That's nice that the crew gives enough time to break down and pack up. You can tell who the pros are. The tournament crew packed up and were gone before I could load 2 machines and a few boxes of parts. BTW, the folks from Mezel mods are great. They had their set up shipped from New Mexico and flew to Allentown for Pinfest, that just goes to show how great and popluar this show is becoming.

Yes, a few the vendors were still packing up when I finally headed out. I've learned it's not about your speed but how well you pack it. Everything shrinked, cardboarded, blanketed, whatever... Nothing moved a centimeter!

I started traveling with "Shows" with my Dad when I was 8.
Id play in the booth on the Floor.
Grew up going to shows every year.
Last set ups, over the last few years felt impossible!

A ton of Respect to all Vendors and Pin Haulers for the amount of work...Whew!....
that you go through!

I second that! Moving a restored game is nerve racking and to tow it in a small trailer is scary to me. I wrapped the F2K with moving blankets and shrink wrap, then used corner protectors on the cab when strapping it to the walls of the trailer. I also used rubber mats on the floor. Keeps everything from sliding. So yes, it does add much more time to packing but it's necessary.

Yes, excellent job with the brownies, daughter and wife loved it! Thanks again

Some fold down love but not a lot of them. I'll PM you my thoughts. I'm loving the car coming from my tdi wagon which was a major pin hauler for me.

'Twas mine. Touched up and Clearcoated original!

Thanks for bringing the Skateball: That was one of my goto-pins at the show, and I made sure to give it a couple of games everytime I walked by: Great playing game, and yes it was level! Very nice condition, and the only problem was that it wasn't for sale!

Wow, what a show! Very impressed; congratulations to Ivan and crew for a job well done!

It was great having all of the vendors- especially PinBallSTAR, CoinTaker, and Marco who brought an incredible amount of new and pre-release games this year for play. Thanks to Steve from Pinball Refinery as well for letting everyone play your incredible machines. So nice to see games like that available to play and not roped off.

The selection in the free play area was (in my opinion) a definite step up compared to last year, and there didn't seem to be a mass exodus of games early this time.

This was my first time bringing a game to a show for free play and I found it incredibly rewarding. I loved seeing people enjoy my game! It left the show in as good of condition as it arrived; zero issues with heavy use or abuse of any sort. Only 366 games played during the show- I had thought it would be closer to 600.

Till next year!

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Matt you & Lorenzo were great neighbors to have! Thanks for putting up with us! I hope you sold that Raven, I told a few people it was a great deal..
I hope we were at least entertaining with the pinball shuffle Rich, Nestor & I did all show! Like pinball Jenga..

That F2K was amazing! I'm surprised it didn't sell..

Mike_M

Thanks for bringing Indy. My wife and I throughly enjoyed playing it. One of these days I will own one.

For what it's worth, I measured 122.8V during the set up period when not much of anything was turned on. I wanted to measure again during the show when everything was cranked up, but never got around to it. I'm dead set against high-tapping games, but will do it for a show situation. I did high-tap my EM "Bowling Queen" before bringing it to the show, and it played very well. I did sell it, and advised the new owner to return it to the normal tap when he gets it home. He is a very knowledgeable collector, and will do just that.

Thanks for bringing that one. My buddy and I played it a bunch. It's a pin we both had fond memories of from childhood. Fantastic job on the playfield. Looked and played like a dream. Brought back some great memories for us. We were still talking about it even when we were two rows away playing something else. Thanks to you and everyone else for making another great Pinfest.

Ah, very cool then! I thought it looked like it had been shopped, so I wondered why it had $200 on it. I had a mint Airborne Avenger a couple years back that I regret selling. Special place in my heart for those pins.

