Hey everyone!

First, I too in many ways miss the Sheraton. Here's the truth - if the show was at the Sheraton, I could still have a normal job and would probably be able to put the show on in the meantime. The move made it so that the show sort of has to be my full time gig, and let's simply say that between two blizzards the first two years after the move that severely hampered attendance, a venue that at the beginning didn't trust us to do things like move out properly, and covid, the show has quite frankly caused this to be the most difficult stretch in my life.

BUT, not just had we outgrown the space at the Sheraton (remember the temporary structure?), we were at a really odd spot. I think I've said this before but in short, the Sheraton wanted to raise prices on us to the point that we would have been lucky to break even with the event there. No kidding, the first two years, the Wisconsin Center - with more than DOUBLE the space - was cheaper for us to rent than the Sheraton would have been. Oh, and the Sheraton wanted to remove us from all hallways, the bar, the lobby, and so on, which would have eliminated a ton of space that we used.

If we would have kept it there, I am certain the show wouldn't have survived covid, had the show even lasted until then. We probably would have had to create attendance caps while at the same time shrinking what we had available to do, and significantly raising prices. The Sheraton was great, but it ran it's course.\

And speaking of growth, when we left the Sheraton we were around 60,000 square feet for everything in the show which included hallways, hotel rooms, the bar area, that tent, everything. This year, the show will be over 200,000 square feet without factoring in most of the hallway space. So, if you feel like it's a lot more walking... it is! But we also have significantly added space for tons of new things to do!

For pinball, I'd love it if people brought more games! As has been mentioned, the egress issues have been basically completely cleared up now that the building trusts us. You enter into the hall, load your game, and can move out. We can do 20+ vehicles at a time just for the Game Center side alone! Last year, we never had a line. We're working on some new plans as we have bigger space again, but the Wisconsin Center is happy to let us do the same general plan.

Also, we have increased the rewards for bringing out a game! You get:

Tickets for the show, including Friday night* (the * is we do ask you buy your ticket if you are going to play in Clock Chaos - which will be announced soon - or the other tournaments we do for other things, as they cost money to put on)
Game Center After Party - This party is ONLY attended by people who bring games or set up major displays in the Game Center, oh, and special guests. You can play all the different stuff in there! Comes with a drink ticket too!
Official After Party - Scott Danesi and others perform music, we'll have some great pinball tournaments and many other things!
Game Bringer Keychain - Everyone who brings a game gets a special MGC keychain saying it's a game that was at the show!
Eternal Gratitude - YOU help to make the show awesome! Without you, it wouldn't be the same!

I am working on a few more benefits too! If you're interested, you can contact me directly on here or wherever with questions, and I can direct you to the right person to note everything down.

No kidding, I realized the other day that this is in many ways the first year that I'm actually excited for the show since we moved from the Sheraton. As mentioned, the last few years have been totally rough, as making this change has not been easy and came with the most extreme stress I could have imagined. This year, I think everything is coming together, and we'd love to have everyone join us. If things come together as I expect they may, it's going to be a really, really exciting year!

Finally, got any ideas on how to improve things? Message me! I reply! Got any questions, ask them here - and then maybe poke me in messages, it's 1:30am when I write this because organizing this beast takes like 10 hours a day right now and I'm trying to keep up! I want to improve the show as much as I can, and I'm open to ideas. We are still insanely tight on money right now, but I'd love to implement what I can!

(Oh, and for games, I'm hoping to bring about 50 machines myself, probably 20 vids and 30 pins. No idea just what they'll be yet, but I've been able to maintain my own stuff better, so I might even be able to bring up to 40 myself. I'd love it if 2023 is the year that we get the arcade hall completely full again!)

OH! So, no kidding on this...

The dock security at the Wisconsin Center has been... not great since we moved in.

The last two years, we had one security supervisor who was just amazing. She wasn't on the dock. Her and I talked and she was great at ensuring her people were where they should be and on track. When she was there, stuff just worked. Recently, I was downtown for something and she saw me and reminded me to ensure she was working our show. I said absolutely, and she is going to be our main supervisor.

I was in the Wisconsin Center on Monday meeting with someone, and **she was training people on the dock** at the same time I was there.

