Based on your crowd, I would avoid the American Pinball Warrior format. The concept is great, I’ve played it, but for the people with little to zero pinball knowledge, they will rarely if ever complete any challenges.
I would say your best bet is to play Stall Ball. The format is fast, furious, but easy to understand for non-pinball people.
It’s played on one game, so as an example let’s pick Metallica. Let’s assume you have 8 people. Start a 4-player game for simplicity only(you can start a 1-player game and it doesn’t change anything). Now have the 8 people randomly form a single file line. First person steps up and launches the ball. The object is simple, stall the ball. On Metallica you can stall the ball bu shooting either ramp, shooting it in the snake, shooting it in the scoop, or starting any multi ball mode. As soon as the person hits anyone of those stall shots they immediately jump to the left and the next person in line takes over the game. When the next person hits a stall shot they immediately jump out of the way to the left and the next player takes over. When a player drains either the single ball in play or the last ball of a multi ball mode, they are knocked out. Rinse and repeat until you have 1 player remaining.
It gets hectic and builds excitement with people constantly jumping out of the way. It’s also perfect for mixing experienced players with newbies because no one has to wait 5-10 minutes for the experienced players to play a single ball.
A hectic moment on Metallica is when the current player hits a ramp and jumps out of the way and then the incoming player jumps in and single flips the opposite ramp at which point they chaotically jump out of the way for the next person to jump in.
Once you declare a winner on Metallica, try another game. Stalls usually consist of ramps, scoops, locked ball shots and MB starts. If someone jumps in and raids over a 3 ball MB, and they drain either 1 or 2 balls they are not out unless they lose the last ball in play. Also while in MB play, if they stall ANY of the 3 or 2 balls in play, switch off. Lastly ball saves do not count as being out, same player plays on.
Final note, we usually have everyone throw up $1 and the winner takes the pot.