Pokémon fans swamp the Field Museum’s website on day 1 of tickets sales for exhibit in May

Taylor Swift is not playing the Field Museum in May.

But it felt like she might be, after people trying to book tickets online for the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibit, opening May 22, spent hours and hours in a virtual line Tuesday.

“I knew it was going to be popular. So I thought, I’ll get my tickets when they go on sale, but I didn’t expect it to be so crazy,” said Genevieve Bookwalter, who was getting tickets for her family, including her 6-year-old son Gus. “Once I was in line, I thought, I might as well just stay here because if I get out, it’s just going to be worse.”

Eight hours later, Bookwalter, a Chicago Sun-Times contributing writer who lives in the city, had her tickets.

Bookwalter was taken aback by the experience.

“This isn’t Taylor Swift. This is Pokémon at the Field Museum,” she said.

The Field Museum posted an apologetic statement online, saying, among other things: “Thank you for your patience as we troubleshoot issues with our ticketing platform. Even with additional web infrastructure, our site is overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response and is working slowly.”

A Sun-Times check Wednesday morning found almost no wait for Chicago and Illinois residents seeking to buy tickets, but a line of 23,497 people for non-residents.

Chances are, if you have a child who has hundreds, if not thousands, of Pokémon cards scattered across the floor (the most valuable ones kept in clear plastic sleeves), then you already know why folks are so excited about the upcoming show.

Pokémon was started in Japan in 1996 and features fantastical creatures that have appeared in an animated series, in Nintendo video games and on wildly popular trading game cards.

The show coming to the Field, the first time it has been on display outside of Japan, “compares fossil Pokémon from the popular Pokémon video game series with ancient life forms found in real-world fossils. …,” according to a museum press release. “Real fossils of dinosaurs and other ancient life forms, plus scientific casts of Field Museum icons like SUE the T. rex and the Chicago Archaeopteryx, will be displayed next to similar fossil Pokémon, including Tyrantrum and Archeops. Visitors of all ages will discover how fossils are found and studied in the Pokémon world and our real world.”