My fingers are HUGELY crossed that they do what she says. She just makes things work. If so, EVERYTHING will be easier.

Empty 6803? I might be super interested. I have a Special Forces with the world's worst cabinet.

For crts, I'll contsct you!

For in and out, that is what we do now, although it depends on the trailer on what we can get away with. Regular cars go in the building through one door, park, load and then out through another! Again, I'll contact you right now and try to talk details.

There is a host of reasons I believe including...

- load out sucked for two years and people believe it's not fixed
- people spread rumors about how you could just get in the Saturday night game center party for free even though it wasn't true ever and regularly questioned if they should bring games when discussing it due to this. (often, they were mad that the 15 of so people that brought, set up and watched the 150+ consoles the whole time could also get in, even though they played their stuff not just the pinball stuff)
- game prices increased and people started expecting insanity. A number of prior game bringers have told me they would bring their one game back if I got them a hotel room for two nights now due to the value change.
- younger owners by and large (not all, I'm theoretically still on the younger side!) don't know how to repair their games, so bringing them and risking that is out of the question.

There are probably more, but those are the big ones. We have answers for all of these to an extent (except, no, I can't get everyone a hotel, that's nuts). I hope we can start rebuilding it now, as I think the benefits of it were understood more by the generally older, do it yourself crowd that brought so many games as meeting others to trade knowledge, watch for games for each other, and so on.

No kidding, the vast majority of my collection was found by people I met at the MGC watching out for me. Last year, I was hoping to get a game and lost out on the one on the floor. Within hours, I had been told of 3 more around town, and bought one a week or two after the show for less than the one I was targeting! The community is awesome, and I've made lifelong friends with it.

So, a secret this year that isn't really a secret, but I don't think people know...

If you bring a box truck or trailer, you can leave it on the dock. This rule is only for game bringers, we can't do it for vendors. We've never had more than half the dock due to other shows. This year, we have the entire dock, so we have more than twice the dock space. If you bring a truck or trailer, especially if it's a dock height truck, you should either be able to stay in a spot or it should be an easy and quick swap!

So, here's the thing - I may be able to work something out. But allow me to explain what's going on here, I hope it shows that I'm not trying to handcuff anyone to the venue:

The building is super particular about that dock. To open it, I get charged for the employees to do so. If those employees can be spared from other locations, the cost to me last year was $56, so I'm actually losing money on that fee, believe it or not. And if they don't have spare employees, it's worse - as they charge me for a four hour shift which quadruples that. And, that is still super limited access, as they only allow a couple cars at a time before requiring more employees. We have been hit with that fee.

That's just half of it. When we move stuff inside, we are required to have an updated safety check. If it's a single game or two, it's not a big deal and can be just a bit of shuffling. If it is like 10 or 20, we may have to reshuffle everything and re-run electric and stuff before we get approval to open the hall. If it is done while we're open, they make us flush out large areas of the show if it is beyond one or two at a time again.

I am sympathetic to your scenario, and what might work - I'd need to work with the building on this - is if we schedule a certain time Sunday morning and hit that window, I can solve most of the above issues all at once. For instance, if people move their game out of the line first thing in the morning Sunday, and then pack it into a vehicle between say 9am-9:30am, I can probably use things like shift changes and whatnot to make that work. But, I would still have a cap on how many I could do, and I'd have to work with the venue to figure that out. The real problem is more like...

...this, where like, I totally get it because my life seems to be a never ending rush - my wife calls it living in triage and only responding to the most recent disaster - but I don't have a way to thread the needle of all of the above stuff and not make it almost impossible to keep the show functioning between the costs and the requirements.

And again, this isn't to say that isn't a legit reason, just I can't do it without a plan. If we can stick to the plan, totally different scenario. But reach out to me - I make things like that work as best as I can. I'd much rather you still participate if you want to than not, hope that helps clear it up

Visited American Pinball today and... David Fix gave me some hints about their plans for the show, but I couldn't get it all out of him!

Factory was active with three different games on the line!

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I'll check with Andrew, I hope so! I checked the form and thought it was working! Anyway, watch for an email!

You should, there was a slight error in the system before that we think we still have the messages that got caught!

