Not nearly as bad as last year.

Nope. We sell swag to anyone tha wants to buy it. Lots of people that support so could have been any number of awesome guys having a good time last night.

Update from the Expo: Friday evening at 9:30 there were 119 pinball machines in the free play room (a couple had been moved to the Stern-A-Palooza), and 23 of them were broken or not set up.

Appreciate the update. Under 100 playable games on friday night is just sad.

23 unplayable games and the lead tech was at pinball life party for most of the afternoon... Was really suprised to see that wheni saw so many broken games on thursday night and friday morning.

Oh well... expo is not the show to go for to play lots of games and we knew that.

Glad JJP4 made it worth it to spend the cash to travel, hotel,and show ticket.

Plus three of the older machines in the Sterno-Rama weren’t working, either.

Sterno-Rama?

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Pretty cool walk through

Which show is?

Pinball News walk through

whysnow is (edited by mod team). Get a life.

TPF.

TPF, ReplayFX, Banning, VFW in Ann Arbor

PAGG, now renamed to The Golden State Pinball Festival

Fuck yes!!!!!!! GOLD BALL! GOLD BALL!

For what's it's worth went Thursday night 4-5 hours (caught cubs scoring to take lead at twin peaks and rest my back) about 6 -7 hours today. I had a blast played Pirates at least 15-20 games. Bought mirror blades and an escalara. Met my neighbor and son ended at Stern bash drinking pinball beer.
There was WCS in vendor hall that was a blast what a stunner.
Free play was decent they had some nice titles most time was in vendor area. Met the players from jjp.
Wanted to take picture of Gary Stern checking out Pirates around 9 tonight.

At 11:30 Central Time on Friday evening 10/13/2017, there were 118 pins in the free play room. 17 were off/out of order/marked Sold. There were an additional 5 not set up.

Don't forget there are the two machines (Flintstones by ICE) and Hercules in the hallway.

Best photo of the night....whats the caption

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Wow, this is what a real machine looks like from people that care about the end user. Why can't we do that?

Clay was there for like an hour, not all afternoon. Is he not allowed to enjoy some time off? He even talked about how it was the first time he'd left the show since Wednesday.

"I wonder if they'll buy these new at 8K"?

"im thinking... i could put three spinning discs right about there..."

Couldn't have said it better. Have gone to Expo the last several years, this event has become the "bottom of the barrel" of pinball shows. I can go to several locations in Louisville and the surrounding area, and play more games than what's available at the Expo. Glad I saved my money for the Texas show.

I need another drink.

Chas, get over here. Why do these lights look so weird?

That is pretty cool.

Not really. If you are the advertised on site repair person for all day thursday and all day friday then i would expect you to be on site the whole time. It took 45 min just to drive to pbl, hang for and hour, and another 45 to drive back. I was suprised to see the on site repair tech shut it down to spend the afternoon elsewhere. There were over 20 games down on thursday night and more on friday.

The stark dichotomy would be the VFW show where most games are fixed in under 30 minutes, which made it evenmore suprising to see the lead tech taking a 3 plus hr afternoon break.

Pretty obvious to anyone at expo how much changed this year compared to even last. I guess the one perk is that is was not packed at all and easy to see everything in a short time. I had fun for my 12hrs of time spent there, but am happy I am back home already and getting some work done today.

He has a name, you know. You don't need to call him "the onsite tech" like we don't know exactly who you're talking about. He's not the Babadook.

Personally I think it was extremely generous of Clay to come down to fill in as the tech - he was under no obligation to do so, and it's a pretty significant time investment to drive down from Ann Arbor to work for free fixing shit. I think a couple of hours off to actually enjoy himself a bit is a pretty fair price and it's kind of a dick move to call him out for it.

As for the VFW, they have like 30 guys there handling everything from ball jams to full rebuilds. Also, it's all their own games that they are familiar with and they have a full tech shop on site, fully stocked with parts. Clay's one guy with maybe a couple of minions to handle the whole room and he only has the stuff he could bring in a van. That's a really unfair comparison and I think you know it.

Not sure why you're shitting on Clay, frankly he's a better man than I am for helping out like he did. I wouldn't do it. I wish everyone was as passionate about helping the hobby as he is.

You're a good guy but you really need to cut people a little more slack. Take it from me, I spent a decade being the chief asshole in RGP and I have a lot more fun now that I'm more positive and supportive.

Agree with everything else, but not so sure about this.

No, in person Hilton's a good guy. Something gets lost online - I have a similar issue so I totally get it.

Maybe it's the constant snide remarks about Clay, the VFW, people that work at the VFW, people that live in Michigan, etc. that I find to be a turn-off. It must come across as much more charming in person.

So happy you got home.Maybe this week you can find something new to constantly bitch about. Now maybe rest of us can concentrate on what a great time we had again at Expo despite all the atrocities pointed out by you and a few other cheerful folks .May I offer up a suggestion of more fiber in your diet.

I was fortunate enough to get to Expo this year and had a blast.Reconnected with some wonderful friends. Played some fantastic new games. Talked to Freres, Nordman, Balser, Had a great in-depth conversation with Joe Harber. Told all-new jokes to Butch and Gary
I Finally got to see Chris Royalty instead of talking on the phone with him.Checked out new products. Oh, yea had a few cocktails and played pinball.

Thanks, Mike, Rob and everyone else that made this happen.