Many thanks to Ivan and his staff for this year's Allentown Pinfest. It was a great event despite the sketchy (at best) weather. It was great to see all the regulars again, and meet some new folks too. Many great deals and lots of great games to play. I was able to sell my
"Bowling Queen" EM which got just around 300 plays during the weekend. It seemed like it was being played almost constantly, and aside from a couple of minor issues, it didn't miss a beat! It's the second one I've sold, but still have my keeper copy.
The Farmer's Market was great as usual, but I still haven't tried the Vietnamese PHO soup that everyone raves about.
Thanks to everyone who brought games, especially those who brought multiples! A bunch of my friends were vendors in the flea market area, and they all did well. Hope to see many of you at Pintastic in just a couple of months! Thanks again, Ivan!

The final Grand Champion was my good friend Robi (beating his girlfiend Any who ended up as 2nd champion, but used her name on the Grand Champion as he is a gentleman). He had wanted to play the game throughout the show, but the lineups were too long. After getting his freeplay games packed away (Vulcan and Dixieland EMs), he finally was able to play Houdini, and ended up with 20+ minutes of playtime, and the high-score. Here's a picture of the happy couple in front of the game. Thanks for bringing a great new game to the pinball world!

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There were two space riders at the show?

I bought the one that was in the vendor area with the graffiti on the bottom panel.

I did see an atari airborne avenger out on the free play floor. Were you thinking of that one?

My default on everyone I meet is "Chris". Joe works too.

Ack! You are correct: I was referring to the Airborne Avenger, and I'm an idiot for confusing it with Space Riders. Sorry to confuse the two!

Anything is better than calling beezleboob "Boob" in front of people who don't know his alias... can get a little awkward at times LOL

The first name thing just doesn't cut it for him though

I wish more pinsiders would have said hi. I wore my lanyard. It must have been my week old beard.

Awesome event like usual. Thanks Ivan, organizers, and everyone else who brought games to Pinfest.

Played all the new (for me) pins:
-Dialed in - very good game, shots are nicely lay out, some very interesting features (like controlling the flippers with your OWN personal cell, the Quantum theater looks cool, the phone in game is a nice way to see what to aim for without glancing at the backbox lcd, selfies lol, emoji overload hehe, etc). I loved this game
-Aerosmith - nice lcd animations, but that about it. Nothing impressed me.
-Houdini - looks nice and has a few good features, probably will be better with time (code) and wtf playing 1 person at time at 2 balls only... I found that very annoying.
-AFMR - big lcd with tiny speaker holes looks weird... but loved the game.
-Alien - umm.... looks nice, animations are good, but I feel that is to much stop and go for me. Each time you shoot at something, feels that game stops, gives you a cut scene than releases the ball. For me is a turn off. Also, I'm sure when you get used to look at the display in the field, the tv is the backbox becomes useless.

I'm extremely disappointed with the quality of playfields of all these new pins(not only the one listed above) that came out compared to the old Williams, Bally, Sega era. Scoops are getting destroyed and dimples in the clear coat in a few days compared to the old playfields. I can't believe that in 20+years, no one is capable of producing a playfield that resist better....

Special thanks for whoever got the nice MB to the show. Totally fun pin to play with.

This year, The Baywatch babes followed me back home (and yes, is the one with the color screen)

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$725. Very nice playfield and backglass and playing well. If I were there 10 minutes earlier I'd have bought it!

Can't complain though I got a gorgeous Robocop.

Cool. That was the first game I played at the show this year. Enjoy!

I love Lawlor pins, but I wasn't as enamored with DI as most. There's a lot going on but just nothing that really grabs me. I can't get over the kid holding the cell phone either.

Went yesterday with my son, we had a great time, it was more crowded than we expected. Games we liked best: Black Hole and Williams High Speed. Really bummed there was not one Gorgar, Pinbot or Haunted House.....

There was an HH there on Friday.

Yeah. Blame yourself. You didn't say hi to me.

Or me! I didn't run into you either

Idiot. You were getting my wife pretty smoked on shots the whole time. She later gave me a stern (Stern!) talking to because I didn't spend enough time with you guys. I told her it was a pinball show, not a Yfzguy show. I'm manic at shows...running everywhere to play games and talk to people. Sorry about that, boss.

