I kind of hate starting a thread for my own show, but while there are some big threads about different aspects of it, there is no single thread for the whole show, so I guess here it is.

First, if you don't know, the Midwest Gaming Classic is an "all encompassing gaming trade show" in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area which will be held this year on April 8th, 9th and 10th. April 8th is a "pre-show" day with some various special events, while the 9th and 10th is the main show.

If you're JUST into pinball, last year we had about 350 arcade video and pinball machines set up for play, with about 2/3rds of that number being pinball machines. This included new machines such as America's Most Haunted (which sold out at the show!), the Hobbit, Big Lebowski, WrestleMania, The Walking Dead, and many others.

In addition to pinball, the show features home consoles old and new, table top games, and card games. There are seminars, vendors, music, CosPlay and places to just chill out.

People who bring pinball machines get a free two day pass to the show and admission to the exclusive Saturday Night Arcade After-Party, where we open up the arcade hall only to those who bring machines to mingle with one another and play their games and others until 3am. Bring more machines than you need two day tickets, and you get show cash on Sunday that you can spend at any vendor. Full details for this program will be revealed soon!

In addition to the regular show April 9th and 10th, we do special events on April 8th. The first is local collector Tom Taylor hosts an open house of his machines from noon to 5pm. For a donation of $20 or more, with 100% of the proceeds going to a local charity, you can have five hours to check out and play anything in Tom's collection of more than 240 machines set up and ready to go. Limited to 100 tickets, the machines outnumber the people by more than 2 to 1! Make sure to get your tickets for this early, as they are selling quickly (Note - Based on Tom's request, you also need a two-day ticket to purchase this. If you are bringing a machine, please contact me and I can give you a link to purchase.)

At night, we host a trip to a Brewers baseball game, and our VIG Pre-Party. The VIG Pre-Party is an exclusive six-hour long party where you get special VIG merch, get to visit rooms to see and learn stuff about the displays in a laid-back way, can participate in exclusive VIG tournaments (including two different pinball tournaments), try new things, and even get dinner! Tickets are limited to less than 250, so it's like getting the VIP experience throughout the entire show so you can have more time to see what is going on!

Room reservations can be made at https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/events/start.action?id=1509113952&key=10B949C4 starting at $99 / night, but hurry as some options are already sold out! We have a nearby secondary hotel in case we sell out however that will even transport you to the door of the show if you stay there!

Tickets can be purchased at http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/buy-tickets/ . If you are hoping to participate in either Tom's Open House or the Friday Night VIG Pre-Party, please do purchase your tickets sooner than later to ensure availability, as both events will sell out.

Thanks! If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask! I'll do my best to answer them here

I hear the bruschetta is amazing!

Oh nuts, that's half my fault

I'm positive of it. The hotel is over half booked like I mentioned, and there is a room type or two that are already sold out. Last year, the hotel sold out around the end of January, I will be surprised if we make it to the end of this year before selling out. We are something like 75 rooms ahead of last year at this point in time.

I heard SO many good things about that game too, and of course with my running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I never got to play it. Can someone explain what the game play was like? If it's back, I WON'T miss it this year.

Technically speaking, we don't provide any alcoholic beverages ourselves. We just don't stop people from bringing them in

As you may recall, you didn't give me money.

The multicades don't get passes, and the basement games do their own parties apart from the one upstairs. There is a number of people that don't bring games but do get to go, although that group of people is pretty limited (it's basically people who work all day for the show and wouldn't otherwise see the hall. Most, like my dad, play a game or two and leave.)

The ratio should be very close to 1.

Nope, they are the same thing We just have them broken up into two for both options. Should tweak that.

VIGs will get a badge with lanyard. We're debating whether that will be it for Friday night or if we will be using a wristband too. On Saturday and Sunday, we will also be using wristbands and it is up to you if you wear the name badge too.

Long story short, we've had some unscrupulous people try passing wristbands person to person to sneak in, we don't want to make it easy. A few bad eggs... :-/

FYI - We are about to start announcements rolling later this week. If you have not done the following and you wish to, this is my nice suggestion for you to do so sooner than later:

1) If you haven't booked a room, there are a smattering left. Not all types are left, and I think that we are under 20 available. Please book ASAP.