Hope to see you all next year. Cheers

Not a bash on clay. A bash on the fact that Mike and expo were so proud to sell that they had found Robs replacement and that there was onsite repair for games all day thursday and friday.

CLay also went to pinside meet and greet at twin peaks. the show should not try to sell the idea of onsite repair when it is not the case. Mike treated people like shit, they opted not to be part of his show, he tried to sell that he found a replacement, and it was all BS.

I think it is great clay helps out and he is a grea tech, but expo did not have even remotely the previous offering.

People can have a good time at the show, like I did, and also see that it continues downhill.
If people continue to lie online and say the free play room was full, the vendor haul was packed, and there was onsite game repair then it is BS for other people that read this and go spend money at the show. In fact it does not do us or the show any good to continue down this trajectory. lieing about things is a crappy thing to do for fellow pinheads and a shame that some here are doing just that.

Maybe folks are enjoying the show and being positive, rather than telling lies for profit motives.

Hats off to Clay for helping fix machines. I enjoy helping others fix machines at the shows when I can. Sure, some look at it as free labor, but others enjoy working together to improve a game play, meet other pinheads, and maybe learn in the process.

It sounds like you really want this show to succeed. Volunteer next year.

I thought pinball Expo 2017 was pretty awesome. I didn't see really any differences between this year and last year as far as vendors and game counts and people in general. It's a fairly consistent show and a lot of people come. I think everybody was having fun. Even Mike pacak was much more even-tempered this year and actually pleasant to deal with

We manned the repair room this year and I think it went over pretty well. Of all the games and boards that got dragged into the room for repair, we fix them all, except for one that had a bad battery corrosion. battery corrosion is hard to address at a show. I need some tools that I just can't carry with me to do a good job of that. We fixed the whole bunch of EMs. And a bunch of people brought CPU boards in to get upgraded to a coin battery or NV Rams.

Note we were not responsible for the free play area games. I mean if somebody asked me to go in there to fix something I would. But frankly nobody asked. We try to get people to bring their games into the repair room because the lighting is better and it's just more quiet and less people. It's easier to do work under that environment. We had nothing for sale in the repair room. and the people that took advantage of it generally were not games for the show free play area. It's a Service Mike likes to have, I guess to get people to come to the show. I don't know any other show that let you bring a game in for repair, and not have to leave it in the free play area. It's pretty unique to expo. I did this about 10 years ago at Expo for a few years before Rob Anthony came in. It's a lot of work so I don't likedoing it generally, as it as it ruins the show experience for me( which frankly is a vacation for me). And I don't ever recall Rob Anthony servicing games in the free play area either. That's not really what this repair room was ever meant for. I mean we could support that effort but generally speaking, it seem like if you bring a game for the free play area, you're responsible for It's repair. But if Michael wanted us to expand the service to include the free play area, I would have to have keys to all the games. And I would have to have a much larger team to support this. One guy cannot do this, it just doesn't work that way. It would be significantly more complicated. Not impossible, but like I said, most shows spread this work out over the individuals that actually bring their home games for free play

But everybody that brought a game to the repair room got it repaied, or at least examine to asses the viability of repairing it there. That was the whole point. And we were 100% successful at doing the boards and Games that came in. Everything was addressed. We even fixed three of Rob Berks games

Dennis Nordman autograph signing.

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Many thanks for all the hard hours Clay and the Bally's put in repairing games at expo. A valuable service provided at no other show I know of. Also a service done very well.

"I can remember this game..., back when I was 30 something, we don't make them like that any more.'

"Take THAT, Jersey Jack!"

Did anyone saw Don and Chuck from Nucore (bigguyspinball)?
Did they tell something about their update?

DPO

Dpo.nfvpinball.nl

300+ pinballs expected

And it takes place inside a giant pop bumper!

I was only at the show for a couple of hours on Friday picking up goodies from the vendors and showing my support to the smaller vendors that never get any credit for dragging there stuff to the shows and sitting in a booth for 14 straight hours, which I think is crazy but I'm certainly glad they did it. I feel the vendors are the backbone of every show AND get the least praise for doing so since all anybody seems to talk about is the number of games working or not and how difficult it must be to roll a game in and plug it in and walk away for four days, plus get a free pass wrist band to boot. Booth spaces can cost upwards of $500 for the weekend, plus hotel, gas, food.......so I can really appreciate what it takes to run a booth for four days and commend those that do it. I always pay there asking pricings because I would feel shameful bickering over a couple of dollars when I know they have already spent hundreds to get that booth space and the best they can do is to hope to break even dollar wise and not count there time into it. I know, I've been there done that at past Expo's and then I'd have to go back to my real job on Monday morning just to rest up......LOL.
Thanks to Mike and Rob for putting on another great show that's like no other show in the world and I hope they continue for another 33 years and if so I'll be there to see them all whenever possible.

John

My Dad did good work -- it's a Stern by golly!

His first Expo is in the books. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Thank you for an AMAZING time!

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That pen dealer in the dealer hall tho. Really? Pens?

I wonder if Jack bought a pen or three from her? Guessing no.

Think they are there every year

You missed a few more machines which were turned on and looked nice but had 0 credits and no keys or credit button. I turned those off when I found them but they kept popping back on but not getting fixed.

Comic Book Guy with the bootleg movie & entertainer stuff was different.