I've never drank in so many different UHaul trailers in my life.

I was offended

No one said "hello" to me either, had my badge on - maybe we should do a "rouges gallery" of Pinsiders so we can ID with faces ........ I actually didn't see too many badges - maybe it's just the "pinball overload" that hits everyone once they walk into a room full of pinball machines!!!

I wore mine last year and people just looked at me funny and kept walking. Didn't wear it this year.
In did run into ForceFlow and once again his knowledge of games help me out and I found the right part. Also got a chance to see my old Spy Hunter pin that Lovef2k brought back from the dead. Picked up a really nice Mata Hari backglass also.

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Maybe people are shy, after all, we are all game playing introverts right? haha.... I did notice "GateCrasher" but I couldn't get him to stand still long enough to say "hey." My wife said she spotted quite a few of you guys with badges.........maybe York I'll try harder to focus on people and not machines.........Saw that SpyHunter, good job!

I got a lot of comments on my badge.

I tried to be a forum "uniter".

Check it out. Custom neck band and everything.

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I have to admit though that I didn't see very many other attendees with badges on. I saw a couple but not as many as I thought I would.

You get offended by gumball machines.

Worn with pride

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...to correct the spelling on your shirt.

Your game was absolutely gorgeous. I was so impressed with condition, almost NIB. Thank you so much for letting us play on it when I've played on way too many broken and dirty versions of this game.

Had a blast with my boy at our first Pinfest! Huge thank you to everyone who brought out their games. We're new to the pinball world, started this year and having a blast! I have a better feel now for what to look for, but it will take awhile to get pin #2 in the basement. At least I think it will take awhile: I'm addicted and impatient. Ha!

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I've had a lot of fun for sure and will be doing it again next year.
This is probably going to make a few people mad at me.

I hear everyone thanking all the vendors for the things they are going through but, have mixed feelings about that because they aren't going through this as a volunteer, every time I have been a vendor for anything like this , it was to put money in my pocket whether by exposure to the crowd or direct sales. Of course these are quality vendors and have awesome products. And they all do a good job of selling stuff including the display machines.
I believe the show couldn't exist without the countless volunteers and people who are behind the scenes preparing the games for the free play area. I brought games for free play and helped set up 13 more pins on Thursday through Saturday evening
And some folks think the games were over priced after watching them perform 300-600 plays without being worked on, plus the owners hauling them to the show,, these people need to try a few adds on Craigslist or ebay and see how much time and money gets wasted just finding quality machines that can be played for 2 days in your price range. I do agree that most of the projects in the flea market was way over priced for a good deal.
Not trying to be rude and negative just thinking some folks are looking at the prices of the free play machines a little bit lowball for the work it takes to bring a machine to the show floor. I saw several machines being played all weekend going for $800 or less.
Thankful for crew putting everything together!!!

Your IJ was very close to my booth but I only played it once - it was occupied pretty much nonstop. I got a good number of games on SilverUnicorn 's Pinball Magic and the others (e.g., HS2) directly across from me, but it was tougher to get on yours. So you can be sure lots of folks enjoyed it... and rest assured there wasn't enough dead time to get it to 400 games much less 600. Thanks for bringing it!

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Pinball 2000 H+V video sync combiner kit.

Thanks. Sorry I missed you! Sounds like you had some great games at the show! I spent all my time playing this year and not much socializing. So good and bad.

Wow you did not even make it into the flea to say hi.

I was thinking about something for next year. I was inspired by the short legged Mario Bros pin that was the perfect size for my 4 year old. Would a "kid" area be cool? Like, must be under x- ft tall to enter and just have a few shorter pins available for them? Just a thought. Where do you find short legs like that anyway?

I went homemade - could not find the printed version.

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BTW I loved the Monopoly backglass in the back row

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