I've been to pintastic every year, but this was the first time I brought a good pinball friend and stayed overnight on Friday. I have to say it was a fantastic show. Highlights for me were definitely:

a) The Vendor area with all the newest games. This is such a treat to get to try all these out in one place. Thanks pinballs.com.

b) The tournament. I vastly prefer games from the last ten years in general, but I still really enjoyed punching a couple of tickets in the Silverball. Thanks to the Sanctum crew.

I'm not sure I can agree with folks complaining about long lines - I was there all day Friday and Saturday and played every game in the vendor area multiple times without ever having to wait for more than one person/group to finish up. You had to be patient and pick your spots, but there was plenty of opportunity to play those games without too much waiting around.

I'm not a great player but I did blow up a couple of the games in the vendor area once or twice and I did feel bad for causing a long wait for the folks behind me. However, a couple of people actually said they enjoyed watching me play and learning a little about how those machines work (maybe they were just being polite, but I know I enjoyed watching Steve Bowden play Maiden, for example).

Honestly, the number one thing that would help move people through those new games in the vendor area would be to tighten them up - I don't think a single one of them other than Pirates had a tilt bob even installed. While it's really fun to be able to get physical with a game and rack up a huge score, it really lengthens ball times. My guess is that maybe the vendors want people to have fun so that they'll buy the game and tilting is not fun, but still, I think they would benefit from shorter lines.

At first I as bummed by the lack of DMD games in the free play area, but honestly I really enjoyed being force to spend some time with older games outside my comfort zone, and ended up having a great time. Radical, Time Fantasy, Space Station, and Black Hole were a few of the ones we kept returning to.

Anyway, thanks so much to everyone involved with the show. I hope it was successful for you and that you made some money, because I know I got way more value out of the show than I had to pay. Can't wait til next year!