(Topic ID: 307105)

Belles & Chimes - Getting Started?

By JStoltz

2 years ago

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Latest reply 2 years ago by rotordave
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Hey all!

We recently got another pinball location in our area, and they're trying to get a Belles and Chimes pinball group/league off the ground. My wife is pretty excited about it and has been going each week (barring any schedule conflicts), but it hasn't really been very well attended (at least not consistently) and there isn't really any actual structure to it yet. For the most part, "Belles & Chimes Night" is basically the same as any other night.

My question is, to those of you who have experience with Belles & Chimes groups, do you have any suggestions on how to "structure" it? Should the location be trying to incentivize attendance somehow (drink/food specials for participants, sponsored prizes)? Do they need to associate it with the IFPA as a league night? Are there any simple formats or "pin games" that would be engaging for a relatively green group of players?

My wife also owns her own business, and was considering stepping up as a "sponsor" for the league.. I could see maybe putting a small cash prize or gift card into the mix each week to sweeten the pot a little bit.

Note: The location also hosts a Killer Queen "league" night, but it too is pretty loose and unstructured.. No formal teams or tournament brackets or score keeping or anything like that. That does seem to be more well attended then the Belles and Chimes night, though.

Appreciate any suggestions!

OP
Quoted from JStoltz:
Hey all!
We recently got another pinball location in our area, and they're trying to get a Belles and Chimes pinball group/league off the ground. My wife is pretty excited about it and has been going each week (barring any schedule conflicts), but it hasn't really been very well attended (at least not consistently) and there isn't really any actual structure to it yet. For the most part, "Belles & Chimes Night" is basically the same as any other night.
My question is, to those of you who have experience with Belles & Chimes groups, do you have any suggestions on how to "structure" it? Should the location be trying to incentivize attendance somehow (drink/food specials for participants, sponsored prizes)? Do they need to associate it with the IFPA as a league night? Are there any simple formats or "pin games" that would be engaging for a relatively green group of players?
My wife also owns her own business, and was considering stepping up as a "sponsor" for the league.. I could see maybe putting a small cash prize or gift card into the mix each week to sweeten the pot a little bit.
Note: The location also hosts a Killer Queen "league" night, but it too is pretty loose and unstructured.. No formal teams or tournament brackets or score keeping or anything like that. That does seem to be more well attended then the Belles and Chimes night, though.
Appreciate any suggestions!

Any Belles and Chimes nights here have been loosely structured and mostly run by a core group focused on building a community more than the gameplay. I think you could encourage her to take a "leadership role" rather than sponsoring anything to start - maybe start a small group who wants to align efforts and decide what the group's goals are and go from there.

Did IN get a KQ cab?

Quoted from isJ:
Any Belles and Chimes nights here have been loosely structured and mostly run by a core group focused on building a community more than the gameplay. I think you could encourage her to take a "leadership role" rather than sponsoring anything to start - maybe start a small group who wants to align efforts and decide what the group's goals are and go from there.

That's a good point, and I think that's what she was hoping to get out of it herself anyway. Just a "thing" to do for fun every week. Don't think that she really cares for it to be competitive or particularly structured, just wants it to catch on and keep people coming.

Quoted from isJ:
Did IN get a KQ cab?

Yep-- I think the owner got it secondhand from Iowa or something? https://arcademiebar.com/

It's a pretty cool space. Used to be a vacuum sale/repair shop and they've retained some of that aesthetic. Mostly 70s-90s pins as opposed to the more modern machines featured at our other pinball locations. A little more emphasis on arcade cabs than on pinball, but he's got a pretty nice collection and he's a really nice guy.

The Belles organisation should have some ideas I’d guess?

Here, because of low numbers of Belles, we run the events in conjunction with other events - gets everyone in the same place at the same time.

If we run standalones, we don’t get many showing up unfortunately.

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