and a lot of pissed off people stuck in an elevator while they wait for you to finish multiball so you can select floors again.

Has anyone considered pinside Id's for this show like they did for the expo?

I loved this show last year. All the consoles, all the pins... all the beer at the hotel bar. Great job!

Just ordered my tickets and reserved the hotel room. This will be my first time going. I'm STOKED!

Thanks for doing that! We've been absolutely busting our butts lining up stuff lately. This looks like a great year, and it's all because of you!

If you haven't already, please like us on Facebook. Tonight after my son goes to bed, I'll be updating our banners and promo info. Please make sure to continue to spread the word!

If you're waiting for a reply from me on anything, please ping me again. I've had the longest most annoying cold, and while I *think* I'm caught up on everything, in at least a couple things I may not be.

See PM. It will explain where we are at. Not dead, but also might not be alive...

If anyone is thinking of going let me just say GO. I have gone twice now and enjoyed it very much. My wife, who is not into gaming, enjoyed herself also. We took one of the many beer tours and had a great time.

Schrodinger's tournament?

You have no idea (or maybe you do) just how apt that is.

Can't wait. Hoping to have some fun stuff to show off.

Agreed. There is an excitement there that is unmatched !

LTG : )

Had way more fun last year than I did at Expo. If you love PLAYING games, this is the one for you.

EDITed to pacify Lloyd.

Expo hasn't happened this year yet.

LTG : )

Wise man speak truth...

Best post of the year.

you know what I meant.

Now that you edited it, yes I do.

LTG : )

Nah, you had it correct the first time. You likely had more fun at MGC 2012 than you will at Expo 2013.

Sorry I just saw this SNOW. I'm not sure what I'll bring to the show. I thought about packing up my Family Guy in a road case for the show. I would just have to sort out a trailer to get it there. Or maybe I'll just me muscle for load-in day.

We will have to wait and see. I mean MGC seems like a world away. It's hard to tell what will be around to head to the show. My basement is such a pain to get in and out of I really try not to drag something down there knowing it will be coming back out.

Maybe I'll bring the Panthera I'm trying to sell and maybe the CFTBL that feels like is on the chopping block. More on that in the WI/MN thread when I get home next week.

chris

I know this post was from a while back, but I just wanted to say this stuff is appreciated. Just to introduce myself, my name is Mark, and I am good friends with Mr Goat Dan, and well most people know me as "Gary's Brother" I have been with the show since the beginning, and have been at every show. With all the work we have put into it, it is nice to sit back and see how many people truly enjoy this show. We have said it, and still say it, it is a show put on for gamers, by gamers.

Anyways, I just signed up on here, and will answer anything I am able to, Dan good for more of that, but I just enjoy hearing input and ideas from people.

My wife booked a room and bought tix for us as my birthday gift.
Best birthday surprise!

bump >> go buy your MGC tics

Can hardly wait!!!! Less than 2 months now!!!!

No Tom Taylor tour this year? Bummer. Still planning on going, but bummer.

Make sure you sign up for Clock Chaos on Friday evening. It should be a fun time and an opportunity for some amount of pinballing on Friday!

I used to go to the MGC show but now I find it overcrowded and in need of a different venue. Can't play a game without getting bumped or being asked to "squeeze it in" to let someone pass by. When that problem is solved I'll be back. Miss the show and the people that go to it for sure as they make the event one of the most friendly ones run.

I'll be back.

I agree with this to some degree as well..... But I think we are probably looking at this from a pinball only perspective. there was a lot more elbow room at the olympia for machines (speaking pinball only) where this new venue is waaaaayyyy more crowded in the pinball room. My guess is that there is a lot more room for the other parts of the show at this newer venue.

I don't ever go to the show, just the Saturday night party, so that is where I am basing my observation on pinball space...

This is tough. I actually like some of that about this show. It feels much more organic being in the environment it's in. Lots of nooks and crannies to discover new things to look at as opposed to the giant half filled hangar feel of some shows. It feels like a party at someone's house and that's part of what I love about the show.

Also, it's not a pinball show. It's a gaming show. Pinheads are supporting it quite a bit but I LOVE LOVE LOVE all of the classic computers, gaming systems, random Storm Troopers, energy drink, hacker space, card game, podcast and general nerdvana that this show is. I hope that never changes.

There is an energy level that makes MGC unique.

LTG : )

Not *yet*. Actually, I should know more about this over the weekend. Long story short, without saying anything that Tom might not want me to say, he has had a life change (good one) that takes knowing if he can do it out of his hands. He has said that there will be a 70% chance it will happen, and it is even on the flyers that we are handing out right now, but we won't know for sure until hopefully this weekend.

Heh, just a couple quick things...

At the Olympia, the largest number of games we ever had there at once was 80. Last year, the show hosted more than three times that number. If we limited it to 80 machines, there would be waaaaaaayyyy more space for the machines.

The thing that a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the move from the Olympia to the Sheraton more than doubled the size of the show. Some areas went up more than others (including, actually, the pinball area), but then we turned around and crammed so much into those areas that it just seems busier. The year after the move, we had a few people complaining on a video game board, so I gave them some stats, and it was stuff like "this group had one table at the Olympia, 24 at the Sheraton, this one brought 8 games at the Sheraton, 25 to the Olympia..." and so on. It really is bigger.

...and that doesn't even include power issues, as when we had that year with 80 games we had tons of power drops... Doc Ock was a costly upgrade (more than a MM!) but we don't get those any more...

