Wow didn’t know that. I didn’t even know they were on there.

July 9-12, 2020.

yup

I reported seeing this on locations that use them and was told it was a non-issue by the maker.

Sad to hear it happened in competition. It was only a matter of time. Hopefully they ripped that shit out of the game and tossed it in the garbage.

The tech removed them after our game.

That’s good

Thanks! I saw those at the show and thought they were a great idea. I’m going to print some this week.

Thanks to everyone who stopped to say hi. I was one if the 2 techs with the light-up carts.

Someone asked if we were having withdrawals now that the show is over.
I am resting, and here is why:

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The dedication of the tech's is unmatched!

Wow. Thanks again for everything you folks do!

From our perspective, this would defeat the purpose of playing the audio into the hall if there was a barrier to hearing it.

Could you give me some more detail on this feedback? What does focusing on pinball as a whole entail?

Stream looked and sounded good from my lounge in New Zealand.

Where are all the results posted?

The links on the Pinburgh.com page just lead to incomplete tournament software pages ...

Cheers!

rd

These all work for me:

https://pinburgh.com/2019/live/

https://matchplay.events/live/977qx/matches (A FINALS)

https://pinburgh.com/2019/live/finals/E_div_round_5.html (E FINALS)

Alas ... most of them don’t show up.

rd

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This is my 4th or 5th Pinburgh, and the highlight for me this year was the announcing for A division finals. I was glued to my chair for at least 2 rounds, leaving only once to get another 60-Minute tallboy. I always learn something new watching these guys play.

The Deadpool that was modded out in bank 3(?) was a loaner from a friend of mine. The Pin-Stadiums kept falling off so I ripped them out and shoved them in the coin door after it happened a second time. TBH I’ve never seen it happen before.
The Pin-Stadium guy offered to take a look at it but by the time it was open for free play I guess he forgot.

I came over during E finals to chat about them. Thanks for sharing, they are a great idea.

Look up all divisional finals in match play.

then maybe a relay system with smaller speakers placed in better ways. Overall lower volume to not distract other players, but placed in better positions (where people are actually watching the stream)

Would be easy to set up, provide much better results, and not be yelling in other players faces.

I get that YOU want to play the audio for A bank into the hall. Good goal, poor execution.
It simply comes down to, "Would you allow a random person to yell stuff directly behind other players while they are playing competitive matches?"
If the answer is no, then you need to hold the organization accountable to the same standards.

Anyone know how far down the wait list that got in? I heard a lot of names read off. Just curious what the highest wait list number was that made it.

I heard 116. There were about 40 no shows.

I think it was 133 actually.

I think what he’s saying is make more pins available for public play and not so much for the tournament. Not sure how you’d pull that one off without killing yourselves and/or compromising the tournament.

We all played. I ended up winning B division.

The software took a dump in the second round and they ended up doing it the old fashion way.....the paper method.

Additionally, thus far, it's not "a pinball show" like most other pinball shows. There's a lot of other content to attract other attendees that aren't interested in pinball. So far the bulk of pinball people attending are there for the tournament and not much else (I'm sure this is shifting a bit over the years). There aren't really pinball vendors to speak of like you'd find at most dedicated pinball shows, no seminars this year, etc. If you went to ReplayFX expecting it to be a typical pinball show like TPF, Chicago Expo and the rest, you'd be disappointed.

All I know is I finally escaped "The Pit" this year so I am happy.

Well..... I don’t think the goal of replay is to be a sale show. Imagine how much of a pain in the dick it would be to get a game out of the convention center into a vehicle, while the show was going on. I will admit, I was disappointed not to see sales representation for JJP or spooky. I’d imagine with cointakers booth, they could just take orders that would be drop shipped from stern, or if you bought a demo, you could remove it on Sunday. Just my guess.

As a first time attendee (not competition player) I thought there was an incredible focus on pinball! Huge tournament, huge free play section, vendors, people talking pinball, I even sold a game to a fellow pinsider from Wisconsin that made a detour on his way home to Cleveland to get it. Plus the techs are great - someone overheard me and a buddy talking about how we wished Bad Cats was working, he went over, fixed it in a few minutes, then came back across the venue to find us and tell us we could play - if that's not focus on pinball then I don't know what is. Keep up the good work is my only advice!

Regarding VIP, there was no indication of a VIP check-in line on Thursday morning.. The check-in desk seemed to have individual lines for each volunteer checking people in, but then it actually looked like some lines fed to two volunteers, while other lines fed to one volunteer. It's much much more efficient to have one long line feeding to any volunteer who becomes available. Also feels better from an attendee perspective, imo, as you're not concerned that you accidentally joined the line with the slow volunteers/slow attendees.

Anyways, I waited in a line at random, got to the front and checked in, only to learn that to get my VIP bag I needed to speak to one specific person, in a different line. The VIP area was also not well marked.. it would be nice to have it more accessible than seemingly shoved into a remote corner. Would it be possible to make it accessible from outside the Pinburgh area as well?

Overall the show and tournament was fantastic!

The dedication of the techs was incredible. I would have never expected to see free play games getting board work or soldering other parts done later on a Sunday when the show is pretty much wrapping up anyway, but I saw it several times. Replay FX is the best.

This was my first time attending Replay FX, and I had an amazing time. Everybody looked so happy to be there, and were very open and friendly. Pinheads form a great community, and it seems very diverse. I will be back next year, and will hopefully compete in Pinburgh. I couldn't believe the amount of Pinball tables that were there, and it was crazy to see how often they broke and then how quickly they were repaired. I would spend a whole day following a tech around to watch them fix things on the fly if they would let me. Highlight of the weekend for me was getting the high score on Transporter The Rescue and getting to enter my initials.

