My wife and I were there Friday and Saturday and after the last two years experience, there's no reason for us to attend Saturday next year. Was a waste of admission fees for us because so many games were cleared out that we wanted to try but couldn't on Friday, or just wanted to play again. We had planned to stay all Sat and spend the night again, but I said lets just see how it is Sat and we split after lunch.

We had a lot of fun, but something needs to be done to actually have machines still there Sat. Otherwise drop the price of admission since there are considerably less games on Sat.

Bottom line, if you can't attend Friday, then you REALLY are missing out by just going Saturday.

I agree with a lot of what was posted here. I attended Saturday only. While it was fun, I was disappointed with the dwindling games as the day went on. I will try to go Friday next year, but if I can't I may just skip Saturday.

I was surprised that a weekend pass wasn't available for sale. What about that next year? $25-$30 for a Sat and Sunday pass?

I'll sell you Sunday passes for next year for $5 each.

Agreed! Love the 25.00 raffle idea.

I fully understand the complaint, but let me give you another perspective. It's a considerable distance from my home in central North Carolina to Allentown, Pennsylvania, which includes driving through the congested D.C. metro area. Also, I sometimes have to work on Sunday morning. I bought a pin at last year's Pinfest, and I needed to leave relatively early--sometime after lunch on Saturday, I think--in order to get home at a reasonable time. I don't see that I had much choice other than to pay the $25 and remove the pin. I would not have bought it were I required to leave it there and pay to have it shipped.

There are two sides to every story. I wasn't taking the pin to keep others from using it. I left it on the floor as long as I could. I should add that I brought one of my own pins for the free-play area--and not one that I was selling, incidentally. (I then had to spend a fair bit of money replacing parts that others broke there.) So, things are often more complicated than they appear.

As this show gets bigger people are are traveling farther....and this is the issue we had as well.

We have about a 6 hour drive home...thus if we start packing up at 6 on Saturday..we aren't on the road till 7ish.

Our other option is pull the 5 games we brought Friday night...and they aren't there at all Saturday making it even smaller.

We ended up NOT doing this...we left the games for Saturday and didn't get home till after 1AM.

There's a very valid argument to both sides...but I'm not sure where the answer is. We talked about just buying a vendor spot next year. Maybe there can be a 'free play' vendor area...it could have a reduced price for the spot as we aren't really selling anything. Or maybe a early breakdown area in free play...say 3PM. Maybe admission get set to half price after 3 on Saturday (or $10). If people know those game are moving in 'this' area a head of time..they would need to get time on them before they are gone.

Maybe it just not worth it making alternate break down times and such...and we pull our games Friday night leaving even a bigger hole in the show for Saturday

Just kinda brainstorming...I'm sure Ivan will figure something out

We have taken a lot of these points into consideration for Pintastic. For us, if you bring a game, and it doesn't sell Saturday, and you need to leave, you can leave with your game. IF you purchase a machine...hey, we understand people need to leave early for whatever the reason may be. If you do, we are requiring a $35. fee to pull it before 6 on Friday or Saturday night. A small price to pay compared to shipping.

At Pintastic, you'll get free admission each day your machine is at the event. A ticket into the Friday after party which includes free food paid for by Gabe and myself. Drinks are available. And we'll give you 1 ticket for each machine you bring (2 if you register it on the website before June 1st) that goes into a raffle just for those who brought games. We will have at least 5 and hopefully 10 prizes available each night with prize values of $100 down to $25. I don't know what more we can do to show our thanks and appreciation for people going through the hard work and their kindness for bringing out their machines. And don't forget, by bringing a game that you may be selling, you have the opportunity to sell it in front of hundreds of people.

It has been suggested by others that promoters pay a fee ($50 per machine) to a person for bringing a game to the show. Well, if we do that, would you then be willing to pay a 10% fee for the price of the sale of your machine? I wouldn't think so, right? You can't have it both ways. The show does provide you the best opportunity to sell your machine as well as purchase. So you have to have some healthy give and take here to make it successful for everyone. Remember, the best deals in life are the ones where each person is happy and wins. I think we've done a great job at Pintastic with that. At least we really tried too.

High end DMD games on the freeplay floor died about 2 years ago when some clown lifted & dropped a TOTAN to free a stuck ball. (Story on pinside somewhere)
As a person paying admission I totally understand that you want to play the best games available. But what's the incentive for someone to bring their game to have it beat on for 2 days? People who bring an EM get the same free ticket as someone bringing a dot matrix game. Early/free admission is nice. But keep in mind that people have to break it down and haul it there and set it up and clean up the aftermath for what is $17 ticket.

IMHO, a lot of games are brought with the intention of selling. if you take away or make that Avenue very difficult you will lose a large chunk of the participants. There have been some good deals at the show but if you want to start adding on extra fees that makes a good deal just an OK deal.

and before anybody asks I did bring 3 games to the show

I'd love to give that a read, but I can't seem to find the thread.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-abuselayoff-if-it-isnt-your-machine#post-1984086

If I had a TOTAN I would bring it with no worries, as I did bring one a couple years ago. This year I did take a POTC and Iron Man as well as 5 other machines. I had no worries about abuse and they received none.