If it was that simple, sure. It's not. Doing what you're suggesting would be multiple thousands of dollars with how they would make me run things. Reread what I said - There is a flat fee that I pay on a *per vehicle* basis, unless I can get away with maybe getting two up at once. And, the timing of that depends on when it happens, as I also noted, it's just as likely that I'm paying well more than that (like, $200+) to open the dock for two or so cars. And again, that's just the dock.

If you add the additional security they would make me have to close and open the entire arcade section to pull and reshuffle games, not to mention the fact that I'm certain our staff doesn't want to be spending all day Sunday shuffling games, and that would be extremely problematic for regular attendees as well as an additional cost.

It's a balancing act. As I said, I totally appreciate why you would just want to be able to say hey, I've had it, time to go. Trust me, I'd like to leave the event a bit early sometimes! heh! But there is an absolute ton of complexity due to having to work with the Center. Some of it I can overcome, and I work to make as much of it as smooth as possible at all times for everyone, but some of it I can't without major differences. We all got a bit spoiled by having it in hotels for as long as we did, as it was far easier to make changes like this, but with size comes new issues.

And, I know that some people really miss the Sheraton and I don't completely disagree, but if we didn't move in 2018, I don't think the show would have lasted past 2018. Our show has been set up either awesome or stupid depending on how you look at it from the start - focused on putting cool content out for people to check out before money-earning displays, which has forever made it a fight just to make this thing break even. There were circumstances afoot in 2018 that had we been at the Sheraton, our space would have actually needed to be compressed, and the prices we were being asked to pay would have meant we would have needed a 15 or so percent increase to *break even*. Doing that with a lot less space... I still don't know how we could have made that work.

There is a crapload of weird stuff that comes up behind the scenes, and I try to make it so that as little of that touches anyone bringing a machine as possible. I know that this is something that does touch everyone in at least some manner. And I'm sorry and wish it could be easier. I don't have a way to thread this needle any better though, sadly.

In brighter news, confirming some really cool game bringer benefits for this year! Will be sharing on the site, with prior game bringers, and here hopefully in a day or two!

Hilton is connected via Skywalk, Springhill is directly across the street from the main entrance. Doubletree and Hyatt are essentially one city block away.

I personally do the Hilton, if that helps, as I feel it's the fastest back and forth, but I need to go back and forth. If you're going to come in and stay, I think it and Springhill are roughly equal, so long as it is not raining.

It will.

So, hey, as Yancy said, for a trip as long as yours, it's totally cool and I appreciate even thought of doing it.

I'll also post this again in case you didn't see it and still want to try:

To be clear, what I guarantee I can't do is to just to a 'hey, it's a free for all.' It sucks. I have explained it as best I can. If it makes it impossible to bring a game, I totally get it and wish I could make it easier. And for real, I'm super impressed and thankful that you've even tried hauling one for as many years as you have, that's amazing and you rock. It's people willing to share that make the show what it is, and I wish I could do everything to make that work for everyone, but size constricts me in ways that we didn't have in the past.

I will still do everything I can to help anyone if what I can do fits. It's the least I can do. I know how tough it is, and again, huge kudos for even considering it. You're awesome, and a huge part of the reason a show like this can even exist.

Weird, if anyone didn't get a confirmation, can you please submit again? The form is working now, and I've seen ones go by recently. There was a period that it wasn't, but it appeared to save in the backend of the site all the emails, but clearly it missed at least a few.

Excited to see a Grand Lizard again, love the look of that game!

By the way, if anyone is in the area, we're teaming up with the Lake Country Rotary to host a Game Night at the Delafield Brewhaus tomorrow night and will have a handful of games on hand to play in fun ways! $50 for food and four hours of games starting at 6pm, and the proceeds go to support Zachariah's Acres, a really cool charity that helps kids that couldn't otherwise experience the outdoors experience the outdoors. Got the shower glass in this week for some bangerjay inspired tournaments! We'll also have Skee Ball, arcade games, consoles, our game music jukebox, pogs, and like... a whole mini MGC thing going on.

I hope I'm getting my 'load the truck in the snow' out of the way for the year right now. If you are curious on the pins, it'll be Metallica Pro, Ghostbusters Premium, Solar City and either Lethal Weapon 3, Iron Man, or Popeye.

