I wish we could cater to everybody but unfortunately someone will have a problem with any date we pick for the event. Someone will say well I can't be there for some reason. It all comes down to what priority you value for the event and obviously there are those that value some things over a pinball show and we just can't compete with that. With the summer date we broke an attendance record, whether if that was just more people are now in the hobby, more know about the show, or the date was better for the majority we will never know.

Thanks for all of the outreach of support for the event. We had a number of people provide us with some suggestions on how to improve the event for future years but wanted to give one last opportunity before we start the process of format changes, rules and other general improvements for the 2023 event.

Below is a survey link. Feel free to provide your feedback over the next week or two, we will be taking submissions until August 26, 2022.

Thanks again for taking part or having interest in the YEGPIN Pinball and Arcade Expo and look forward to hopefully seeing you at next year’s event.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfS3d2-NqxcVf1frkqIYwfUcY1cAoNZ0D9BtMgKe_OfPtZOrQ/viewform

Thank you all for participating in the survey here are the results from the 47 participants:

1. Did you enjoy the 2022 YEGPIN Pinball and Arcade Expo?

Yes - 97.9%
No - 0%
N/A - 2.1%

Really positive feedback and looks like everyone that attended had a good time, whew!

2. Would you recommend the 2023 YEGPIN Pinball and Arcade Expo to your friends or fellow competitors?

Yes - 97.9%
No - 0%
N/A - 2.1%

This is super important for us as word of mouth is the strongest marketing tool for us for this show.

3. Do you plan on attending the 2023 YEGPIN Pinball and Arcade Expo?

Yes - 76.6%
No - 0%
Maybe - 23.4%

This is great, normally we do get a lot of retention from every show we do and if seem that the majority of people want to come back or want to come back if it works for them in their schedule

4. Which date would you prefer for the 2023 YEGPIN Pinball and Arcade Expo?

June 15-18, 2023 - 57.4%
July 14-17, 2023 - 42.6%

It looks like people prefer the June date, but there isn't a major division between the dates, I do have a bit of a concern for international travellers and the June date because it is Father's Day, that day is great for the show as it will draw more people in, but just concerned on how many people will be able to come out of town due to family commitments.

5. The initial ticketing process was identified as the biggest pain point of the event this year and we are going to transition to a new proven cloud based provider for this service. How much in administration fees is acceptable to ensure the service runs seamlessly?

Up to $5 -34%
Up to $15 - 31.9%
Up to $30 - 6.4%
Whatever it takes to get it right - 27.7%

What this tells me is 63% of people would be okay with us using $15 as the bar admin fees so we will do our best to keep within that, the main thing is to greatly improve this experience which no matter the cost we will figure it out even if we have to subsidize some of the fees to get it right.

6. For the YEGPIN Match Play Championship how many rounds would you like to play in a day?

4 Rounds - 33.4%
5 Rounds - 76.6%

This is pretty convincing people want to play more pinball and we will continue with the same schedule, we will look at lowering the Women's Match Play to 4 rounds thou based on the some feedback we received.

7. There was a stage setup for this year event with the pinball machines on it, do you want us to continue to use this or remove it.

Remove it - 23.4%
Keep it - 76.6%

Well the masses have spoken, it is an added expense for the show but if it adds to the experience we will continue with this. However, we will be working with vendor to arrange the tiles better and to provide much better stability up there, for the players, as we want to make sure we are not sacrificing too much playing experience with this setup.

8. Did the viewing area suffice for watching all of the streaming action?

Yes - 85.1%
No - 14.9%

We had a lot of nice comments here, so glad the setup worked out, it was one of the things I felt really lacked at Pinburgh was the amount of seating and glad we were able to address this at the event.

9. For the most part were you satisfied with the amount, game setup and quality of the tournament machines that were provided for the event? (Feel free to add further input to this process).

- Mostly positive comment here but will summarize:

- Wood Blocks and slope was the biggest complaint, I can tell you they are here to stay but they will only be put on Solid State or EM's in the future (unless we have seized legs), we will be enforcing strict rules such as only a maximum 4 inch slope on machines which is the same as us removing the feet and putting 4 inch feet on there. The blocks provide more stability and they make the machine play quicker. I am not concerned on ball time, the steepness acually makes some games play easier but I am more concerned on how a machines plays you can't say any of our machine are floaty.

- Setup was too hard, well there is always a fine balance between setting up a machine for the best players the world and amateurs, it isn't easy and we don't always get it right, but for the most part I was pretty satisfied with he setups, they will continue to be hard to play, but we will do a better job on posting any software changes so that players have a better idea before they plug

- Too many games crashed - well that is pinball this stuff happened at Pinburgh too and when you get this many machines it cannot be helped. We will take more steps thou on EM's and Solid States by having more spare machines. Believe it or not we worked tirelessly to test play and on repairs to get these machines ready for event and will have another year to keep bulletproofing them, not easy to run this format and each year players will need to have patience as these machines will have breakdowns more so then a modern tournament would.

