So I finally payed a little attention to this and I have a minor philosophical concern. But let me be objective, competitive pinball is still fun in my town as it's new. We don't do it for money, we play pinball for fun. IFPA points are this magical cool thing that just comes from nowhere and only a few locals are serious about it. I think that what IFPA does is awesome and it can't be done for free and if we charged $1 per tournament entry, or $5/year for membership (insert any number) just to maintain IFPA I'd be deliriously happy with that. But in the IFPA analysis on their site where they state that this is to raise money for prize pools for the very few that can make it to major competitions to compete for big bucks....... I'm not good with that. Its not good for pinball as we are still in the "need to recruit the masses" mode. The fact that the impact analysis had many states where no one was playing IFPA is significant. I'd be totally cool with registration fees etc... but charging fees so the big tournaments can have big cash prizes..... well I can possibly understand that from the perspective from someone living in Chicago, Pennsylvania, or maybe Oregon but those of us out in the wastelands just trying to develop a local pinball culture are still having fun with pinball. This by no means kills the fun, but saying that part of your entry fee goes to support a prize pool that you'll never see is something that I'm not sure people in my local pinball gang is ready to accept and be happy with.

Be advised, I'm the operator of a Stern Army location and I run monthly IFPA events and I'm dealing with nothing but complaints from my locals (i.e. the only people I care about) about how non-fun the IFPA match play events are because all these out of town people show up, slam the machines around, bitch about the tight tilts, bitch about this, bitch about that, break rules then quote rules from some obscure league across the country, bitch bitch bitch, and I let them play for free just to help pinball. I only host them so people can get points, if it's not fun I'm not doing it. Basically, its not fun.

Let me translate that last paragraph. My location is likely cancelling a lot of scheduled IFPA match play events. However, I support a fee to be a member of IFPA. They are providing a service and they should be compensated for it.

I am in violent agreement with this post. .

<blockbuster cite="#3760997">Pinball tournaments are like karate tournaments, except without the belts and tons of giant trophies for coming in 3rd out of 3 people in your division. I love coming to your location, Jeff, but I usually stay away during tournaments and busy times. I just don't think tournaments are the way to foster a pinball culture with people these days. As weird as this sounds, you'd probably make almost the same amount of money with half the machines and leave the open gaps between machines so people don't have to worry about getting too close to strangers.

Keep the comments coming guys, I'm looking for an excuse to cancel the events.

Yes, what you said, I'll just raise the entry fee to $100, all coin drop, no prize pool, and let these tournaments die a natural death.

Edit: IFPA has been contacted, tournaments cancelled

Dude, you're awesome, and proving my point. Thanks!

Actually, in regards to regretting comments, this was all just a little Pinside social experiment by me to see if I could find a good excuse to cancel my scheduled Saturday match play events. Yes I posted some negativity, but didn't mention any names, and holy crap people piled on and proved my point. Way to go guys, feel manipulated yet? There will still be IFPA match play events at my location, just not on Saturdays so that everyone from all over the state can participate. We'll do them on weeknights and keep it local and fun.

Back on topic and back to my original post, IFPA charge fees? Please do, they provide a great service to the community and should be compensated for it.

Yup, maybe I'm an a$$hole, but I'm an a$$hole that operates a pinball arcade that's tired of throwing Saturday match play events and looking for a reason to pull the plug. And don't get me wrong, lots of the out of towners are awesome people and will be seriously missed. Anthony Dickson in particular, watching him demolish a bistro burger is a sight to see. I really enjoyed him attending. And much thanks to Chris Warren for helping me with the non-intuitive match play software. But after two Saturday match play events and having to deal with all the negative comments about the behavior of a certain few people and the out of town crowd in general just makes it not fun for me and the locals. In fact, very few locals even show up. A lot of the stuff is pretty subtle, and I seriously doubt they're even aware they're doing it. But we just don't act that way here. Different pinball culture I guess.

And thanks Bhampinwiz for the well reasoned comments. If there were more like that we might still be having a tournament next Saturday. If there had been one "we're sorry you're upset and really appreciate you hosting the tournaments what can we do to help?" comment but... see above.

Everyone please have a nice day. Gonna go watch my son's baseball game and then go play some pinball.

Can someone please start a "Jeff Sanders from Huntsville, AL is the antichrist" thread and get us back on topic please.

Actually I can legitimately and easily challenge the accuracy of most/all of your statements but won't waste the time. We will have PLENTY of IFPA tournaments moving forward. Just none on Saturdays. I dangled some bait with a negative comment and the vitriolic hatred came out pretty fast. I tested the audience as I was looking for an excuse to cancel these tournaments based on my own opinions and complaints from my locals and tons of reasons to cancel were handed to me on a silver platter. Have y'all figured out yet that maybe there's some out of town people that the Huntsville crowd just doesn't like to play with?? My arcade, my choice, I expressed some general dis-satisfaction, and had anybody (other than pinwiz) been anything but hateful Alabama might have 6 more state wide tournaments annually. You guys have fun and rock on.

Ok, that was funny.

Thanks for making the decision easier and easier. I had a bunch of other comments typed in but just backspaced over them. Really, you guys have fun.

I didn't dig a hole, I dug out of a hole, have fun guys. I really don't think you people realize how disposable the whole IFPA thing is to an operator. I want to support pinball and IFPA but if it becomes a hassle.... see above.

I agree with Mr Huffman, my only concern is the transaction count and the payment mechanism, but neither of those concerns are anything insurmountable. Just something to be worked out.