The people are awesome, the new tournament format has been great, and there have been some terrific panels.

I'm not really one for the free play area or vendor hall, so I don't have anything to say about those.

I was there for 5 hours and played 6 games. I finally met nimblepin, The Dude Abides and way2wrd, so that was cool.

Can now say been there done that also went out to pinball life for a couple hours overall good event

Had a great time at my first expo. I think it struck a great balance of seminars, parties, free play, vendor representation, etc. Are there better examples of any one of these some place else? Maybe in some cases. But Expo pulled it all together. Loved being able to see, hear, and talk to so many of the folks that drive this industry and community. I agree with Kaneda that it lacked any huge earthshaking announcements which was in some ways disappointing (was hoping to see a RZ reveal). That said, having the GOT machines everywhere were great. I preferred to skip the lines and pump dollars into the charity machine in the hall. It played great and I'm sure will be a success.

And we got some smaller "reveals" from Heighway. I also was really impressed with Full Throttle. It's tough but the platform feels great. Really solid. Andrew struck me as extremely passionate and personable. Wish him and his company best of luck.

Hobbit looked incredible. Played a game and watched a few too. Still not sure how I feel about the gameplay, but it's the best looking and most visually immersive game out there imho. It has a shot at getting me to pull out my wallet.

Was nice to put my hands on a TBL finally. This has the potential to be an awesome machine. Doesn't seem like much has changed on the outside from what folks saw last year, though it's clear that they've made significant progress moving from a true prototype to a ready-for-production model. Putting several machines on site builds some confidence too and ensured that anyone who wanted to could get some flipper time.

And even though we didn't see RZ, we got some small hints and details there beyond what I had heard before.

For me, seems like we are about to see some quality competition in pinball production like hasn't occurred in decades. What a great time for pinball.

Saw you on Friday night. Thought about (and should have) saying "hi" since you were wearing your avatar name.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show Friday. I agree with your observations but would add one myself: Lexy Lightspeed was wicked cool! They're onto something. Feels like there's momentum building finally in the pinball industry!

My view of the show is probably biased since I'm comparing it to the last time I went 15 years ago.

To me it's better than it used to be.

This was my first Expo.

Positives:
-Met some nice people.
-TBL was awesome.
-The pins in each corner of the free play section were great (thank you to the folks who brought these).
-Tracked down some needed parts from vendors.

Negatives:
-Quantity/quality of games in the free play section. As far as actually playing pinball, which was mostly why I came, I'd rather be at my favorite Chicago barcades (not a close question).

Thanks to everyone who brought games for the free play section and to the vendors---most of whom have got to do this for the love of pinball.

Finally played TBL which I thought was great!

Was excited to try out GOT but only got a half game on it (an LED flasher came loose and got lodged in one of ramps on the game I was on). I didn't feel like waiting in the lines for it and hope it shows up at a local beercade soon.

GOT LE looked cool from what I could see of it. Again too many people gathered around so I could barely see it.

Was happy to get my BK2K apron signed by Steve!

The SoF conversion to Buffy was awesome! Great job done on it!

Free play room was nothing compared to last year. It seemed like there were half as many games as last year in the room (and last year required an overflow room too) and some of the worst games from last year were back whereas the better ones were not.

Pinball Life party was awesome as always! Sure it's crowded but for good reason!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-expo-trip

It was my first expo. I took my brother and his family who don't play pinball much and they had a good time. It was the first time playing a pinball for my niece and nephew. My nephew wished his dad would buy a pinball afterwords. The freeplay area was a little underwhelming after seeing the pics of ReplayFX this year. I was hoping to try out some Data East or Sega games and there just wasn't any there. Two South Parks and an Apollo 13 were all of the Segas. Lethal Weapon 3 and Star Trek were all of the DE games but neither one was on. I did find a couple of games to watch for though. A Williams Star Light was there and really fun. It may have been really easy though because I wasn't playing very good all day but I felt I did really good on that one. Also there was a Waterworld that was really fun.
I bought a few parts and a T-shirt. I played Game of Thrones which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also found out I'm kind of shy. There were a lot of people I have seen in the pinball community from videos or on pinside like Ben Heck and Jon Replogle and I couldn't make myself say hi. Maybe next time

Thanks to Joe from Laserrific. I wanted to buy some flipper toppers for my Stern Stars but was unsure if they would fit. Joe let me take them with no charge and said if they work I can send him payment later. So nice.