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He will be! In fact, if you want to fix games with him early, he's coming in early to take a look at my machines to make sure we aren't taking anything that phantom broke in the last five months that I didn't get to play or repair them for! (Man, my playing goes in a really weird cycle!)

Also, unrelated, Galactic Tank Force is the real deal and I love it! Haven't played any of the other new games yet, but they are all intending to have them at the MGC!

Maaaaaaaybe Thursday. Wednesday we're not even in yet. Sort of depends on when. PM me or email me and we can try to figure it out!

Not sure offhand who can fix a Dig Dug, what's wrong with it?

This is awesome! It's crazy, my oldest (13) is so excited to go with friends this year, and my youngest (8) has helped me build arcade cabs. When this thing started, I would have guessed I would have never had kids!

Uh oh, apparently this is going away with the building renovation.

I did tell them I may have to write that button into our contract. If it's gone, we'll figure out something insane. I mean, I bought a 26 foot tall gorilla this year more or less on a dare (and because we need branding in the atrium since we can ticket at the entryway this year, hooray!), so...

I mean, if we can loan it and it is ridiculous, I might be able to find it a spot.

The gorilla is here in a box. I haven't been able to ensure he is as majestic as I imagine he is yet because it's been raining, and I can't set him up in the house.

If you bring a game, you don't need Friday. I'll try to get that on the site properly.

I mean, I can do my best to write this into our contract.

I just found out about it last week!!

So, for everyone, re: OMG it's huge...

I've explained this before but it's true - MGC has sort of always been a house of cards. It has been that because from the beginning, we prioritized giving everyone who wanted to share their passion a place where they could do that. We have had an absolute explosion of people who wanted to share things at the show, one that is probably best encapsulated from 2018 when we moved to the Wisconsin Center and tripled our space: and still managed to be insanely cramped, needing to increase our space again in 2019.

The goal of the show has always been to allow that. But this has made it hell to run for so many years because content doesn't pay the bills. And for years, we didn't know if the show could break even until after we counted everything Sunday, and then still usually a few weeks later. The move downtown as I've described was brought on because the Sheraton went under new management, and they thought they could extort us. We would have had to give up the hotel room rooms we did (like where Spooky was and stuff like that), we would have had to place nothing in the hallways, do nothing in the bar area, nothing in the lobby... and they wanted an increase in money larger than we had made the previous year.

We took it downtown to keep it alive, and because we wanted to continue to provide a platform for fans of things to share their passions. If it isn't the right platform for you, *no problem*. It's not for everyone. It's become one hell of an undertaking.

And yeah, the show is going to continue to grow and evolve, and it's not always going to be the same. But it also can't be. I've put myself through hell the last few years because of it, and to get it to a point where now, this year, for the first time since 2017, I feel like the show actually has a solid future. I'm up way late Friday night, but I'm up and I'm happy and honestly excited to run it the week before the show.

If it didn't develop in the way you wanted, I get it. Things change, and for real - if it didn't go in this way, it would have just ended. I think we've all created something amazing together, and if you have decided what came of it isn't the same as it was, I appreciate you being part of the journey. I hope that you can look at what it becomes though and know that you played a role in it growing like it did.

And, if you are just getting to it now, and decide it is the right show for you, welcome. It's a unique thing, and I am going to do my best to keep it going as long as possible.

It doesn't really affect anything now that wasn't affected last year, other than having some cranes outside. And it won't be open for us next year.

It does look cool, so it'll be interesting to see what 2025 holds!

Yeah, and I didn't even mention, the Sheraton before the 2018 show would have happened rented out the basement rooms on a permanent basis.

So, we would have had... (with sizes) the arcade (7k + 1k lobby), the museum (5k), the back rooms (6k) and the tent. Even with the tent, that would have left us at roughly 40k of space. I also can't imagine that cutting that much away from the show would make it seem similar. Even if I thought it would have been able to continue, it would have felt like it was dying because it would have shrunk roughly 33% of floor space from previous years. We made something like $10k of profit in 2017, which while woot woot profit, no one was getting a salary to run the show, and for a year's worth of work organizing and putting over $200k of risk into that show, I can't pretend that was the smartest deal as it was.

