Just a few pics and notes from Pinball Expo in Chicago. My brother and I treated it as an actual vacation, took time off, and spent four and a half days in Wheeling, Ill. Just under 10 hours one-way. We stopped the first night (Tuesday) in Wisconsin to stay with friends, but we got to the show early Wednesday afternoon as setup was going on. It was a great, great time.
We took the Rollergames for the free play room. You get a discount on your week's entry if you bring a game for the public to play. So we stuffed (and I mean really stuffed), the machine into the back of my Jeep Cherokee. Also took essential tools in addition to normal trip stuff. I'm estimating around 200 machines were available to play for free once you paid to get in. We both had a discounted entry fee for the week, so we played a ton of pinball. Dozens of machines I'd never played and some I'd never heard of. Classics, eletromechanicals, rare titles, yet-to-be-released prototypes, home projects, the works.
The Rollergames held up great, but we did have to do some work on it. They put your name and number on the machine for people to text if the machine breaks. Failing that, the protocol is for a player to turn off a non-working machine, and when the owner sees it off, he goes and checks the problem. We worked on it three times briefly, but it held up well the last three days.
And holy crap were there a lot of people there. The show and game room are open to the paying public, so Friday and Saturday night a ton of local people picked up the day pass and came in to play. Crazy variation in people, too. Your average looking dude, guys in their 60s, spiked-hair punks and hipsters. Many, many hipsters. The last few nights saw a lot of guys and gals in their 20s roaming around, too, looking for something different to do. And quite a few younger kids with their parents. That was nice to see.
It's basically an industry trade show, and there are a ton of seminars and other things to do as part of the registered package (pricey), but we didn't do any of that. We were putting our time in the game room, making sure the Rollergames was playing and the exhibit hall, which we had access to. Oh, and eating local delivery pizza and other great food while we were in town. Really glad we decided to do it.
Quick glance at the main game hall. It was a nice hotel.
A rare early Stern machine. There were a few of this type there and they were gorgeous.
Indiana Jones. It took me three days to squirm my way into playing that game. It was always being played. It's as fun as they say it is. I want one.
A recent release from Stern - Star Trek. It's based on the new movies. Decent game, and it looks great.
A Hurricane, by Williams. It's not considered a great game but I loved it. It was for sale, too. If I had a way to get it back home I'd have considered buying it. I had spent enough money already, though
Some 70s goodness. The Harlem Globetrotters was a high-end restore job. Crazy beautiful.
Not sure if this guy was the on-site technician they had available or the actual owner fixing the game, but you saw this on occasion. I described this event to some friends as a car show for pinball people, but really, it's pretty different. Car shows don't set it up where the people coming to the show can get in any car they want and drive around town with it. Or that the car should always be turned on and running. And if it develops a problem with someone driving it, the owner is summoned to repair it. Everyone I saw was pretty respectful to the games, though, so that eased some worries. But still. Some people really like to knock a game around. Thankfully, the tilt mechanism works on the Rollergames
Some electromechanicals. There were a ton of them there, most brought by one guy. They're beautiful, and play very slow compared to the games most came there to play. It's almost relaxing. The art can be amazing. They glow like the rest, though, and we played several two-player games on many of them. I had played very, very few EMs before this, but I like them much more after this trip.
A prototype, called Full Throttle, made by Heighway Pinball, an upstart UK company. My brother got to know the Hungarian programmer of the game in the smoking area and got to play it. He loved it. They're working on a game based on the first two Alien movies, with licensing from 20th Century Fox.
A very nice Attack from Mars by Williams. The thing was so bright it messed with my eyes, but it's another great game that is not cheap.
A member of the general public enjoying Rollergames. The game is known as having a gimmick that encourages multi-player games. Some people knew that, and we'd often see two-player or four-player games being played on it. It's not a collector's piece, but it's a fun game, and it was pretty well-received. So that was nice, too.
I'm home now and going back to work Wednesday. That sucks. I'd love to go every year, or maybe to another show, but man is vacation expensive. Fun, but expensive.
Keep playing, all