Any pins you saw with ColorDMD signage belong to our friends who live in and around the Chicago area. They work hard year after year to prep and bring multiple pins to the show and deserve all the credit. Many of these pins are carted over large distances from neighboring states. They share their games just for the love of pinball and to help make Expo the best show it can be.

We would like to thank Phoebe and Larry, Chris, Casey, Jeremy, Eric/Jay, John/Tommy/Phil, Jeremy, Larry, Brian, and all the others who are kind enough to bring games out to Expo year after year after year. You guys are the best!

My opinion couldn't compare to last year, but last year was beyond exceptional. I really liked the exhibit hall and that's where I spent my time 2015. Last year I went 3 days this year one day. I missed the Pinball Life party due to a conflict and went to it last year.

The free play room was a disappointment I have space for one game and really was hoping to check some games out that were at the 2014 expo. Oh well such is life. I think my expectations were too high in all fairness. I probably had more fun in the exhibit hall than past years.

Badass!

The DE Star Trek was mine... Sorry you didn't get a chance to play it.
It had the ball jump out of the ramp behind the back-panel once. (I had left the cover off the ramp, because the ball was getting hung-up.)
And then sometime early Saturday, the under-playfield trough broken in half. It was previously broke, and I thought I had it repaired strong enough, but guess not. The trough was not something I could fix on-site, so I pulled the game Saturday & called it an early show for me.

Frankly expo has never really been much of a "players" event. It's more about the people and the professionals that make the games. If you want to play games I recommend, with bias, our Ann Arbor Michigan VFW pinball show. With 300 games from highly collectible woodrails and 60s/70s wedge heads and multiplayer EMs, nearly complete -35 Bally collection, nearly complete m200 stern collections, all the classic gtb sys80 and 6803 Bally and Wms s3-7 games, nearly complete Williams sys11 and wpc and dataeast collection, nearly complete zaccaria gen2 collection, all the great new stern games, and lots of very rare machines, nearly every colordmd available.... well you get the point, it's a far better players' experience. But that said, no seminars of "famous" people and limited vendors - that's expo's strong point.

I was warned that Kaneda was running around with a self identifying Kaneda shirt - I successfully avoided him. Expo was fantastic

Just kidding Kaneda, if I saw you I woulda said hi - but somehow I missed ya

It was nice meeting you, Chris. I hope more people on Pinside will begin giving you a chance around here.

Don't F@*k it up my friend.

I wanted to meet Kaneda... Next time?

No idea why but he seemed to keep showing up.
I was pretty rude the first time, more so the second time he approached me and then I yelled at him at the party .
Regardless he showed up 30 minutes later with a smile and hi asking how we can talk.
Well you can't keep being mean to a person trying to be the positive one.
We talked and he listened to feedback and came across as a good guy.
I think his nature while stirrung us up is honestly backed up with genuine enthusiasm.
Kaneda is good guy.

Kaneda, were you wearing a doo-rag on Friday night? I think we may have walked by you at Heighway's booth. Either way, I agree with you; TBL and Full Throttle are great games.

I thought it was great. Got to meet a lot of old friends. Met a lot of new friends. I saw the new Stern parking lot. Ran out of fingers. Had five panda bears staring at me.

An exciting time for sure.

Can't wait until next year !

LTG : )

I actually sat and talked with Kaneda Friday night at dinner. Add Steve from refinery as well. It was good to talk to you in person. Glad you enjoyed the show. I've been going every year for the last 12 and always enjoy it. I don't care how many games are there. It's the people I go to be with

Very sorry you did not get a chance to play the game, I wish you could have. The game was on every day but Sunday with a clearly posted schedule enabling those that really wanted to play to have a chance. As I've stated many times recently, we are not trying to line up 100 buyers at this point, so I'm not sure where your out dated comment really stems from other than to be inflammatory. I'm just very happy the owner of the game was so nice as to allow us to have the game at Expo in the first place.

I can certainly say that Frank and I had AHELLUVALOT of fun at Expo this year and were blown away at how awesome the games were. It felt like every game there was better than before - it's going to be an exciting time for pinball in the coming year(s).

Awesome as usual. This year I am bringing home a machine, 18 playfields, and over 40 plastic sets!
Great deals as always

The free play area was light this year. I don't know if this was due to the vacuum from John Petersen's awesome collection from last year and people having to put their games in an overflow room? Still folks complained that there were too many EMs so not sure if there is any pleasing everyone.

I brought 3 games (one back and forth to PBL) which is about all i could do logistically.

