You should!!

I would think working includes being turned on for the whole show.

LTG : )

Ok. Booked my room. Will probably bring a machine too. And beer. And popcorn.

I think it's smart to incentivize games staying on the floor with a fee or making it mandatory that they can't be pulled early (which is what we do for the Northwest Show). If you are trying to draw the general public to the show and grow the crowd, the main thing they are interested in coming for is to play games. Most shows around the country are growing and expanding with a lot more games on freeplay, which is drawing more people and growing the hobby. I don't know how big Expo is, but we hit about 500 games on freeplay and 5,000 people for our show this year, it's been steadily growing for over a decade. Changing the policies along with some of the people might be exactly what it needs to take a fresh approach and build up appeal again.

my games never left early, but if I'm under threat of financial penalty for doing so they won't ever be back. The "if a game leaves early or is off" penalty of pulling the owners benefits, expo cash, shirt (should be handed out at the end), freeplay access, etc, is fine. holding games hostage for money is not cool. Plus good luck enforcing that if someone does not want to pay, when they call the cops saying their game was stolen.

I'm surprised the Fire Marshall and venue allow games to be pulled during the event with the public in there, we were told specifically we can't at our venue for our show. I agree making it a financial punishment seems like the least favorable option. Rather than punishment, they should use incentives. Bring your games for the entire show and this is what we will give you, rather than pull your games early and this is what we will take away from you. Make it so people want to participate and want to have their games their for the whole show, doing so gives them the most perks.

Simply put, you can't control what people do with *their* games. If they want to pull them early, for whatever reason, you must allow them to do it.

The way we handle it at the VFW Ann Arbor show is simple... we have a separate area for games that come in. You can pull right up to it, so moving a game is all of about 10 to 20 feet (and we have pin carts available too.) You bring a game, you get total access for the ENTIRE event. If you game leaves early, frankly, we don't care. So what? we don't take away your arm band(s)!

Shows that try and implement this silly policy just get in trouble. Monitoring and policing the whole affair becomes a nightmare. And it's bad publicity. And it's just bad mojo. I mean crap happens. People sell their game or have a baby sitter fail and need to go home. Don't make their experience worse because you want to take away from it. That's just plain stupid.

Now will some people try and gain the system? Sure it happens. SO WHAT? Get used to it. Pinball people are cheap and weird (like i needed to tell anyone here that!) If it happens, it happens. Worrying about it and policing around it is just dumb. And besides most shows *need* games. If only for a day, it's still *one more game* for people to play.

As for the "working" aspect of a brought game... Ok that IS important. But instead of scolding them and punishing them, help them fix the damn thing! i mean crap happens, not every game that comes in can be 100% (for a variety of reasons). if the game can't be repaired in a short period of time, OK fine, then the promoter has a point, it's probably not a "good" game for the show. Frankly though, since they went through the effort to bring it, i can't see not giving them free access. But that can be made on a case-by-case basis (as to whether it was dumb luck or someone trying to gain the system.)

i really dont get the whiny ass bitchin about the "penalty" For years, everyone has bitched that sunday sucked because everyone pulled their games early and left. So now there is a "penalty" if you do that, and guess what, people are still bitchin.

Now lets put this into reality, which I think some will have a hard time comprehending.

It technically is not a penalty, If you bring a game, for the duration of the show, you get specific compensation for it, which includes at the least, a days admission for each day that you have the machine on the floor. You are getting that admission paid in advance, as you will be able to walk around and enjoy the show all day as long as your game is in their. If you "CHOOSE" to remove the game early, its not like you can give back the day of walking around and seeing seminars, vendor hall, and freeplay hall. So at that time, you need to pay the show the cost of a day admission, something that you already used. Why people are complaining is beyond me, except for this current world that we live in that everyone believes they are owed and entitled something

I think they're saying your game has to stay until Saturday, 8pM. Sunday might still suck...

Sunday was removed from the schedule, wasn't it ?

LTG : )

Worst. Sunday. Ever.

