Are you going to Expo? If so, we need to have a cold one or three.

Every year. Won't miss it for anything.

I'll have a cold one (or three) with you if you sell me your Apollo 13...

If that’s the case then so be it. I just hope he’d file something in a timely manner and not get an injunction last minute thereby screwing all of us that have purchased plane tickets and made arrangements to attend.

Not a chance. Went and bought that from Clay years ago because my wife played it at Dayhoff's 12 hours of pinball and decided that was a pinball we should own. It's a machine that will probably never leave.

I suggest a dunk tank be installed at Expo this year. Everyone gets two "challenge tickets" with an Expo pass. If someone smells in the game hall you can present them a "challenge ticket". They must sit in the dunk tank which is connected to a pinball machine. If you start a multi-ball the dunk tank is activated.

Pinball skill and literally "clean up" the odor in the game hall.

wtf are you talking about? put down the "meds" and try to understand.

Didn’t Mike charge a fee for selling a game at Expo?

not that I know of but he did yell at volunteers for not taking wristbands back when someone sold a game and removed it

Grumpy old men and pinball, like peanut butter & jelly.

Which is something his people never did before the volunteers took over. It should have been a daily pass for games so that if the game was gone you could not still get in.

technically you got in for free if you brought a game and it was not for sale. Games for sale were not supposed to get free admission.

Friendly advice: Don't yell at the judge or run over the clerk with your scooter.

It's challenging finding a way to handle early game removal that's somewhat simple and fair for everyone. One suggestion.

Free admission follows the game with the options below.

1) When your game leaves so does your wristband.

2) Keep your wristband and pay a $30/day-early removal fee.

3) If a game is sold this transfers to the new owner. If the new owner doesn't want the game on the floor but wants to stay at the show, they can always negotiate the fee as part of the sales price. Multiple games sold between the same buyer and seller would count as one.

I expect most people who bring games pull their games early because they have to leave themselves, so this shouldn't have much impact on them.

Expo seems to have a problem with everyone bailing early--from the games to the vendors to the attendees--that other shows don't have a problem with. Does anyone know why?

Really, the bulk only left Saturday night/Sunday morning. Now that there's no show on Sunday, it's probably mostly a non issue.

I see a couple of shows going to this "no sunday" style. how is this working out for people coming in? i haven't attended one myself yet, so just curious

I wonder about this too, our show is busier Sunday than Friday. We have 1,000-1,500 people that only attend on Sunday, but we are a more family/casual player oriented show, most of those people are the general public and just come for a few hours to play games, buy merch and maybe shop for their first game.

Its common for the east coast stuff. Friday and Saturday are the main days.. not saturday/sunday. This way people can have 1 week of work impacted, instead of two different weeks.

But you'll find Saturday evening suffers too... for the people who want to get home that night.

In years past Expo would sort of fizzle out on Sat night because of the banquet. They'd close the vendor and free play halls so folks not attending the banquet had to find something else to do with their time. Many just left.

For those of us that were local, sure we'd come back Sunday to pick up our machines. The vendors would be packing up at 8AM Sunday morning, pretty much everything was cleared out by noon. I used to wait till after the Bears game to go back and break down my machines and I can tell you that by 2pm it was a ghost town in the free play room. There was always this one guy with super long hair still plugging away at the remaining pins, but that was it.

With the change in format and keeping it open till midnight Saturday, the afternoon and evening will be better but I still have to believe that some folks won't spend the night preferring to head home instead.

The show is too f-ing long. 5 days is too much

To be fair, it has been several years since the game room was shut down during the banquet, and its been 2 years since the vendor hall closed during that time.

Andrew

Going to this for first time. Very exited. Also very first vacation dedicated to pinball!

Story checks out.

lastmanstanding.jpg

Me too!

Dragging the wife along too (she's a good sport). We booked a return flight to California for Sunday afternoon... Was that a mistake (as in is there no show on Sunday)?

There's no show on Sunday but OMG, it's Chicago - so much to do and see, you could literally turn in your rental at 9am, take the El downtown (do shit) and still be able to catch your flight later that day.

Have a great time!

Old idea, been there done it. However, its now V2 Expo, or new blood, or JTSOSO. TBD. However, as PacNW liberalized pinheads have said... its about the customer, all about the customer, not the collector. Expo is still trying to be the 'show' for business and for collectors, and that is a long gone deal.

That guy has been around a LONG time, and has some vids of TA doing some hair/drying of Johnson Wax on PFs as I recall. He likes pinball a lot.

Old folks, with broken parts, go home since they have seen it before and long ago. Church and family, end game things take a much bigger priority for pinheads with any years under the dunlop'ed over belt.

It's Chicago... Yah, OK!??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago

Thanks to BERK (who has turned into a nasty version of Mike) These two things won't happen.

Stay away from South Side and all is fine in Chicago. Beautiful city, museums, major sports town, great food from all ethnicities, third largest chinatown in US, Lake Michigan, Chi style hot dogs, deep dish pizza and beef sandwiches. Public transportation is actually quite good as Mr Bill points out.

But hey, I just live here. The internet is always right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Canada
The province with the highest crime rate for the 9th straight year was Saskatchewan with 13,711 per 100,000

"Chicago was responsible for nearly half of 2016's increase in homicides in the US, though the nation's crime rates remain near historic lows" Kinda says it all. The advice on where to go or not go was welcomed. I'll pass on Chicago for a lot of reasons, mostly those mentioned already.

