Join the club. Maybe next year the registration can be in the evening so people can be home to sign up. No internet access were I work and cell phones are not allowed

From what I read it sold out at 1:43 EST, so I imagine a lot more then 500 people joined. Maybe they can do a lottery next year otherwise I might have to call in sick on registration day

I feel they will expand. How 400 sold so quickly I cannot believe. Last year they were still trying to get people as walk ins, the morning of the start of Pinburgh.

competitive pinball has grown I guess?

How long till someone tries to flip a spot at Pinburgh ?

They should probably take hints from Stern and JJP and raise the price to meet market demand

Edit: This was said in complete sarcasm - I hope no one thought I was serious.

They have already raised the price AND made it a $50 non-refundable if you cancel. I'm absolutely shocked that it filled up this quick. I got in, but barely.

The growth of competitive pinball is exponential. Check out these stats from Josh Sharpe...

"Back in August we saw the World Pinball Player Rankings reach a milestone of 20,000 player ranked. We're proud to say that the total number of players the IFPA is now ranking at the end of 2013 is 21,882. This represents a 33% growth from the end of 2012. In addition, the number of players that played in an IFPA endorsed tournament during 2013 was 9964, up 28% from the number of players that were active during 2012.

We’ve also seen incredible growth in the number of tournaments popping up all over the world. Total number of unique events for 2013 was 622, up 44% from last year. We uploaded an average of 133 tournament results per month during 2013, compared to 82 tournaments per month for 2012, an increase of right around 62%.

No plans to expand that I've heard. 400 participants already taxes the facilities (parking, bathrooms), not to mention having 200+ pins ready for tournament play.

Come on down to Texas Pinball Festival this year!!

It was sold out last year too but there were a few last-minute cancellations/no-shows the day of. Don't hold your breath for expansion.....massive endeavor already to have 200 machines from various eras ready for 3 straight days of pounding....plus back-up machines....

Mark, Bowen, Doug, Elizabeth, and Kevin do an amazing job with Pinburgh!

No doubt they will be charging $200.00, next year...

Greed? Nope. 400 players x $175 each = $70,000. $60,000 goes to cash prizes for the participants and $10,000 helps cover costs to put on this massive event. These guys bust their humps to make this the greatest pinball tournament on the planet. No need to sling mud. Just my opinion.

They ran the tournament at a loss money wise last year and I don't doubt that they will be loosing money again this year albeit less of a loss as they are taking some of the registration money towards the cost of running the tournament.

Classic business says it is underpriced if it sells that quick. The solution is to raise prices. It goes into the purse anyways, which only helps with the prestige of the event. six-figure prizes would be pretty impressive.

I don't usually chime in on this topic, but I find myself reading Pinside tonight in a hotel room 2500 miles from my home, so what the hell...

Raising the price also eliminates younger or newer, and sometimes novice players, which as an organization really isn't something we want to do. It's a balance though, so some of that already happens and is unavoidable, and we try to compensate in other ways to interest those people affected by these decisions, such as videos, charity, or giveaways. If the scale slides in one direction, we always try to do something that benefits the other side as well. We don't always succeed, but we try.

The prize pool already is large enough to guarantee a level of prestige, both inside and outside of the pinball community. Two years ago, PAPA had the choice of raising the prize pool of our own tournaments but instead chose to add money to the pots of each Circuit event, hoping the larger numbers for those events around the country, primarily run by others, would help bring them additional publicity and more awareness to the game in general, rather than more awareness solely to us. You are correct the next goal money-wise is a round number though... something like $100k, or $1million with sponsorship, because those types of prize pools are easy to remember and advertise, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't discourage the newer, younger type of player (or something has to be created in another area to compensate for that loss if we do go that route of raising prices).

At any rate, we do think about these things, for anyone who wonders. Also, to the fellow who commented on greed, raising the price of the tournament just raises the amount of money we pay out to players. If we were trying to make money, we would raise the cap, lower the price to get more people through the door and profit on coin-drop and merchandise... but that type of thinking doesn't really serve the purpose of why the organization was built. PAPA isn't built as a traditional business, though it is occasionally forced to act like one to help preserve its survival.

Keep flipping.

Oh, the whole reason I clicked on this topic... there are not currently plans to expand the field. Four hundred players is already very taxing for the facility's resources, and we currently feel raising that limit would lessen the quality too much for those who are attending. If we find a way to address the problems we have, we will do so, but trust me when I say it's not a simple matter of changing a number.