- Lightning Flippers, removal of rubber, too sensitive slings, yep this format needs to run on schedule and again there is a fine art to setup and we will strive to balance out the machines the best we can, but this is a high level competition so the machines won't be stock, there will be adjustments on them to ensure we can keep on schedule.

- Less strict adherence to the 1 EM & 1 Early SS game/bank rule and a change to 1 5-ball game (EM or Solid State) and early/middle/contemporary Solid State for the other 3 games. I think for me it is about tradition, and consistently and you will continue to have all Solid States on 3 ball and EM's on 5 ball where possible. I get it that games like Stars would be fine on 5 ball but then they get pairs with a longer play modern, we balance everything out in the banks to make it all work.

- 80 games in Match Play tournament was great; please maintain this number. If the event is held the plan is to increase to 96 games for the next one.

- A small amount more practice would have been better since the games were not set to factory. We will continue to have one practice session in the morning, and we will not do any 30 second practice before games even in playoffs, unless we become a major one day and then decision might be taken out of my hands.

- I think the way games were set up to play shorter/harder was unusual, That is what we are going for it every tournament was the same then it would be pretty boring. We are different, but the machines are fair, you can make all the shots and we will continue to do weird stuff to have something for all you to talk about lol...

- I will also say the pro tournament was incredibly difficult. I will say this was better this year from previous year, but will take under advisement, the queues are normally short and will try to make sure these are setup a little more liberal in future.

- Not a lot of downtime. Yes it is a crazy format and you are constantly playing, I think seasoned pros are used to this and actually prefer it , but the amateur players are like oh man this is a ton of pinball. All I can say is buckle up you are in for some long days and lots of games with not a lot of downtime.

10. Were you satisfied with the amount of prize money (for each division) and quality of prizes that were presented at the event? (Feel free to add further input to this process).

- For the most part everyone with satisfied by the payouts and most pleasantly surprised on how much we actually payout. Yes we have great sponsors, but we are also a non-profit event, we are volunteers and are able to provide the tournament fees all back plus more.

- Yes, in the Novice the payouts were screwed because of the attendance that will be fixed for next year as we do not people sandbagging, the B and Novice division will be balanced if we get unexpected no shows or less than expected attendance.

11. For the Knockout Cancer Pinball Tournament which playoff format would you prefer?

3 Strike Knockout - 25.5%
3 Fair Strike Knockout - 25.5%
3 Machine Group Match Play - 49%

This one is tough, I think a change needs to be made, with he IFPA rules it forces us to look at match play now since certified tournaments can't use knockout formats which is honestly a shame. Tradition tells us to keep with the knockout format just tweak it but to maximize the WPPR the brain says go with Match Play so honestly our team will have to think long and hard here. But no matter we raised $5000 for Terry Fox Foundation from this year. WTG everyone!!!

12. Were you satisfied with the quality of the free play area of the event?

Yes - 83%
No - 2.1%
Honestly didn't really get to play on there - 14.9%

Glad this was the case, our donors and collector community every year sacrifices some of their best machines of this event. We have some really nice titles that you would not see at other events in our free play area so thanks to all of those that donate and support this event.

13. Were you satisfied with the quality of vendor booths in the free play area in the event?

Yes - 63.8%
No - 8.5%
Honestly Didn't get a Chance to take a Look - 27.7%

I will take this as positive, Arkadium Retro Arcade, Nitro Pinball, Retro Active Arcade, Jackson Gee, LTC Pinball, Analog Brewing and Nitza Pizza all brought huge value to the event. A lot came a t great expense to each of these organizations and for the betterment of all of us so please continue to support those vendors and sponsors that help our show as without them this show would not be possible.

14. Were you satisfied with the two slotted times for picking up your tournament passes and passes for the event?

Yes - 89.4%
No - 4.3%
N/A - 6.4%

These results are outstanding considering this was the first year, we know we had a few hiccups but overall Keri and Erin did an outstanding job and a huge thanks to all of those that helped for a smooth in show registration process, hope that made up for the early debacle of ticketing of the event.

15. Is there any other constructive feedback on improvements you would like to see at the event?

More time for submitting entries to Knockout Cancer and High Stakes - No going to lie this will be difficult unless we extended the show another day which at this point not prepared to do.

Print schedule on back of passes - Awesome idea on our list for next year.

Put an actual notice on Neverdrains of when games will start back up, that would be helpful. - Not sure possible see what Karl can do in 2.0!!!