Expo had a on-site repair person last year, that they promoted. Which was you, however, your door to the room was rarely open, and if I remember right, a couple days wasn't even open a minute. If a person has a problem with the machine, they should be able to get it figured out, or someone that can. I have brought machines each year, and not always has it went smoothly, so I have had to do a repair on site. Ive ran to Rob's room and bought flipper rebuilds to fix flipper issues, or I have searched out Gavin and worked on a game. If you have a problem, help can be found. Just dont expect it to be free, which many do .

http://pinballexpo.com/forms/PinballExpoSchEvents2018.pdf

Looks like just tournaments on Sunday.

LTG : )

I did Rob's room last year. it was not something i wanted to do, but Mike asked and asked until i said "yes." We worked full time there (that we weren't sleeping or eating!) Also i was only there until Saturday early morning, which is when i left the show to go home. So yea, we definitely weren't open then! We fixed games that came into the room. we did not go out on the floor to fix games. That's NOT our job (nor is it Rob Anthony's job.) I don't know why people expect that! it was never part of the contract for me or Anthony.

At the VFW show, not only do we fix people's games for them, WE SUPPLY THE PARTS. Why wouldn't we do that??? It's our show that broke their game! It's the least we can do for someone that went to the trouble of bring their machine. We also clean their game before they leave with it (well, depending on when they leave with it.)

You do not remember right.

This whole "matrix" of bring game(s) and you get X, Y or Z is just dumb. Who spent time doing THAT???

If you want to move away from the "pacak model" (which i would say is that matrix), then move away from it!

Here's the rules you should have...
1. Bring a working game, get into the show for all the days you need.
2. See rule #1.

If someone leaves with their game early, that's probably because they are leaving too! If they sell their game and the new owner wants to take it, so what? let it happen.

In my experience being a "dick" about this is not good for your show. The old "pacak model" happened because mike wasn't very trusting. Perhaps because people had an axe to bury. But with that gone, do an actual "reboot" and get away from that model! Bring a working game, get in free, for as many days as you would like.

Your reasoning is broken. Nobody is asking for admission for any day that their game isn't out on the floor and operational.

Consider this: you set up a pin on Thursday morning, and get a wristband. You attend the show Thursday and the pin you donated covered that cost. Likewise for Friday, all day and night. So far, both the expo and the attendee are equally compensated.

The only way I can try and make sense of what your post said would be in the case where someone sticks around and attends Expo for another day or two after they've packed up their pin. I agree that such behavior would be unethical and I agree that in such a case, the attendee should have to pay for their attendance.

However, someone who pulls their game at e.g. 8AM on a Saturday and leaves the hotel (and Expo) is NOT receiving material gains such as you described them:

I just ask that the room is open to take games out early on Sunday. I don't want to wait around too long to get on the road....

the room is usually empty by 10am from the past years.

Also, just so others that like to complain can compare, Midwest Gaming Classic has an even larger "penalty" for early removal. And there are other shows that flat out wont let you take games until a specific time on Sunday.

Hell, there was a huge fiasco at MGC last year on the show games, that if you removed your game prior to 5PM on Sunday, you forfeited the $500 discount that you received for buying a show game. So now they have had to change the way show games were handled, since everyone was not told of this penalty when they paid in full for the games weeks earlier.

You will never please everyone, so lets just leave it at that

I couldn't bring a game to a show that required that.

allentown does the 'remove the game early.. pay a fee' model and it's not some crisis like some make it to be here.

Also the 'one game, get in a day' model doesn't incentize or differentiate between people that bring one game, vs someone who brings 10.

the comparisons to the vfw event are stupid... the vfw event doesn't need the community to bring games to make it's critical mass... Expo does.

People are buying games for thousands of dollars... tax free... and the threat of $30 makes some act like you were asking to donate a kidney. The real problem is $30 really isn't enough to deter early departures.

Right now expo needs people to bring games. Even if it’s for one day, who cares. They need people to bring games. To make stupid rules and financial penalties for early departures is just dumb. They have no momentum. And you’re not gonna get momentum by cock blocking everybody that wants to bring a game and perhaps has to leave with it early

I'm not takin my Breakshot out till Tuesday.
Hush hush.