Their proposal was basically hey, you guys are huge, therefore you need to pay rack rate for the space, even though we sold out the hotel for them. This would have been like $20k more for just the rental. We legitimately didn't want to go. I have a bunch of emails where I asked as nicely as possible for them to work with me. And they kept repeating, "The contract is the contract, take it or leave it." They thought we had to take it or end the show, and they figured we wouldn't do that.

The decision to leave was also a massive issue for the Sheraton. We were the biggest event there all year by a wide margin. They have had a very rough time since then. It's still a cool property, and I hope to run another smaller show like we did like 18 months ago there again. But, the show as it stood didn't have a future there.

Yeah, I agree. One thing that I will say, pinball specific, that I love about the change in venues - in 2016, I believe that we were the first show to feature Stern's Ghostbusters pinball machine. And, for the launch of a cornerstone pinball by a manufacturer that has been a huge supporter of us, we had... TWO MACHINES! That year, Stern brought a total of four machines.

The first year at the Wisconsin Center, Stern brought 30.

Not wrong, however I would suggest anyone who doesn't get to the Game Center After Party, look at going to that. It usually has about 25-30 pins to play, including five wacky tournaments for our Pinball Funhouse Tournament, where the top scores get pairs of tickets for Six Flags, Scott Danesi is performing, so is KUNG LAO with the guy who played Kung Lao in Mortal Kombat, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Seriously, I got like 10 people who texted me and told me I screwed up the dates for the show. I also did not appreciate having to shovel instead of staying on top of MGC business :-/ I think I'm back on it now. I want to go to bed before 1am some night. Maybe next week?

That North of the Center one was always insane. Best tip I know, head to here:

https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/location/

Get Spot Hero if you don't have it already, and check in that. I don't park for MGC but I have used that app to get parking in Chicago, and paid like $20 for an overnight and $4 for a spot near a place to eat where everything else was $20+. I have no idea what parking looks like this year, but I expect it should help!

Are you just saying that because you're on our billboard??

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Your guess is as good as mine. They are being super weird this year. I'll probably know hours before you do.

Hey, quick update, dock issue today was actually due to construction equipment blocking a bunch of stuff, as well as vendors pushing to beat the rain instead of going in their expected time slots. Once we got it cleared up which took an hour or so, line dropped quickly.

Good news, for load out, we're bringing vehicles into the building and expect to have 5X or more capacity. And construction won't be working and blocking stuff!

Fingers crossed it will work like things did if you got in like at 2 or after!

I'm awake!

Overall, I think the show went great! I'm still doing stuff with putting it away, but I'll take it. Super excited to play some new games I picked up.

Worried that I bought a super old prewar (Grand Canyon) to restore and don't know where it went. If anyone saw it, tell me, I'm a bit concerned the building "cleaned it up" for me. Hoping it pops up when I look at all the crap we are hauling around.

Huge thanks everyone, I am excited to start getting plans for the next one together!

Banner is being handled on a few fronts. Don't want to say more at the moment.

It's a lot more complex at load in. I assume you arrived between noon and 1:30 on Friday, as a combination of far more vendors showing up at once than had indicated they would (we tripled the expected number at noon!), construction equipment blocking like 4 docks and a ramp even though I was promised it would not be, and center dock staff that had no idea what was going on led to a scenario where we were behind the 8 ball for a bit.

By 130, it was moving quick and by 230 or so there was no line at all. Had even one of the above not been what it was, I don't think we would have had such an issue. It's top of mind to talk with the Center about. That and garbages. And a couple other back of house things.

Just in case anyone is wondering, we ceded control of the dock to the Wisconsin Center by 730, as by that time practically everyone had loaded and all cars were gone. I was particularly impressed that this was the case for vendors, which were far more than ever before. Quite the difference then the first years when they insisted that they run the docks.

I guess I don't know what we're getting at here. We can't put a big sign outside by the dock that says "this is the dock,“ but I also don't know that's the problem?

Otherwise, if we skip by the issue at noon on Friday, what are we talking about here? I thought the vast majority of this went insanely smoothly, so I'm trying to figure out what I missed based on your comments.