2) If you are interested in heading to Tom's Open House on Friday (he of the ~340 pinball machines), the event has a hard limit of 100 people. More than 80 tickets are currently spoken for. We are planning on sending an email to people about this later this week, and I would expect his open house will sell out that day. If you are bringing a machine, please PM me and I'll give you the link to purchase tickets to his place without being linked to a two-day ticket.

Thanks! LOTS of nifty stuff going on behind the scenes right now!

Unfortunately, it's exactly what whysnow said below you. We have had some weird "thefts" (maybe not the right word?) and some weird "threats of thefts" in the past, and so we want to make sure we aren't enabling that.

For me, it's an issue of the show making very minimal money, and just a few cases of things going wrong like this could easily shut us down.

Random factoid, for many years the show "made" less than $200. Period. When we're spending six figures to out it on, that's absolutely crazy. Luckily, amazingly, we haven't lost money since 2004. We did pay ourselves back from the loan we gave ourselves in those years just this past year, 11 years later.

Having said that, sometimes... I love it! And right now, man I'm excited! I can't wait to share some more stuff that is going on soon!!!

I slightly miscounted, but after today less than 82 and on track to be sold out by Friday.

Yeah, and the room block is 100 percent of the hotel. Sorry... But the good news is we worked out a deal with a hotel a half mile from the Sheraton for $96 that offers some great amenities.

...and if / when that one sells out, we'll figure out another

Wow, totally missed some stuff...

Let's see here... Beer policy is sort of different due to idiots last year, it's allowed but not in the ticketed areas. During after party it is. In the past, we had very few people walking around with it and it wasn't a big deal, last year the hotel encouraged walking around with it and some fool nearly ruined a literally irreplaceable item, so it will be more limited.

For Tom's, I don't know what his exact policy is but I'd skip it for then. Regardless, if you haven't been to the show before, there is a large area that is not "ticketed" so if you keep a beer up in your room, come down, hang out with a ton of people and then go into an area it shouldn't be too bad.

For the tournament, with the "wonderful" state rules, we switched to three games from five. We then worked with Marco to bring some modern games in. Metallica has been in the tourney the past two years because it's Stern game Marco and us have teamed up on to get to the show.

I'm wholly open to using other games, but I need to get some that are more or less bulletproofed and at the show. I need doubles on anything that isn't an EM, and I need a hardcore, mean EM, three different titles, five games total.

If you've got a machine that you think might work, throw it out... But it must be a truly bulletproofed version. I won't name games or years, but at least three times in the past we've had bulletproofed games show up that aren't usable due to issues of some type, and that leaves us scrambling. Not fun.

Also, and finally, VIG is about 75 tickets from selling out this year. If you want in, I'd suggest signing up sooner than later, it looks like it will sell out within the next four weeks. Lots of new stuff this year for it, including we're going to open up some of the arcade hall for it!

I agree.

Having said that, it wasn't supposed to be "walk everywhere with beer" before that point, and really the only areas that you lose the ability to have a beer with you are the display areas. In general, if you want to be chilling, you want to be outside those areas anyway - and where that is, you can still have a beer

So... much.. to... do...

Life.

Anyway...

To play in PinGolf, you must have a VIG Pass, yes. We had along discussion about last year and came up with a bunch of stuff to solve it. Here's the basic stuff...

1) The qualifying holes is being knocked down to 6 from 9. More on this in a bit, as there will be playoffs...
2) The PAR score on the games should be 3. Last year, I think it was 6. Faster games.
3) You will be able to start and stop as you please.
4) You will be able to play the games in whichever order you wish. This (And the last one) will allow you to go visit other stuff if there is a line. It's up to you to figure out how to finish though, and at a certain time (I think it's in the rules, I forget... 11pm?) when those games are done the qualifying is done.
5) The game choice will skew toward older, faster playing titles.
6) A round of playoffs has been introduced. It both qualifies everything for IFPA points, but should move very quickly on it's own and gives the people at the end 12 holes to have played.