So since I’m planning on coming Wednesday and leaving Saturday morning, there’s no reason to bring a game because it will cost me $30 if I do.

Just to push back a little on the possibilities of how you run a show... I'd say don't automatically dismiss other's ideas, don't automatically assume people won't bring games if you do it a certain way, be willing to change, make bold moves, grow, evolve and adapt to what attendees want, not just what hardcore collectors want. You have a struggling show in pinball central and changing a person out isn't enough, you can tell by the comments on this thread. You need to make bigger changes and have a bolder vision. The world of shows and conventions has changed, as has the world of pinball, pinball has had a huge growth, tournaments are big now, we have a number of pinball companies and a bigger audience now than in any time in the past decade -- to survive and thrive you need to adapt and grow.

Y'all are going to find this weird, but for the Northwest Show it's a big community run non-profit event. We have 100+ volunteers, the core crew of 25 people meet once a month for 6-8 months planning the event. We all talk to each other alot, we email, call on the phone, we plan and discuss all the details. There is not 3 or 4 people that are crucial we depend on, that number is more like 12, we could lose a person or two and recover quickly with getting other volunteer staff to step up. We require all games to be there the entire show, no question. Leading up to the show we have a bunch of local repair parties where we hang out, help each other fix games, and get our games up to par for the show. We raise our collective knowledge and quality of games on the floor by working together mentoring, helping and community building in the months leading up to the show. The show isn't a weekend event, it's a year long event we all spend a lot of time preparing for, prepping games for, and working together on. On Sunday of our show we have 1,500 people show up, we damn well better have 400+ games on freeplay them to play, for many of the attendees that's their only day they come, especially families with kids, and they only come to play games and buy stuff from vendors. We have a kids area and tournaments, face painting, kid's rates and really bring families in. That's not to say we don't have tons of adults, drinking, partying, huge tournaments and lots of late night shenanigans, we just also try to appeal to families so it's not a total dudefest. We give big incentives for bringing games, if you bring 3 or more and live within an hour of the venue, we rent trucks and come pick them up and deliver them home after the show. We have arcades and collectors with 20+ games in their collections we pick up and we give them all kinds of free tickets and swag. We go after people with big collections to help fill up our floor and the entire place is all games on freeplay. You want to bring one game and pull it early? Sorry, buy a ticket and don't bring your game, have fun and there is no hassle. We don't need one game that desperately. The claim that you can't get games with such a policy is bull, we and other shows prove it, we had 500 games under our policies this year.

Think about your market and who you are putting your show on for. Our show is for the public, the mainstream, we want to grow and share our hobby. I realize Expo isn't about that, it's an industry show, yet the complaints every year are about stinky dudefests and not enough freeplay pins and them getting pulled from the floor or turned off early... you could learn from shows like Texas, Northwest and others from how we do things. There are different more modern ways of putting on a show, there are great ways of advertising and promoting a show that will bring in alot more people (if you aren't doing a Facebook marketing and a big social media campaign, you are doing yourself a disservice, that should be your number one source of advertising). There are a lot more ways to build community and get support from local collectors that Expo isn't capitalizing on. If you need help with any of this, feel free to reach out. We are non-profit and I'll happily share our ideas, methods and insight. We, the collective we of collectors and pinball companies, are all in this together to promote and grow our hobby, right? There shouldn't be so much negativity around shows and events, we should strive to help each other and make things better, bolder and bigger. That's what our hobby needs and that's what the pinball industry needs. Good luck and feel free to ask for help!

That's a good post. But chicago expo has some mountains that other shows do not. First is location. Rob and (formerly) Mike do not live in Chicago, or even an adjacent state! So it's harder for them to deal with certain things, mostly games. I mean Rob Berk probably has 200 games in his collection in Ohio. But how could he get them there? Well he probably can't, at least not in a cost effective manner. So this puts a lot more pressure on others to bring game. Pacak used to bring some cool (and rare games.) But he's out of the picture. Again this puts more pressure on the chicago locals to step up.