If I could make the field 1000 and maintain quality, I would do it in a heartbeat, but it's just not in the cards right now.

walk ins and a few no shows last year is different from this year. Last year people could sing up in advance but did not have to pay until day of event.
This year, you had to pay NOW when you signed up.
SO, it can be assumed fewer "no shows".
I highly doubt any "walk ups" due to "no shows" will happen unless an emergency on a players behalf arises

I guess 400 participants is the ideal headcount for the PAPA facillity as it is now. As Mark points out. Atleast for the main event of two days qualifing.

The only way to raise the number of players able to compete for the Pinburgh trophy, as I see it, is to make a runner up, pre-qualify, tournament on the Thursday. With no participants limit. The top x players of this tournament (say 20) will be able to fill up x reserved spots in the main tournament.

I'm not saying it is easy - but it's doable.

What is not so easy is to determain who may sign up directly, the number of reserved spots, and tournament format.

Oof, wait.... Pinburgh is 175$ + tokens too? Man, I had no idea entry fee was that high..high five on my wife for making me stay for TPF this year, I guess. Clearly, I never looked at the costs the prior two years but that's kind of...

Have fun ya'll. Maybe 2015 is my year, lol...going to have to save up all year to be able to afford it.

That is very noble, but I think there is no getting around that the event attendance is very limited and selling out if 45 minutes in going to wipe out the novices. You might as well embrace being the marquee pinball event of the year and work with it.

Good luck with everything.

Yeah, 400 people is a huge deal to coordinate over the course of a long weekend. I couldn't imagine there being more allowed in the tourney. At a minimum, you would lose all the open play machines in the back. Plus, you need spare games for when any one of 100+ tournament used games decides to have a catastrophic failure in the middle of a tournament.

Leave it alone, guys. You did it right.

-Mike

Usually you have a logical approach and are spot-on.
Unfortunately, logical reasoning does not work here and parallels should not be drawn with other businesses.

PAPA exists solely due to philanthropy and a dedicated team of volunteers who strive to keep pinball alive and well.
A 400 person pinball tournament is the furthest thing from "very limited" - in fact it is the biggest and baddest pinball event on the planet.

Again, no parallels should be drawn between PAPA and classic business; in fact, they do not even belong in the same sentence. One must simply visit the facility and meet the people involved to see how flawed your reasoning is. $175 to enter a tournament is not cheap, especially when you factor in the cost of travel. $60k in prizes is already pretty impressive.

PAPA is not a capitalist machine and never will be. It's all part of the magic and mystique that make the spring pilgrimage to Scott Township the highlight of my year - I've pledged with a pinball brother-from-another-mother to never miss a Pinburgh until I die.

selling out in 45 minutes says otherwise, that's all my point was.

The event took 1 hour and 43 minutes to sell out, not 45 mins...

You should look into how the very large poker tournaments are handled. They have different groups of 1,000 players compete on different days for 12 hours at a time and then, when the fields are small enough, they combine them on following play days to smaller groups that can fit into the same space... That is the only possible way to accomplish a larger field using the same size facility.

It is done in the World Series of Poker main event which, over the last 8 years, has had over 6,000 entrants pay $10,000 to play. And FYI, You can no longer "win your way" to the WSOP. They no longer "give away" seats through online or physical tournaments and promotions. A am NOT trying to compare the two events, just some food for thought.

I think it is great that the organizers want to give access to anyone to this tournment, I agree with Frolic that the only way to curb the demand is to raise prices, in order to do this the fees would need to raise to $250 and I believe that would be a tough sell to the organizers.

I also agree with the organizers that they still want to give access to everyone to the event. It is a really tough pickle these guys are in, I can see next year that this event will sell out in 20 minutes and not 2 hours like this time. It will just keep getting worse and worse as tournment pinball gets more popular. I don't have the answers, I have met all the organizers they are all great people and their intent is just to grow pinball not to make a huge profit/or dramtically increase the payouts for these events (aka: World Series of Poker).

The only other way to curb the demand will be for other areas/cities to put on similar events throughout the year so Pinburgh is not such a markee event.

I feel for the organizers here, they have created a monster, lol, thanks for all you guys do!!!!

And if you don't have access to the internet at the time because you work or travel you are screwed.

Sounds like an easy remedy .. quit your job. Need to prioritize

400 is logistically the max. It double books every bank at every time slot (two groups competing on four machines). Given that many of the 'A' groups already play each machine for a solid 30 minutes, it's tough to get around.

That said, I'd be interested if adding another day would be at all possible? You know, I live 20 minutes away from the facility and, it's difficult to even get 8 hours of sleep Friday night because I have to be up the next day. It's the best problem I've every had! Still, an extra day would be even better and could reduce some of the stress of the people. Of course, then you have added stress on machines, so it would definitely be a trade-off.

Would 425 or 450 destroy the event?

I have a lot of friends who didn't get in, so I feel you on this one.