For those of you that don't like the overcrowdedness, all that I can say is "sorry". We worked really hard on a deal to move to a larger venue for next year, but the cost to do so is a HUGE risk. We barely make enough money to cover where we are now. And, the place we were going to move to closed and is now slated to be torn down. Darn it all.

The difference between the Sheraton and the next logical step up is about a *quarter million* dollars. If anyone out there would like to bankroll that for a show that in it's best years has made about $2k profit (and that doesn't count the years where we lost four times that...), I'd be more than happy to listen.

Having said all that, as others have mentioned, we are going to do our best to keep the venue like it is now with lots of different stuff everywhere. Doing it in a huge hall, unless we are very careful about how it is done, just doesn't seem right. Be advised, we are WELL aware of that issue, and we are working to figure out something that keeps the feel of the show without making Gary and I go bankrupt for the rest of our lives.

Finally, as an attempt to help with the crowding some more, this year we have added a new "wing" to the show. We've rented out 9 hotel rooms and the hotel is going to move the beds out of the room to have even more show in there!

Great news Dan. More room is GREAT!

Last year, I was wondering how come there were so many vids crammed in the 'pinball hall'?

It seemed to me like the vids were in many other places AND in the pinball hall. The vids in the pinball hall were not played as much it seemed.

My obviously biased pinball perspective made me wish the vids were kept in the hallway since they would fit well in that space and then move more pins intot he pinball hall.

I know you are awesmoe and do what you need to in order to make it all work, but just an observation form last year.

I strategically lost 10 lbs since last year so i can wedge through the crowd quicker to get to open games.

I'm all reserved and rarin' to go! I bought a trailer, so I should be able to bring a game or two, and still have room for any acquisitions!

If I may suggest, the pin room was only badly bottlenecked at the end of the rows, down the main side aisle. Making the rows of pins just one shorter would make all the difference in the world. What would that be, six fewer? Keep the vids out of that room and you'd still fit more than enough to make up for that.

don't forget to register what you are bringing...

http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/machines/sell-arcades/

It's actually the <i>arcade</i> hall. The original intent of it was to make it as close to an old-school arcade as could be, it just happened that the vid market collapsed and the pin market took off, making it more likely for pins to show up. Having said that, we have *tended* to try to fit pins in that room just for spacing issues, as vids are slightly smaller for the hallways, but we fit them where ever we can

This was kind of my fault. We put four vids at the end of the aisles, thinking that by doing so we would be gaining room (fitting in two additional games), but by doing so we made the people standing there just stick out more. We'll be losing actually six vids, but the rows should be the same length this year.

I have permission to line the hallway all the way down to the restaurant with machines this year, and we're expanding Doc Ock to do just that

Cool beans. I forgot you had vids on the end. This should make things much more comfy.

Is there a way to see what pins have been registered, so as to avoid too many duplicates?

Less than 2 months!

Hey Dan, just a thought: What if the video games (if you're planning on having them in the same room) were moved across the aisle from each rows of pins. Putting the vids in those key spots on the back wall would allow for more room to maneuver where those bottle necks typically occur.

Putting some of the most popular pins where those vids were last year, may allow for more flow through the entrance areas and into the middle , one-entrance, aisles. If people are congregating against a wall it creates more room for multiple players, or for people waiting to play; hopefully limiting congestion.

Maybe you're not even planning the same general layout, but just thought I'd throw it out there.

That is one of the things I liked. That and the extreme energy level makes MGC unique.

Might not be able to please everybody, but the majority have a blast there.

LTG : )

I like the energy of having a bunch of people even freakier than us, making us look normal by comparison!

If you're concerned, PM or email me. I don't publish a list because it changes a lot, and we've had issues in the past with people who heard we would have something there that wasn't telling us that they wanted their money back because it was promised to be at the show and it wasn't.

Nevermind the fact that I wasn't even the person who said it would be there, nor did anyone associated with the show... but because of that, I just handle it internally instead.

The general lay out will be the same. Although Doc Ock is completely interchangable, we really really studied that room before creating him to make sure we could run the most stuff possible in it. There is NO way to add anything more than what we do in there.

The tough part about putting "popular" games in the middle is we don't know exactly when everything is arriving and we don't like to break up people's stuff. We are aware of the issues though, and are doing all that we can to alleviate it.

At the same time, I'm hoping for 300+ machines this year

To me crowds are good & show enthusiasm. I am all for turning the Sheraton, just for one weekend a year, into a hotel-sized arcade. The machines that spilled over into the hallways & such was a hoot to see.

+1

Dan,

I think you do one amazing job and I know hours are spent putting this thing together. I like many love the energy created by everyone jammed in there. Watching machines roll in and out all day is really great.

Next up. Start dropping them in the lobby. Everyone register outside. It seems like the show owns the building that weekend anyway.

Chris

+1, I can't imagine all the work and planning that goes into this. And thanks to everyone else that helps out. Truly appreciated, and I can't wait for that weekend to come around!

Is it just me? Every time I try to buy tickets and check out, I get an Internet Explorer error screen. "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage". Maybe the page is being blocked at work?

blocked at work for me also. I had to register at home via Modzilla

Definitely a lot of fun. I was ther a few years ago for the video game end of things and had a blast. Woooow actually that's what made me want to own a pinball machine for myself! Yeah it's a blast!! A little crowded for the pinball area but its a blast! I may go this year. I have the green light for my fiancé. But with the wedding coming and playfields to fis or replace. She may be setting a trap!!