Pokémon Center London opens to vast queues, as hundreds of fans wait for hours to visit pop-up

Store will only exist for a month

The UK has got its first Pokémon Centre – and it has been greeted by vast queues.

Fans were queueing for hundreds of metres to get into the pop-up shop, which will only exist for a month.

It is the first time that a Pokémon Centre has opened in the UK, and was chosen in part to celebrate the launch Pokémon Sword and Shield. Those games, which are released next month, take place in a fictionalised version of Britain.

As well as encouraging fans to come to the shop to buy products that are not available anywhere else – including Pikachu wearing a bowler hat – the shop is being celebrated with special features inside of Pokémon Go.

It is also host to a demo of the two new Pokémon games, which are released on 15 November, the same day the pop-up shop will shut.

The shop opened in London's Westfield, and fans were immediately queueing far outside the shopping centre.

Queues lasted for hours and were made up of hundreds of people, many of whom arrived in the middle of the night in the hope of getting into the store.