Best of luck with your efforts!! I've been wanting to do something similar, but as of now there are no locations with pins in the St Cloud area. Have considered opening up my home for some weekly pin tournaments if I can find enough interest... but have to convince the wife to turn my basement into a tavern once a week and that's an uphill struggle.

Be sure to post updates on this thread as you go along and I'll try to learn from the things you are doing to use towards my goal in central MN.

Just a quick noted to let the "up north" gang know that there is an awesome monthly tournament (IMHO) at Tilt Pinball Bar in Minneapolis. The new barcade has already been covered in other threads and news media coverage, so no need to go into it here. But if you aren't aware of this new place that just opened in April, you should definitely check it out.

The monthly tournament is typically held the last Sunday of the month at 4pm (May was moved up 1 week due to Memorial day). I have zero affiliation with the tournament, but have entered it twice now and even though I only have like 3-4 tournaments ever under my belt (so limited knowledge of how a tournament should be run) I think it is organized very well. Both months so far have had turnouts of 40+ entrants.

Definitely worth the drive to come down and participate... I make the trek from St Cloud and am typically home by 10pm, even after going sorta deep last night (tied for 8th). However a run to the final round might get you back to Duluth an hour or two later depending on your drive time.

The 4th Sunday of the month event isn't a league actually. It's just a regular tournament that you can show up to 1 time and still receive IFPA points. Heck, even without the points, it's a great event just for the fun and the social aspect. Since I have to drive from Sartell (which is only 1.5 hr vs your 2.5), I couldn’t commit to a regular league either. But I like being able to play occasionally when it fits my schedule.

I love the Duluth updates, and didn't mean to hijack the thread. Once you get into fall and if you can keep this going regularly, I'd love to drive up and play with you guys sometime. Sounds like fun. It will surely grow if you keep pushing it.

How is the Duluth pinball scene going these days?

Thanks for the update. Sounds like we’re in similar territory. I have a group of about 4-6 guys that are “sort of” interested in doing something more competitive. I’m moving to a new house in 3 weeks and this should allow me to expand my collection and also have a dedicated gameroom where the wife won’t be so upset if we take over 1 night a week for some type of league.

Breakshot definitely sounds like a great game. And Baywatch is also on my list to acquire hopefully later this year.

The only thing we have done so far is have some casual get together for play. Nothing competitive yet, but that has always been my goal. And it should develop into some type of league (even if only casual) this summer. I’m thinking fairly simple to start, like a 6-7 week league with points awarded and some type of trophy/prize at the end. Maybe allow people to miss 1 or 2 weeks and take top 5 results. I think that some type match play is what I’m shooting.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. If I lived closer to Minneapolis/St Paul, I would just participate in one of the great leagues already established. But there is a void in central MN with absolutely zero location play within almost 90 minutes of me. I would like to see that change also, but don’t have much control over that. Considered even approaching a couple of local bars and such to see if I could place a couple games, but realized quickly that I’m just way too busy with my real job to take this on.

Good luck. It can be a grind at first because you never know what the turnout will be. But I’ve been running them in St Cloud since early 2020 (Covid shut then down for a short while). It’s rewarding to see the scene grow. We had 17 people a couple weeks ago when our average was typically in the 6-8 range.

I’d be happy to talk you through any hurdles or questions you might have along the way. Just send me a PM if interested.

Also too bad there aren’t any places on the MN side. With District 82 over in Green Bay churning out tons of WPPR points at all of their events, you most likely won’t get the point chasers at your site trying to make the year end state tourney. But if you focus on fun, you’ll see the crowds build I believe.