I think we can say that chicago expo is probably the only pinball show where the key organizer(s) don't live in the same state. this creates certain challenges. The only guy that lives anywhere close to Chicago is Rob Craig right? I'm pretty sure David Fix doesn't live in Chicago. And i believe even Rob Craig is a few hours away (southern IL?)

Hence if it were me (and it certainly is *not* me), i would do everything i could to get others to bring games. Having all these rules and "you must do this..." type stuff does not encourage that.

In the end, it all comes down to one thing... MONEY. If you bring a game, and have to leave with it early, and there's a monetary fee for this, to what end is that helping? it's just gonna piss someone off, and over what, $30? is that worth it?? In the big picture, i can't see how...

Bottom line... any pinball show, regardless what or where it is, revolves around one main thing... GAMES. if you can't hit a certain number of games for play, you aren't doing your job. Tournament, seminars, after parties, vendors, they're all cute, but they are *not* the main focus. If you don't have a certain number of games available for freeplay, you aren't doing your job!!

Look at it this way... I would say Expo gets 2000 to 3000 people through the door. I look at seminars and after parties and tourneys and see maybe 20 to 200 people max at those events. So that's 1% to 10% of the people that do those things! But *everyone* goes to the free play areas! E V E R Y O N E. So if you can't get at least 100 to 200 games in your free play area, i don't think you can call your show a success.

I wonder how many of those 200 machines in Rob B's collection fully work?

He does have a small collection of trucks so he can have them driven to Expo.

Regarding the NWPinball show being a non-profit event; I don't think that is part of Berk's mission statement.

bring multiple games get multiple admission does incentivize people, it gets in their wife, kids, friends etc. In this case they are adding other perks also which is a good step. The removal fee is wrong though. Don't go threatening your game base. Plus If I buy a game I'm taking it when I buy it. As the buyer I did not agree to any removal fee and I wouldn't pay it.

I think the model "you stay as long as your games stay" is probably good, as long as the game is there in good faith to be working and you are trying to keep it working as long as it stays.

Depends on how you look at it. If you come without a game the 3 days pass will cost you $90. If you bring the game and leave Sat you get in "free" you pay $30 for pulling the game early. So bringing the game still saves you $60.

and the show still has his game for a day he would not be compensated for.

the buyer is not the one that would have the "penalty" so if you buy a game and rush it out the door, your not penalized, but the right thing to do would be to leave it

Yea.. I wasn't thinking in terms of selling a game.
If you're bringing a game to sell, the listing fee is you don't get anything for bringing it other than access to the market?

Judging from the ones he brings to Expo, not many. Same goes for Mike's rare games which I guess worked okay at one point but quickly went downhill year after year. Those are guys who run (ran) a pinball show, not pinball guys.

Mr. Berk can bring them and have the repair room guy fix them. He had his minions bring 3 or 4 into the repair room last year. My son & I fixed them. IIRC one early Gottlieb Solid State machine. The rest were EM's.....

I don't think it's about the money, I think the bigger problem is the loss of the game. It's disappointing when you walk around the floor and see all these holes where games used to be. Or games are not working properly because they were in poor or non-functioning condition to begin with.

Oh i think this whole thing is more about money than you may think. There's a lot of revenue from this show...

My suggestion to all is this... if this is really a "reboot", then make it a reboot!
substituting Rob Craig for Mike Pacak isn't what i would call a "reboot". It's just a lineup change. After all, what is actually different? a couple little tweaks, but you guys did that every year anyway. That would be like substituting a new quarterback for Matt Stafford on the Detroit Lions... they are still going to loose and they are still going to be the sucky Lions.

If you really want a re-boot, here's some ideas....
1. make the vendor hall have alcohol! that is, have the hotel sell it there. And have cute young "things" dressed in scantly outfits selling the booze.
2. Have a dance-off contest! ok maybe that's a bad idea....
3. Send a plane ticket to old fat guy with one eye and shirts that are too short... ticket to Detroit!
4. Have a broken pinball repair contest!
5. SELL TOAST inside the vendor hall. Ask Tim Arnold to do that one.

Ok so maybe some of the above things are a joke, but i think you get the idea....

