Grand Festival

The Grand Festival is the final challenge for all Pokémon Coordinators. In order to qualify, Coordinators must win five ribbons from Pokémon Contests throughout a specific region. The winner receives the Ribbon Cup.

The tournament follows a similar structure to Pokémon Contests with a few differences. A key difference is that there are more judges - in Hoenn there were two extra Nurse Joys while Vivian joined the three judges in Kanto and Fantina joined them in Sinnoh.

The Hoenn Grand Festival is held in Slateport City while the Kanto Grand Festival is held at the Indigo Plateau. The Sinnoh Grand Festival is held at Lake Valor, which was the same location where the Wallace Cup was held.

Competition

Rounds

Preliminaries rounds

The first two rounds are Appeal stages. Coordinators must twice produce impressive appeals with their Pokémon in order to progress through the tournament and only the best sixteen coordinators go through to the finals. Each round takes place on a separate day.

Finals rounds

On the third day of the tournament, the Coordinators face each other in knock-out double battles. Matches last for five minutes and the Coordinator with the least points loses if both oppenents still have a Pokémon standing. The Coordinator who wins all four matches is the winner of the tournament.

Coordinators who have participated in a Grand Festival

The following coordinators have competed in the final rounds of the Grand Festival:

• May of Petalburg City
• Drew of LaRousse City
• Harley of Slateport City
• Anthony
• Dawn of Twinleaf Town
• Ursula
• Jessilina
• Zoey of Snowpoint City
• Nando

Top Coordinators

Top Coordinators are Grand Festival winning Coordinators, earning the Ribbon Cup. The following coordinators have won the Grand Festival in the region in parentheses:

• Dr. Abby of Foothill Town (Hoenn)
• Yuma
• Wallace of Sootopolis City
• Juan of Sootopolis City (Hoenn)
• Robert of Silver Rock Isle (Hoenn)
• Solidad of Pewter City (Kanto)
• Johanna of Twinleaf Town (Sinnoh)
• Zoey of Snowpoint City (Sinnoh)

Trivia

• The Grand Festivals shown in the anime took place in the number of episodes corresponding to the current generation when the episodes premiered. The Hoenn and Kanto Grand Festivals lasted for three episodes while the Sinnoh Grand Festival lasted for four episodes.
• Apparently, the Grand Festival do not check to see who wins what ribbons, or there are more than one contest in each town a year as people can enter the Grand Festival with Ribbons they have not won in contests themselves. (For example, Jessie entered the Sinnoh Grand Festival with a contest ribbon won officially by Dawn (technically by Princess Salvia posing as Dawn but none of the officials were aware of this).