Dragon Ball Pop-Up Tour USA 2026

Dragon Ball Pop-Up Tour USA 2026

Yesterday, February 20, 2026, I visited the first day of the tour in East Rutherford, New Jersey at the American Dream mall. This is the same place where the Shonen Jump Pop-Up Store was located. As of this writing, the tour is still in New Jersey today and tomorrow. The following weekends, it’ll be in Florida, Texas, and then finally, California. Unlike the Shonen Jump Pop-Up Store, this Dragon Ball tour is definitely worth your time if you’re a fan.

At 11:30am and 3pm, there is a tote bag giveaway. I recommend lining up about an hour early for this because the lines in New Jersey were crazy. The tote bag itself is massive and pretty high quality. It features Super Saiyan 4 Goku from Dragon Ball Daima on one side and a 40th Anniversary message on the other side. inside the bag, you get Super Saiyan 4 Goku’s hair as a paper headband, a Dragon Ball product catalogue featuring new Dragon Ball toys and cards, an exclusive card for Dragon Ball Super Card Game: Fusion World, and an American-style floppy comic book that features the first chapter of Dragon Ball on one side and the first chapter of Dragon Ball Super on the other side. The floppy manga are also available as a pick-up item within the exhibition itself, so if you only want that, you don’t need to wait in the line. I picked up a few of them because I think they might become collector’s items. The exclusive cards you can get are Super Gogeta, Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta, Super Saiyan 4 Goku, Beast Gohan, and Ultra Instinct Goku. You only get one of them per tote bag and I saw people trying to buy them off of other people. I didn’t open mine up (yet).

The other thing that requires you to line up for a long time is the sticker rally, which starts at 1:30pm and 4:30pm. Again, I recommend trying to line up about an hour early for this. Basically they’ll give you a lanyard, you just walk around the exhibition looking for employees with stickers, and when you find all of them, you can get an acrylic stand commemorating the Pop-Up Tour.

If you want to get the free Goku model set (like a Gundam model set), go there first just to get your name on the list. I had to register for this over 2 hours in advance. When your time comes, you just show up, they give you the box, and you make Goku. The model set itself was quite easy to finish because it is a beginner’s set designed to introduce fans to the hobby. You’ll have no problem finishing it.

Another two things you’ll need to line up for, but which don’t have long lines are to play one round of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and to learn how to play Dragon Ball Super Card Game: Fusion World. I won both games, lol. Just for trying out Sparking Zero, you’ll receive a lanyard with a plastic “medal.” The card game attendant was very knowledgeable about the game and made it feel really accessible. It could be just that the rules of the game are also simpler than a standard Magic the Gathering-esque card game, though. At the end of that, you will receive a demo deck of cards that can’t be used in standard play (unfortunately). I was given the Vegeta deck, and asked if I could have the Goku deck, too, and the attendant gave it to me.

There were also a bunch of figures on display. Some of them were not in cases so that attendees could play around and pose the figures. If you want to buy something at the event, I included a picture of what they were selling. Notice the “sold out” stickers and plan your visit accordingly. If you want to buy one of the event-exclusive figures, you will need to arrive hours and hours before the event starts. I talked to two kids that camped out the night before to get the white-haired Super Saiyan Goku figure, which does admittedly looks awesome. If I were ever going to buy a figure, it’d probably be that one. It costs $80, but people are already reselling them for $400! The kids let me take a picture of their box. Apparently some jerk was low-balling them for it, trying to buy it for $120, and then purposefully dropped their box onto the ground.

There are also gashapon machines that let you get some small Dragon Ball figures, but the price was an absolutely absurd $9 per spin. I can’t imagine spending $9 on such a tiny figure and which might not even be the one I wanted. But, people were buying them, so maybe I just don’t understand its appeal. Frankly, I think FOMO was at work, though. Perhaps the same could be said of the regular sales being made.

There are also 3 photo zones. You can take a picture charging up!!! Or you can also take a picture riding Kintoun or next to Bulma’s Time Machine. I was probably just a little bit shorter than the Time Machine, which made me wonder if the Dragon Ball characters are all hobbits, lol. The Kintoun and aura photo zones have fans blowing on them to make it look like you’re really doing those things.