Need more dedicated TDs / volunteers - Yes, every show could probably say this, I will say we have a lot of great volunteers who worked their butts off all weekend but yes we are going to try to drum up even more next year, for an event this size we probably need just over 100 volunteers to make this run the way we want it to go. We will try to address this but need to drum up funds to be able to fly in TD's and tech's, it is huge sacrifice for anyone who volunteers for the event because they don't get to play, there are limited people willing to do this but I will be working on drumming up for support the best I can to help us out because we can not do this again with 2 TD's, I was completely exhausted after the weekend.

The biggest issue I saw was inconsistency in rulings by tournament directors, and in particular with adherence to the IFPA rules for things like when you get compensation balls. For the most part I believe we tried to follow the IFPA the best we could was there someone inexperience there which cause some inconsistencies, absolutely. I will say thou that we all know the rules and can usually find the solution together in most cases and as TD's sometimes the ruling were made quickly so we could make the next one without consolutation so hopefully we learn, have a few more bodies next time and do a better job making sure the consistency is better.

Is there a way to open up the one arena behind the stage to gain access to the washrooms? Well no but there is an opportunity to open up one corner of the tournament room to provide a much quicker route to washrooms, we just have to put more volunteers on that corner to ensure only tournament players are accessing it which could be a solution for next year, sorry for all the exercise and we will try to accommodate better for next year.

Better cordless mic needed for audio - No kidding this will be fixed!!!

More time between rounds in the ladies tournament. It felt really rushed. Can't give you more time but we can lessen to the rounds to 4 rounds which is a probably the solution we will go.

Ice water with refill stations! Sleep for the ladies - We have to take a look if this is possible and at what cost to show for water stations, there is water available at very reasonable prices but I know people don't like to pay for it. The ladies tournament finals will be moved to the afternoon year year, you are welcome

Move up players into division for playoffs if no shows - Sorry this is no going to be a consideration, you place has to be earned for playoffs, and I am not a big fan of let just move someone in, one for administrative purposes, it is a huge pain, but two is that you should now immediately whether you are in or out, not be the 90th place and because you showed up you get to move up in another division. I know some tournament do this just not mine just our philosophy.

Have a display for matches, I did not have a phone - I know this is touch for some, see what we can do that was the plan but one of those things we just ran out of time to do.

During the second round when people are playing in their divisions, the higher division players should play a machine behind lower division players. See what we can do here just followed the Pinburgh model here but there is always room for improvement can talk to Karl to see if we can have the Modern machine as the machine not played in the round and that will allow those players to have a bit more gap.

I don't think the bar needs to be a dedicated party zone, and should have been placed closer to the tournament if at all possible. This won't change, we do allow the liquor in the tournament room that is an improvement!!!

Could use more TDs in the future. Seems like Derek was constantly running around helping people during the rounds. Yes I was, please volunteer your time!!!!

Go to longer-playing rounds and have more modern games, and 4 rounds/day. I think the masses have spoken, more games, less ball time wins out. No really willing to give up on the 4 bank in every era, in fact if I could I would love to go 5 era machine banks in future. Willing to revisit this thou and have no issues with lesser rounds easier for us to run for sure.

It would be great to have a coffee vendor. Hmm see what we can do on that one.

Afterdark party was really short, be nice if it could be longer (start sooner or end later). - sacrifices all around for more tournament play, party or tournament always a fine balance, I think it will stay the same for next year.

Weather permitting, it'd have been amazing to have a few machines set up in an outdoor extension of the beer gardens. This will be very difficult with our current setup but will discuss if there are options, I get it summers are awesome in Sherwood Park

I liked the large number of participants in the Match Play Tournament so perhaps there is no need to worry about capping the # upfront. We have to cap the event, but next year the cap will be 240, we want to maintain a quality tournament and accommodate a small growth each year. The baseline was 160 so we will see if we get to that number next year.

Not a big deal at all but - it looked like there was zero outdoor signage or promotion etc. With he budget we have hard to do a lot of portion but there were small sign put all over the park of the event, we partnered with Strathcona County for promotions, we actually promoted this event much more than previous events and we did see increased attendance. Find balance between investing in marketing and investing in show.

KEEP UP THE FANTASTIC WORK!! What you do is appreciated and it was recognized as a success and a well-run show. I attended Pinburgh once in ~2015 and YEGPIN 2022 had a Pinburgh air about it! Highest honour we could ever get, you are welcome hope we can do it again next year.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback and we are already starting the work to discuss the next show, hopefully we will have an announcement within the next couple of months.

YEGPIN 2022 signing off!!!

Just under 1500 paid admission…

Yes typo there, the four dates that are in the running are:

June 15 - 18, 2023
June 22 - 26, 2023
July 13 - 16, 2023
July 25 - 28, 2023

Thanks!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/yegpin-2023-pinball-and-arcade-expo-july-20-23-2023