It could destroy the event, though. Now you're getting into the triple booking each bank. If there's any kind of hold up, that pushes back the entire schedule. There's already a small issue when some of the A groups go longer than 30 minutes on each machine; generally it only pushes the times back by 10 or 15 minutes so it's no big deal. Triple booking might expand that to 45 minutes or longer, which creates some havoc with the already tight schedules.

Bowen, who helps organize the event, makes his living working on math text books, so I'm sure he's explored a lot of set theory to get 400 players to work!

Can't they add more banks? There is plenty of room and games. Each bank of 4 games would allow 8 players if they are double booked.

There are already 50 banks of four machines for the event, there was room on the right side of the building for more banks of machines if you moved those EM machines into the practice area, but then the practice area would also suffer as you are stealing machines from it. As well, more banks of machines means more volenteer support for administration and repair. The organizers do a great job and would hate to see the experience erode just for the sake of adding more machines for the event.

To ask them to increase this event so late in the game is asking a lot IMO.

Also remember that the new broadcast booth takes up space that last year's Pinburgh used for at least a couple tournament banks, so they already have less room to work with than they did in the past.

Wouldn't upset me in the least as all can register equally given the very advanced notice. Pinburgh isn't a championship of any kind so top players missing is a non-issue.

Oh I am sure that if Keith Elwin or somebody of that stature didn't get in, they would reserve a spot for him if they don't already. I remember over hearing Bowen say at a PAPA event to Keith "Don't worry about signing up for the sidepot, I did it for you".

Todd, are you in Denver experiencing the new legal "delicacy"?

Its the match-play Championship!

This is pretty much the only option left to expand the field. Getting more games ready and cramming more people into the building for two days is not really a viable solution.

It would be interesting if there could be three sessions, Mon/Tues, Wed/Thurs, Fri/Sat and finals on sunday with the top X playing from a merged result pool.

Pretty sure it would also drive Mark full speed into crazy town to do something this long

Never been to Denver so wouldn't know about new legal "Delicacy" Should I, haha.

people and events like THIS RIGHT HERE are why I don't believe in (*spit*) "peak pinball". and that is coming from someone who sadly did not make it in.

This made me actually LOL

Yeah, but with pinball, you've got people flying in for one weekend and one weekend only. For WSOP, the money involved means people are able to stick around for much longer than you will ever get for a pinball tournament.

What's great about this tourney exactly is that it's two guaranteed solid days of play (I haven't competed, just what friends tell me). If you double the field, and half play on friday and half play on saturday with finals on sunday, the tourney would be a shadow of it's former self.

The only thing that seems like it might be possible is if you split A and B division to one weekend, C and D to another weekend. Not sure if it's have the same draw split up this way, though, and without the ability to "qualify up" as someone who expects to be C or D going into it.

This is actually a great idea and I would still participate if that was the format.

well, yeah. $150 goes to the prize fund and they donate the token drop to charity..
the payouts reflect the money paid "in".
they pay out a guarantee of 60K overall, how much does TPF pay out ?

The "sidepot" is a retired bonus for top Pinburgh players to compete against each other for extra cash. It had nothing to do with registration for the event.

As I said before, the only player with a reserved spot is Chris Compton, who booked Player #101 in the PAPA TV Kickstarter.

Oh it started at #101?! haha. I worked from home. I was waiting at 11:59a, refreshing my browser. I had all of the information I thought I would need in notepad, poised and ready. As soon as the page came up, I was a cutting and pasting like a mad man. Then, after the smoke cleared from my keyboard, I was #151. I thought 150 other people had somehow signed up faster than I did which was in the first 5 minutes of the page being up! I guess 50 is still a lot though.

$175 for 3 days at PAPA playing in the best pinball tournament in the world is nothing. In other words its worth every penny. If you go to any big circuit event or tourney thats run Herb format you could drop $175 trying to qualify and not qualify, like me at every PAPA circuit event I've been to...... I would gladly pay more even if none of it was paid back to the players!

For many folks, but there are other people -- especially overseas folks -- that come for the week. To encourage mid-week play on Wed/Thurs, different price points or other rewards could be done.

What's great about this tourney exactly is that it's two guaranteed solid days of play (I haven't competed, just what friends tell me). If you double the field, and half play on friday and half play on saturday with finals on sunday, the tourney would be a shadow of it's former self.

I don't think snyper2099 was recommending cutting play and splitting the existing days between groups, rather sort of make it a week long event and have one group of people play Wed/Thur and another group play Fri/Sat, combine results and have the qualifiers come Sunday for finals. Still the same amount of play.

On paper it makes sense, but logistically I don't think it could happen without big money sponsorship.

Just rent out Heinz Field next year and fill up the stadium with games!

odd doors and the games may not be a good mix even more so if rain or other weather comes.