By doing this, we expect that playing through should go much quicker. If each hole takes 10 minutes for a 4 player group (2.5 minute games per player), the contest will have a 120 person capacity. This is in line with what we were shooting for as an overall capacity for the event.

This is not a guarantee that there won't be waits, as technically the capacity of it is only about 50% of the attendance scheduled for VIG. Having said that, with the amount of attractions that we have available at the night, if you see a line you may wish to visit a different attraction and then return when it is less busy. We expect peak times to be 6-7pm and 10-11pm.

(holy crap, I feel like I'm back running theme park capacities again...)

For the record, I would too. It's a combination of space considerations and just how much manpower running the tournaments takes.

I actually bought for purposes of the show some games to eventually do a true classic Classics event - Lady Robin Hood, Cinderella, Wisconsin (all from 1948) - but they have sat stored waiting angrily for me to unearth them. I think that would be an absolute blast though.

This may be changing in the not too distant future. I have some, uh, changes that we are making (some people know, but we've decided to officially "announce" later, and no, has nothing to do with the show) that will give me an answer about my future arcade in the not too distant future.

Having said that, I don't know that this one would be on the chopping block. It is a cool game, and I LOVE the super old stuff. Getting the ball from the bottom flipper to the top on Lady Robin Hood feels about as good as starting System Failure on Jurassic Park.

There will be an announcement.

It has nothing to do with the MGC though, so let's not speculate on that. It's a simple "Dan life" announcement. Good things.

Aw hell, was going to wait for my wife to post on Facebook, but we haven't had time so...

After years of wanting to put up more of my machines, we have made an offer that was accepted for a new house! I've been waiting for this for a while. I think I can fit about 40 or so machines, so I'll eventually be selling some of mine, but I'm happy to finally have an answer to the house, and I can't wait to have friends over for a pinball party!

Probably not until fall, I need to do a lot of work in the basement to get it ready, but... Yeeeeeeeee!

Thanks! It's an amazing house from the late 1800s, and we can't believe we can afford it but we can... Helps it is a duplex, but it is rented to Doctors (medical college in the area) so that's great too. We've been looking on and off for years, and I had just about given up on us ever deciding on something. Super excited it's working out!

Just wanted to say thanks publicly immediately to Steve for spearheading this! We've been wanting to do it for a few years, and improve the bonuses for the machine bringers even further. It also gives all the machine bringers another bonus, since the silent auction will be held during the after party, it will just be the people at the after party bidding, so there should be some great deals too! I know a few things coming, and I have my eye on a couple of them myself!

As long as later into the AM is before the official 3am closing time, and excessively rowdy means hooting and hollerin', sure.

The hotels even have free airport pickup in case that doesn't work out One of our requirements for working with us. Keep me posted!

No. Permitting issues. Already looked into stuff like this.

No. There is a reason Jersey Mike's and the hotel food is in the room inside that it is.

Mr. Soda Pop can be outside because the food is bottled and in no way prepared. Any preparation, to be not within the confines of the building... *sigh*

Without going into a long diatribe here, there was a like five year plan with the show that included a second tent where we could do stuff at night like concerts using some retro acts that could also double as like a food festival tent, but due to permitting / weird Wisconsin laws, it's not an option. We are looking into other ways to grow, but nothing is simple.

And, just because I need to say it every time, we did talk with the two larger locations. If you're cool with someone that doesn't know pinball machines needing to set up your machine for you and not being able to change what you say you are bringing three months in advance, then we would have an option. I don't trust their guys though over the people who actually own the machines... And that is just one issue of many.

Convention organization is interesting.

Double post!

Uh.. thumbs up for Jersey Mike's? I do love them...

Oh, and Domino's on Friday night and on Saturday night at the after party this year! WOOT WOOT!

Here's how I feel about it - this is *our* show (as in all of us), so when people want to know why we can't do something at our show that makes sense, I should have the courtesy to tell them why.