Where the show isn't what I call "Chicago". It's as safe as anywhere I've ever been.

I sure hope so, since I live about 10 minutes away from the Westin.

People who aren't from the Chicago area see the statistics and get the false impression that it's a war zone out here. The reality is that 99% of the homicides occur in specific neighborhoods with a lot of gang activity. The Chicago metropolitan area is huge. Just stay away from those neighborhoods and you'll be fine.

Basically, pinball related: Don't go to the original Williams plant on Filmore to take pictures. Nor the Lenc-Smith (Churchill/Chicago Gaming) plant after dark. Everywhere else is relatively safe.

brian, we always thought that you resided in the [dodgy] part of your city. we were scared to get out of the vehicle, let alone drive around with the doors unlocked in your neck of the woods

30 days til Expo!

Yes I was actually surprised how far wheeling is from Chicago. Other than the expo and hotel stuff, any cool things to do nearby with short uber trip or walking?

while not really a "thing" to do, for food options outside of the hotel and food venues off of the parking lot, we've hit up the "real urban bbq" in vernon hills, which isn't that far from the hotel. great food imo
also, you need to visit the "rise n dine pancake cafe" for breakfast at least one morning while your there. they've got an excellent menu and an extremely friendly waitstaff

https://www.yelp.com/biz/real-urban-barbecue-vernon-hills
https://www.yelp.com/biz/rise-n-dine-pancake-cafe-wheeling

K-1 electric go-karts are 2 miles west
https://www.k1speed.com/chicago-buffalo-grove-location.html

There's a nice botanic garden 7 miles east if the wife is looking for a break from the show
https://www.chicagobotanic.org/

It's a typical urban area with shopping malls, restaurants, movies, parks, golf, etc. Basically anything you can think of that's not specific to downtown Chicago. Visiting the lakeshore and beaches near Wilmette is fun on nice day, but that's still a decent distance without your own car. You can take the train downtown if you really want to go. It would be a lot cheaper then Uber or taxi.

Yup, I was going to say the same thing. I expect that Saturday will be impacted at least somewhat by people pulling their games to leave earlier. The fee that they pay for removal is interesting, although having it such a late time is interesting.

It's the great problem with any show, the final day is tough to attract people to, but if you eliminate it, you just make a new final day and the problem restarts.

I don't think so.
A final day being Sunday means I have to leave Sunday morning.
A final day being Saturday means I have to leave Sunday morning.

Same.

This. So much this. I'd rather Expo eliminate Wednesday than Sunday. MGC figured out a way to make Sunday great: family day. For most casual show attendees, the weekend is their only real chance to attend. Expo barely ever had a Sunday, and now there will barely be a Saturday night.

"Expo" to me always seemed like it wanted to be an 'industry' show and doesn't really fully understand the fan aspect. Doesn't surprise me at all that they would cut Sunday before a weekday.

For you, sure.

From me talking with tons of people about this, they look at it as another night of hotel or leave earlier to get home and save the money. So, getting it late on the last day and staying over means an extra $100+ for it, as well as the additional time commitment.

I'm at the point in my life I'd rather take extra time doing stuff than trying to rush, but I get why most people feel they can't.

Thanks We sure tried throwing a monkey wrench in that last year with 20 inches of snow that day. Yarg.

I would leave Saturday evening also if I lived closer. With close to a 5 hour drive, and with a few extra things this year on Saturday evening at Expo, instead we chose to skip Wednesday (not much going on) and stay Saturday night. Might hit Level 257 on our way home on Sunday at 11 AM for a bit if we still have the energy and pinball drive.

Not in practice... especially for those who can make it home in several hours. Skipping the Saturday night stay means one less hotel night, one less night away from family, etc. A portion of people will always push through and make it work.

In Chicago example.. if someone can get a late flight that heads back west for instance...

Dan's point is... not matter when the end time is, it's inevitable that people will look to 'cheat' it and cut out earlier. And it proves itself at shows over and over. But... in my experience, not dragging it out till Sunday does make it better for vendors... and the 'stay until 4pm' or whatever rule for games does help. But whatever time you set, ends up defining the effective 'end' of the show. For instance, Allentown may run till 8pm, but once 5pm starts.. it's a cascade of people packing up.. instead of breakdown starting at closing time, it effectively starts earlier.. so by the time 8 comes around, it's a shell.

If a lot of machines and vendors leave sat night......, now I’m contemplating not staying over sat night. Two rooms for a night where there is slim Pickens and still a lot of people equals no fun. I may be better off driving back whenever on sat.
We were staying fri/sat nights. Beginning to sound like sat night is not worth it now.

We are staying Saturday for the entire show, leaving on Sunday. We will have a dialed in on free play in our booth so at least there will be one game at the show on Saturday eve

well I know that my friends and I are going to have about 10 games there, several classic bally SS machine (possibly ones like frontier, Star Gazer, Skateball) and several other games, not sure which, but maybe southpark, rocky and Bullwinkle, F14 , eight ball, Indiana Jones and a couple more. Plus my ACNC will be unboxed and set up in Rob Anthonys repair room. We will be breaking them down sunday morning, NOT Saturday afternoon. So come enjoy our games Saturday night!!