopefully this is just some sort of error by the appeal reviewers and the wayfarer team can put this right.
@NianticAaron has moved this back to Nomination Support without commenting on why this appears to have been marked as a duplicate of an imported power spot instead of approved as a separate nomination. I am even more confused.
It shows as being approved today by @samdawee (I know the name is different, but just a hunch), so it looks like the OP’s wayspot has been silently added.
The recent resubmission(yesterday?) of the Pokestop was declined. My FIRST submission from January 2026 had its appeal returned showing the first appeal accepted for this.
The inexistent Pokestops(2nd horse statue) was removed within 12 hours of reporting.
As of sending this, no Pokestop yet but I know it’s a waiting game at this point.
I haven’t seen sync yet. I wonder if this will be another delayed sync event with the Super Mega Mewtwo raids having already started in some parts of the world. Probably can’t have the game board changing right now.