You'll be seeing a bigger announcement about this on Facebook too, but we are going to have LOTS of designers and industry people at the show this year! In the last couple days, I've probably spoke with a half dozen people who are all planning on coming up - some you see a lot, some you see a little.

Also, today is the last day you can book a room at our partner hotel online. You will still be able to call and reserve a room, although they are nearing capacity now too (!!). If you want to book online, here is the link while it still works - https://bookings.ihotelier.com/Brookfield-Suites-Hotel-and--Convention-Center/bookings.jsp?hotelID=73150&groupID=1484406

Their number is 262-782-2900 (ask for Midwest Gaming Classic rate).

Just to confirm this for you, I believe you mean IMVE and SMVE. My original IM has a non-LED panel.

So totally not pinball related, but I'm incredibly pumped that this will be at the show...

IMAG0967_(resized).jpg

Tomorrow night is the Binary event. Which reminds me, I need to send an email...

I have it on my list to put it up today. I also need to announce the pinball industry alumni coming to the event this year, which is a pretty amazing list of people!

This is going up on the Facebook page as an official announcement this afternoon, but here is list of pinball industry alumni that will be at our event (in no particular order)... and there is a decent bunch of "maybes" yet, and one more "Yes" that is part of an announcement for later tonight!

Barry Oursler
Steve Ritchie
John Trudeau
Pat McMahon
Gary Stern
Mark Ritchie
Tanio Klyce
Dennis Nordman
Greg Freres
Tim Seckel
John Borg
Joe Balcer
Charlie Emery
Dave Christensen
Gerry Stellenberg
Butch Peel
Eugene Jarvis
Gary Flower
Don Caldwell
Mark Bakula
Jim Schelberg

This year, all VIPs will be wearing large badges mentioning who they are and what they are being acknowledged for!

Oh, I guess I should add... It's April 1st. I *may* not put that up today because I don't want anyone to think it's a trick.

I hate this "holiday".

The list above is legit.

We have confirmed a few more names, including that on Saturday Jeremy Packer (AKA ZombieYeti) will be making his first public appearance at a show. Packer will join John Trudeau to discuss the creation of Ghostbusters!

Our ticketing system messed up. It's supposed to send everyone an auto reminder with their tickets attached so it's handy (in case they didn't bring them and the old email isn't easy to find). It screwed up tickets.

We're on it fixing it now, but yeesh, not good. Not sure how to fix it just yet, we're trying to figure out the extent of the error.

I'm okay with it waiting a few days. And seriously, what the heck with the cold. Just got some new heaters...

Speakers are up! Pinball line up is...

Saturday
1pm – Butch Peel: Jersey Jack Pinball Update
1:30pm – Gary Stern: Pinball Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
4pm – John Trudeau and Jeremy Packer: Who are you Gonna Call? Ghostbusters Pinball!
7:30pm – Jim Schelberg: PINBALL: Obsessively Hiding Your Gun While Barenaked and Drunk (Jim's will go a little past official show close, so you can hang out while waiting for the After Party to start!)

Sunday, April 10th
11am – Gerry Stellenberg: Multimorphic and the P3 Pinball Platform
1pm – Don Caldwell and Mark Bakula: The History of Pinball

The others listed are VIPs who will be at the show and hanging out throughout the weekend. Look for their large VIP badges.

While we have a ton of VIPs that are coming to the show, we are not the best show for seminars. That is BY FAR Pinball Expo. We have two days to cover way more topics than what Pinball Expo does in their time for just one, so it ends up like that.

Having said that, all of those on the earlier list are confirmed to be there, and we have actually added some more today!

There is nothing at the Sheraton - they are oversold.

Our partner hotel, Brookfield Suites, if you call still has limited availability from what I know. It is a half mile from the Sheraton and I don't even know if it's that long - that's the drive. They are also running a shuttle all weekend.

There are other hotels nearby, but they are all further out and / or not as nice. Hope that helps!

Update to VIPs coming that aren't planning on speaking!