It's hard to have any criticism of this event, but it seemed like there was a lot of open space everywhere that could have had more vendors, or other pinball manufacturers that would bring in funding for the event. Seems like JJP or American would have a booth there (but I'm sure there is a good reason they weren't). Even if they didn't have more vendors/manufacturers, there was plenty of extra space to give to the Stern area. They were so cramped in that little area, but then there was this huge space off to the sides being unused. I've helped organize conferences in the past, so I know much hard work it takes to be successful (especially with a mostly volunteer staff). We always made our money by grinding all year selling booth space and getting sponsors.

I have to share the best part of my first Pinburgh experience. I missed finals by 1 spot, so on Saturday I was just walking around flipping games I'd never played. I walked up to Cyclopes which I had on my list of games to play after seeing on sell at an auction for $5,200. I hit the start button and a mild-mannered voice behind me says, "Do you mind if I join you?" I turn around and it is none other than Roger Sharpe! I didn't realize Cyclopes was a Game Plan game that Roger designed, but in our conversation during the game he let me know he designed it. Yes, he annihilated me on the game, but it was really cool to see him play. The game has a great left orbit shot that locks a ball in the top right for MB. It was by far the highlight of my trip and a great consolation prize after not playing very well. You can't find experiences like that any place but Pinburgh.
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I said the same thing to Bowen. As a fairly new player, his videos are quite the resource. He seemed appreciative and said he only has about 400 more to do.

Sure, pinball is great and all, but was the chocolate-covered bacon vendor back this year?

Might I suggest a Bally clipboard?

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Are you in on his Pinball Patreon? It pays for the expenses required to travel and film the tutorials.

https://www.patreon.com/pinball

Yes, "The Fudge Guy" was there. He didn't have the truffle pretzels though. There was some imposter chocolate-guy also there in a different part of the vendor area.

We improved it this year (over last) and we will improve again next year once we have our budget set and money allocated.

As far as standards go... I would put the Pinburgh standards up against any any tournament.

I don't know the highest number that made it in, but we took 40+ off the waitlist the day of.

ALL of the techs are heroes!

There are union rules which prohibit removal of games, and dock usage from the floor while the show is in progress, so this would be VERY difficult. Luckily, because the Replay Foundation owns 900+ games we don't have to rely on loaner games of unknown quality or quantity and our techs can work on the games all year to get them ready.

There is some buying and selling that occurs during the show, but most of it is prearranged parking lot swaps.

I already have some notes from some other folks on how to elevate that experience in 2020. We knew 2019 would be a learning year for us with the VIP section.

Those fold down couches in the vip section were cool. I vote add more of those, and include a complimentary wake up service five minutes before each round begins.

There were something like 220 pins available in the freeplay area at all times. I think that would still make it one of the largest free play areas of any show... then we add in another 300+ Friday night.

But, every year we've had more and more pins and vids available in the freeplay area, I'm sure 2020 will be no different.

Put some of those reclining chairs that were in the area by the drink station too.

Hey Tom, congrats. It’s great to put a face to the Pinside name. My friend Ben was in the final 4 with you, I’m on the left in the pic.

How’s this for a story. Last year, Ben and I were in the 130s on the wait list. We made the trip because we wanted to support our friends, some were playing there for the first time, as well as hopefully get in. My name was called and Ben’s was called right after. In the off to the side area where they had the lucky wait list group, they did a confirmation recount and found out they took one too many. They said “sorry Ben we took one too many and can’t take you.” Major bummer. As we are walking off a local said “he came all the way from Arizona and I live here, he can have my spot.” Total hero move.

Fast forward to this year, again they go into the 130s apparently. I got in during the original 11 second scramble for tickets. Ben was on the wait list as were our other friends. Those others got their tickets within the first few days of getting on the waitlist. Ben is there yet again without an entry.

KME is not the only person with a 2018/2019 back to back Pinburgh story. Ben was the last person to get into Pinburgh, back to back. Getting on the podium in B was a pretty cool way for him to cap off the weekend.

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Awesome. I remember you guys cheering him on. Ben played awesome. I was in a match with him round 10 and then we played in the second round, semifinals and finals. I had a good time talking him while we were playing. It was truly a pleasure. He came in first the second round and semis.

I remember last year hearing the story how a local let someone take there spot. That is awesome especially when you travel so far to try and get into the competition.

My only complaint on the stream is that there is not enough promotion for it. I shouldn't have to kick around to find out when events were going to be streamed. There was nothing on the website showing a streaming schedule and no indicator as to where it was going to be streamed or even where to find live scoring. Same thing as last year. This is the premier pinball event of the year, it should be very easy to find. It should be promoted better. I finally found a link to the stream and timeframes only after asking in a Pinburgh thread. Basically on Sunday I just had to leave the stream channel on all day in hopes that the Intergalactic and WIPT would be shown...

Imagine if nobody was quite sure if or when the Super Bowl was going to be broadcast? And you could only find out about it in a thread topic the day before, that the broadcast was going to start after halftime around 5pm? It should be blazed everywhere! On the front page of replayfx (which should also have a link to live scoring), advertised here on Pinside, etc. The best way to grow the sport is to get eyeballs on the sport. This is not just an issue with Pinburgh but with almost all streamed pinball competitions.

^ Mods please bestow my entire monthly allowance of upvotes on this post.