My first time out was overwhelming (in a good way). It was *packed*!!

Games all played flawlessly, people were super friendly, and the food is great. One of the Pizza West owners constantly came over to see how things were going. Our server single handedly took care of all the parties (and families) and was running the place like a BOSS. Stangbat has some great machines and the tourney itself ran like clockwork. Hopefully I can start putting some faces and names with the handles here.

Standouts:
Funhouse kicked everyone's a$$, including mine. The playfield must have been coated with some NASA non-friction lubricant LOL. I'm not sure how I felt about the LEDs. There was definite strobing and a few of the visible GI bulbs were pretty blinding and actually darkened the back areas that were in shadow.
I'm really a system 11/WPC guy and graduating college in 1999 really never gave me a chance to play any of the Sterns. Played Spiderman for the first time. I may seriously have to add this game to my want list. It was awesome!! Didn't get a chance to play Iron Man.
Hadn't played Getaway or Jurassic Park since we had them at our beach arcade in the mid 1990s. I need practice.
Apollo 13 I think I'd played once back at Playland in State College back in the day. Yep, 13 ball multiball is still a bit overhwelming, but as an astronomy buff I love the theme.

Have a great Sunday all!
Evan

Thanks for the comments, guys. It was our biggest turn out yet, which means a big bracket of course. Thanks to everyone for being patient.

Results can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/kcpins

http://kcpins.com/archives/1008

Thanks to stangbat for running it and keeping the games in top shape!

Yep, had a great time. Almost won, just one ball short, lol. I need to play Apollo 13 more.

If the older dude was serving you, he was the boss. lol
Was a good night. I came in 3rd. I have yet to beat Phil.

I was pretty pleased with my play (other than Funhouse -- I think that was you I played Taylor?). Glad to know the nerves didn't get the best of me in my first tourney and could hang with the "well knowns".

Clubber, my server was the other owner? HAHAH too funny. Seriously that guy was better than 99% of waiters I've ever had. He should train wait staffs for a side gig. You couldn't even get near the bottom of your drink before another was handed to you.

See you guys on the "flip-side"

The server for the tourney was Ed, he is not an owner. Dave and Cory are the owners. Dave wears glasses and has dark hair. Cory is primarily a cook, but he often is out in the restaurant talking to people. Cory is taller than Dave and has brown hair and usually wears a ball cap.

I'm very glad to see it's always been a great turnout and isn't declining in any way, matter of fact becoming better as it goes along. It's a haul for us and has always been worth it, for the pinball, for the friends and for the food. It's great that the owners support it so well, at least they do from my view. Kudos to Erik for keeping the games alive and switching in and out new ones. Already looking forward to the next one!

If it grows any more, I'm afraid me may have to find some way to place a limit on participants or look at other options. I'd hate to do that, but there gets to be a level where you just can't run any more people through the bracket on 7 games in a reasonable amount of time. With 37 this time, we were pushing it in my opinion. We normally have around 25, and at that level it seems to run pretty smoothly. We'll just have to see how it goes. Spring break for a lot of people falls during the next tourney, so I anticipate the turnout to be a little lower.

Dave and Cory love the tourney and they both love pinball. They play the games quite a bit. Dave was really happy with the turnout. The tourney is booked on the 3rd Saturday for the rest of the year and Dave is happy to do it.

You could always change the tournament format if it gets too big. You could do something where everyone plays 4 games on 4 different games...then rank their scores, and then the top 8 or something move on and play head to head in a tournament seeded by how high they finished. Probably could then dictate what games each matchup will occur on to take that out of the loop as well, so the other games could continue to be played by others. I think it would shorten it up quite a bit and be less work overall possibly. I think this is how they do it in larger tournaments.

I, for one, will not be in attendance for the March tournament due to spring break. Also, there are several regulars that will be at the TPF in Dallas that weekend. If I wasn't gone for spring break I'd be in Dallas also.

Otherwise, I suggest we see how bad it gets before we make any changes. It's good to plan for them in the meantime so a plan is in place once it gets too busy. Would it be worthwhile making the games more difficult by removing parts like at PAPA as one solution to reducing game durations?

Just out of curiosity, what time did the final game end on Saturday?

Mike O.

It was right around 9.
I knew the two younger guys were owners but I thought Ed was the father, lol. Yeah, he was pretty much on top of things.

Somewhere around 8:45 - 9:00 is when we got done I think.

I'll just try and find six more Iron Man machines and then we won't have to worry.

Spiderman is the main game that could benefit from making it more difficult. Maybe remove the center post and open up the outlanes. I sometimes think things would go quicker if we only had six games and no Spiderman. It really slows things down.

I agree that we need to have a contingency plan for the 35+ events. I'll have to digest what taylor34 wrote, only had time to skim it right now.

Put 7 of those FH's out there and it will go quick. Hahaha

Being that we still got through the whole tournament by 9:00PM with 36 participants is not bad. It has gone that long or longer with 24 participants or less. I wouldn't get too concerned for now. Maybe making SM a bit more difficult on tourny day could be the adjustment you keep in your back pocket if there is any concern. Will have to see if attendance continues anywhere near that level.

The biggest thing I saw was there was more dead time at the beginning of the night waiting for the herd to thin so you could get to the next bracket. But that was fine with me. Many of my friends were there and it gave us opportunity to catch up. Pizza West probably sold more beer because of that too.

Mike O.

I was there!

I recommend name tags for the next event!