Barry Oursler (Designer - Williams, Heighway)
Steve Ritchie (Designer - Williams, Stern)
Pat McMahon (Artist - Bally, Midway, Williams)
Mark Ritchie (Designer - Williams, Capcom)
Tanio Klyce (Software - Stern)
Dennis Nordman (Designer - Bally, Williams, Jersey Jack Pinball, Whizz Bang, Heighway, Metamorphic)
Greg Freres (Artist - Bally, Williams, Jersey Jack Pinball, Whizz Bang, Stern)
Tim Seckel (Designer - Data East)
John Borg (Designer - Data East, Sega, Stern)
Eric Meunier (Engineering - Jersey Jack Pinball)
Joe Balcer (Designer - Data East, Sega, Stern, Jersey Jack Pinball)
Dave Christensen (Artist - Bally)
Gary Flower (Pinball Historian - Writer)
Jim Patla (Designer - Bally/Williams)
Lonnie Ropp (Software - Stern Pinball)
Charlie Emery (Owner - Spooky Pinball)
Ben Heck (Electronics Whizz, Programmer - BenHeck.com, Spooky Pinball)
Dwight Sullivan (Design - Stern Pinball)
Brian Colin (Arcade Game Design - Midway)
Tony Defeo (Senior Systems Engineer - Stern)
Waison Cheng (Software - Stern)
Chuck Ernst (Art - Stern)
Zac Stark (Motion Graphic Artist - Stern)
Mike Kyzivat (Software - Stern)
Tom Kyzivat (Dot Matrix Artist - Stern)
Trickman Terry (Writer - EGM)
Sushi X (Writer - EGM)

If anyone wants to buy Sears for us...

Unless if I haven't been told, we didn't turn away any machines this year again.

Should be none. Comment forwarded.

I should be asleep, but...

That thing was super ultra Cool. I didn't bid, but figured once I set things up I probably will get some in the future. Never seen it before. Would look great on Batman Forever, I think.

As for the show, I don't *think* it was less crowded, (I don't know yet), I think that a lot of changes that we made last year really paid off this year. Mostly minor tweaks, but ones that allowed what seems like considerably better flow.

Usually, most until two or three. Last year at shut down, we had well more than 100 up. Anyone with a game up at 5pm gets an exclusive shirt too, so hoping for even more!

Domino's playfield will be revealed at a corporate event in August Domino's pizza was tasty!

Long story short, that was the hotel's call, we just had our people assist. He wasnt an after partier, just was in the area, sort of.

Long story.

Just in case anyone doesn't know, that is Gary, the much less visible cog (to most of you) in the mgc operation. He does all the vendor stuff and ensures ticket sales run smoothly while I do the content side.

It's funny because most people on the "content side" (aka my side) don't see / know him too well, but if I walk into the vendor tent only about one or two vendors actually know me there.

As for Tron, I'll ask what's up when I see him tomorrow. Neither of us have had much time to work on our pins, but he's working on something incredible for his Stargate that he wants to take next year I know

Vector won best Ss, Winner won best EM.

On the vid side, Jurassic Park Lost World won best light gun (only two light gun machines, so easy category this year!), Ice Cold Kong won best single player, Vs. Castlevania won best multi-player and Rush won best racing game. I have two of the trophies yet because the games got pulled before close for these

Still had more than 100 up and working at close though in the arcade hall!

I was thinking about that (just going down the list for whatever there was when I was passing them out and saying, oh, this got pulled? Never mind...) but we didn't have that written in. I'm not opposed, but I'm also hoping to do something else as a bonus for everyone on Sunday beyond just the shirts to keep games later. We did good, but can definitely improve...

I'm not opposed to something exactly like that, but it makes the video rewards not the same. I feel like it's some more upgraded stuff for the after party itself (actual bakery cookies instead of Oreos, for instance, although I ate enough Oreos Sat night... Not the best idea as your only meal of the day...)

Was thinking about doing a "gift bag" of stuff for the 5pmers next year too. Was also thinking keychains. Pingulps came to mind, but I don't want to encourage the general public to carry in beverages on either day.

The versus games have two player control panels. It was listed on a bunch of single and multi-player votes from what I was told. I tallied pinball had help on the video ones.