The change is there is no MP, and that is a big win, however its still stigmatized by being Expo, and having RB involved. He was a part of the problem as well. Not having large collections near, or as the PacNW guy said not having deep help, all makes this show something less than likely to survive. The money is stupid if folks think they are making any worth their time, but then pinball in general is that way, and honestly is a large part of the problem with the hobby of pinball being run as its a hobby business. You get hobby results.

When you are talking about money, there is no doubt Expo is after the money. I honestly dont mind the cost to get into any of the pinball shows, spending 100-150 on a show is nothing compared to what we spend on these games, or add-ons. I use to go to the bars a lot, and spending that in a weekend was easy.

Here is a difference though. Other shows that charge the same do bring their private collection and do not rely completely upon the patrons to make the show. If Rob Berk wants to charge the same amount, he should bring trucks of his own machines. Between that and others bringing games, it could have loads more. Rob often brings machines, but many are broken. THe deal he has made with the repair room is that they have to fix his machines, so he brings his broken stuff to keep them going. When I made a comment about last years repair room not ever being really open to the public, that was true, regardless of what MrBally says, but they did repair things, just that it was mostly Rob Berks games.

Is there a Google group Doc sheet link for the for sale items for people like in past years ???

No Google Doc that I've seen. But a Forum thread: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/2018-chicago-pinball-expo-official-looking-for-trade-sell-thread

I could swear somebody posted a link but this is all I got ATM

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/2018-chicago-pinball-expo-official-looking-for-trade-sell-thread

??? unofficial ??? undocumented ??? Rogue Pinsiders (for what we want) ??? Bueller ??? Bueller ???

You're totally wrong about this. You don't know what you're talking about.

Besides Clay, there was JM, Bob, Bob W, my son and myself (VFW Pinball members) repairing games. Sorry if I forgot others who were there repairing games. One of us was always in the building and on call to at least unlock the door for games to be brought in for repair if one or more of us of us weren't in the room. There was a sign on the door to call to open the locked door.

We would not leave the door unlocked if we were not there as we had tools, service parts as well as DMD Clocks for sale/pickup. Plus customer property (machines and circuit boards). We need to fix games on the floor, eat, drink use the facilities etc. But the contact information was there. Mike called us a few times to make sure the repair room door was open as some guests brought machines just to be repaired so they were aboot to sneak them in the South doors to cart them into the repair room.

And no, they were not "mostly Rob's games" brought into the repair room. he had his flunkies bring in 3 or 4 of his pins. We had at least 25 machines brought in during the time I was there on Thursday & Friday. Plus circuit boards. Almost all were repaired on site. My son Dan and I went to the Pinball Life event and was gone for maybe four hours. Clay and I staggered our time there taking two vehicles so we could get back to repair machines.

I barely spent time inside the free game and vendor halls last year. Maybe three hours total.

Rob Anthony can have fun repairing machines this year.

Google Doc Sheet for sale pins @ Expo

I would also confirm what Mr.Bally said. We did fix some of Berk's games, but i think it was about 4 total. He seemed to have someone else doing repair work for him, but when they got stuck, the games came into our repair room.

All boards and games brought to the repair room were fixed. Nothing went home with me (us). I do think we turned down 1 or 2 games for repair, because they were just too messed up (and we didn't have the parts on hand for them.) But the whole point was we were *not* going to take any games or boards home, everything would be fixed there on site. And we did accomplish that goal. Frankly i think we kicked ass.

And to add to that, we fixed *both* EM and solidstate games. There's a lot of guys that only do one or the other... we did both, and we did right there and then.

My question is why does the Detroit folks come and help out the out-of-town Chicago show boys on this stuff at all, to be good Samaritans, or to out show the show hosts? I see that RA is now on his own as a result, so its like saying you guys suck at what you do, called us in and we did most of the work, and now you ***moderated*** and we won't be there any more. Maybe folks can stop pissing in each other's world and just get along for the sake of getting along. Egos, I'm guessing not.

Clay was asked to operate a repair room as Rob A. was not going to due to philosophical differences with Mike.