I don't mind bringing a pin...and letting people have fun with it. They are meant to be nudged, slap saved, and played on. This was my second year at Pinfest in doing so....it's neat to watch people have fun on your pins. My issue is this.....

image.jpg

My machine was down for over an hour before I seen it turned off....I quickly figured out the issue and fixed it with the tools I brought along. On this paper was my cell number to text me.....clear as day. Did anyone send me a text to let me know?? NOPE. But they sure took the time to pull out a red marker and cross out that it wasn't "playing 100%" anymore. Kind of a dick move whomever did that. Where's the common sense

Eric you are definitely one of the people who bring some of the nicest games there... Always one of the highlights. I would love to hear your opinion on how games should be sold at the show.

I stood and watched many people play my WWFRR. My most memorable moment was a family of 4 that played a game together and really enjoyed it. It's a great feeling. Pintastic will be like that but times 1000

I brought my minty restored Hurricane. It sold shortly after the show started on Friday and the new owner was nice enough to leave it out on the floor for the entire day. Another great pin brother.

I got a ton of compliments on the restore. It played perfectly and had 472 plays and it was even shut down for 2 hours while the new owner ran off to the bank.

If you want a lot of pinballs at the show then you will have to provide an incentive for people to bring them.

The best incentive for getting people to bring pins to the show is for selling them.

Most shows of this type, like gun shows, are centered on buying and selling.

The problem with people bringing games just for the heck of it is that a lot of these games are very valuable now and trucking a few $3000 pins to a show so other people can bang on them for two days in exchange for a $17 ticket is not much of an incentive.

I was there on Saturday afternoon, there were so few games left that we just hung around for an hour and left. My wife wanted to try out the truck stop, couldn't get near it.

I like the fee lottery idea. All the early exit fees go towards a lottery open to people there at closing.

That was my ToTAN

The incentive Is the show , if nobody is willing to share just for the love of the hobby then there can't be a show. Believe me it's not even close to worth the 17 dollar admission. I do it to support the hobbie and it gives me personal satisfaction.

What happens if everybody stays for the raffle?

People are interested--just not in risking damage to their expensive machines or the clean-up and shopping that is necessary after 400-900 plays. Repairs aren't cheap, damage hurts the value. That's like leaving a hot rod on the side of the street with a sign on it that says "drive me"--there's no telling what may happen. You're going to have to offer a small enticement since the pin's owner is taking on quite a bit of risk.

dupe

People are interested--just not in risking damage to their expensive machines or the clean-up and shopping that is necessary after 400-900 plays. Repairs aren't cheap, damage hurts the value. That's like leaving a hot rod on the side of the street with a sign on it that says "drive me"--there's no telling what may happen. You're going to have to offer a small enticement since the pin's owner is taking on quite a bit of risk.

I'm willing to take the risk, and I'm lucky enough to be in a position that the money is not an issue.i really like to clean them up and get them dialed in, and bring it to a show for everyone to enjoy.

We bought Ivan's Popeye early Friday and left it on the floor until after 3pm on Saturday. He was telling us we could take it Friday night and almost seemed confused when I was telling him we'd like to leave it setup until we needed to leave Saturday. (To his defense he was extremely busy and it was loud so maybe he didn't really hear me.)

Honestly, you can't *tell* people what they can or can't do with their games. Once you get too many rules involved then people will just not bring games. I thought it was a no brainer for us to leave the game for people to play until we needed to pack it up. And I would have been sad to be told we couldn't leave it for part of the day Saturday. That was the best we could do and for those people that played it Saturday I'm sure they were happy it was there for at least part of the day.

I like the idea of the 50/50 raffle for those that stick it out and I like the idea of maybe charging less for admission after 5 or 6pm and *suggesting* people wait until then to remove games each day.

Now having said that, my 14 year old son and I had a really good time Friday and Saturday. The Friday floor was jam packed with pins but Saturday before 3pm wasn't terrible either. Both days had something to offer and both days we felt it worth the $34 admission we paid.

Oh, and to whomever texted me a ball was stuck and then turned off the game at my request... THANK YOU! We got back there about an hour later(of course we were eating dinner at the time) and it was a 1 minute fix.

I never realized there was much of an issue with the show and games leaving until this thread popped up. The people complaining about not enough games being there probably never bring any themselves. It does put a lot of wear and tear on them. There's people coming to these shows crapping their pants all over the place and not washing their hands. I don't want them getting their feces all over my games.

I have to commend everyone who has the patience, love for the hobby and the finances to fund bringing games they're going to have to clean and do maintenance on just for some crybabies who want to play for free and not buy anything. I thought the show was fine as is, with no changes needed (other than the stinky bathrooms from years ago) and Ivan does a great job so I have no complaints.