This is a pinball group, so of course that's how we all feel, but arcade video history is just as important to the mission of the show as pinball is, and they are just as hard to move (I find some of mine harder to move).

I believe the DM we are talking about was up at least for a time on Saturday, because I remember seeing people playing it.

And yeah, that Vector was amazing. It was quite the year for SS, that game, the Zaccaria Spooky and the Goin Nuts were all great and the race was really, really close. I wish I got to play Vector. The way it was set upade me realize that it looks to be based on Tron... Anyone know if it was?

State of Wisconsin does say no to this.

Without going into it deeply, Gary and I had long conversations about the after party after last year and how to best make it better. One of the things we determined was to really clamp down on tickets given out to it, which we did this past year.

I know it sucks for those who cannot bring a game with them because they are flying in, car broke down, don't have enough for all the people who they want to take, can't bring more than one because the car isn't big enough, game just broke and can't fix it, or whatever. That sucks. I get it. And since you can't read into text very well, I mean no sarcasm with any excuses - it's HARD to bring a machine, it really is. I get that.

But, at least for the planned future, it's a non-starter for us to even consider after party ticket sales of any type. As I've said in the past, if that causes people to not want to bring one game to the show because they can't bring two, I get it and support it - but it's a call we made to keep the thing manageable this past year, and not one we intend on changing.

I hope people can understand.

That is an option that is always on the table, but as Keith noted is surprisingly rarely picked up on by people. I have general rule of thumbs that I follow, but just as a for instances... Jim runs our tournaments, many of you know him. He rarely brings a machine. He also spends the whole show time at the machines taking scores. He gets a ticket to the after party because of that. It isn't *just* him that gets it too, but a couple handfuls of people. A lot of our people who volunteer don't go to the after party though.

Yay! You get it! VIG was created because of two things - we had a ton of people asking for another date, and they wanted it to be limited. Technically, VIG is more limited than the After Party is, and it takes a while to sell out. I'm also fascinated by how Tom's never sells out instantly. If you want a truly limited After Party like experience, yeah, you come a day earlier, but it's hard to beat 350+ working machines for four hours.

Here's what's both kind of funny and sad about this whole thing... First off, the after party is great and I don't want to change it. There is a lot that we do differently than other shows perhaps to our detriment (closing the show at 8pm?! CRAZY!) but it's to thank people... so, here's the crazy thing...

Throughout the content rooms, similar after-parties go on for the majority of the content at the show! We are tied in directly to the arcade and museum ones (providing food and whatnot), but there were at least six other parties going on by other folks. If you looked at my Facebook feed, I have pictures of stuff happening all over the show.

Due to the quantity of the people involved, the arcade after party is the one that takes up the most of my time Saturday night. People probably didn't notice (and if you didn't good, it's *supposed* to be that way), but I didn't actually get to stop by and play any machines until just past midnight. Before that point, I was dealing with show issues including helping to coordinate food, some tent stuff, and so on. It's all good, but the larger it gets, the tougher it becomes for me to manage it all without going nuts. That's a big part of the hard cap on tickets for it.

I did get to play machines with my son on Saturday though. For anyone who says the show is crowded, I walked in and watched him play Star Wars Arcade for a while, played the P3 system with him, played a few pins, Ms. Pac-Man, and then SWDE. When it was all said and done, we had waited for two games one player - P3 once and SWDE once. To me, that's what it is all about.

(random note: I have two sons. The 1 year old was not with me for this time, although I spent a while playing Outrun with him on Sunday )

They'll be submitted soon. Since the MGC ended, I have what I believe is a dying cat and have suddenly discovered I need to learn how to be a multi-property landlord (*sigh*) all this week. Oh, and because of the heat for the tent this year, I'm not sure what we still owe for the show, which is making figuring out what the company can reimburse me for on my down payment... uh... "fun."

It's on my list, but please bear with me if it takes me a few more days.

Was a hotel thing, not a MGC thing.

They were both submitted, one on Monday, one yesterday. Not sure when they go up.

I did.