Anyone know why people are bringing less games? Andrew has been doing a great job running the free play room which should alleviate folks who were all upset about Pacak.

What can be done so that we can get more games there for next year?

-c

Wow you cleaned house. There was an amazing collection of plastic ramps.

I had planned to bring two, but not being able to take off work and only being able to be at expo for part of Saturday put a stop to that.

Next year I'll schedule myself better lol

Had a blast. TBL again was the draw for me. Though playing escape from the lost world in the free to play area was great and now has me shuffling what I think my next pinball purchase should be

Tons of Ramps indeed!!!! Used and new alike

I met Rotordave. What more can I say.

I bought a whitewater ramp for 2 dollars.

Could have picked up the whole ramp collection for 20 bucks!

Expo may have to up their game to compete with PBL. I would imagine PBL siphoned a lot of games that probably would have been at expo? Hard to prove a negative so who knows for sure. The freeplay area was not open at the same time, but logistically makes it difficult to have the same game in both places. Nothing against PBL for putting on a great party, I had a great time and glad I went. Maybe Terry should be put in charge of the freeplay area next year and bring the party to expo!

Was that a Vegas? Seemed everywhere I looked, there was a brand-spankin new Vegas sitting there. Played great... all of them.. (or the one in multiple spots...)

Me and my family had a fun time, less games to play was a bit of a bummer, especially since one vendor had most of the games I was interested in playing behind his wares. We just go for Saturday morning.

I got really interested in the digital pinball side of things, which actually got me starting to hunt for something akin to the Pinball Wizard controller by Nanotech. Also got to play Whoa Nellie which was great because the guy who helped fix all of our machines at home (Ken Walker) worked on it.

Picked up a neat Japanese Creech instruction card, looks great under our French poster of the movie and next to our machine! All in all a good time.

My thoughts:

The Hobbit - great overall package. It's looking polished and ready. I loved the strobe effect on the pop ups.

GOT - wish I could have played the LE. The pro has a great light show and interesting rules. I wish there were more paths for the ball.

Full Throttle - highlight of the show for me. Easily the funniest game to shoot in my opinion. So fast and unique. I'm getting one and it makes Alien more appealing because of the swappable system.

Wrath of Olympus - I wish it was getting produced.

TBL - doesn't seem like it's progressed a lot since Texas. I want to see and play a production game before buying.

The people are awesome.

There are two ways to look at the PBL party, as competition or as complimentary to the Expo experience.

I know, because I know a lot of people who bring their games to it, that many of them either bring games to both or would not bring games to Expo instead. If the PBL Explosion wasn't going on, I personally don't think that you'd see many or any more games at Expo, and you would actually see a decline in Expo attendance.

VEGASSSS! I think those were 2 different games, which is strange going this many years without seeing one and then seeing 2.

No, unfortunately it was the Meteor. Every show has to have a meteor so i helped 2 shows meet their minimum requirement.

-c

I think there would a be a few more games at expo, but not like a half dozen games would make a huge difference. Issue with take games to expo, talking with folks, is there is not really an incentive to bring more than one. Mike needs to figure out how to compensate folks. Anyone who has taken a game to a show understands how much work it is, and since there is really no benefit to bringing more games that what get you in for free, I can see why few do it. Mayve if they had 'expo bucks' or deeper discounts on hotel rooms, they would.

No doubt since Andrew and friends (including a lot of chicago mafia folks) took over the free area, the general process is significantly better, but I don't think he has any control over compensation. Of course the Westin does not make it easy. On Sunday I gave some Westin employee an earful when trying to wheel out a game, through the back passageways they want us to use, and finding it totally blocked by stuff -- if they want us to go that way, at least make it accessible!! I don't need to screw up my game or my back trying to serpentine around all that crap.

This was my first year going to Terry's for the bash, I get to go there at other times, but thought I would check it out, as well as provide transport for others. Terry and Margaret's hospitality is legendary and they really put together a great event. Everyone who was working with them were great too! The amount of work leading up to it, must be enormous (think about pulling that together and handling a huge spike in expo preorders). I don't think I played more than a couple of games given how packed it was. It certainly seems clear that this is a a major part of expo now, and even Mike listed it on the schedule, which I find pretty funny given the history of it (I guess he figures if he lists he, he can take some of the credit).

I think Terry may need to get a bigger space, start earlier to spread out the crowd or go to the 'take a number' just to get inside. I know of at least a few locals that now only go to Terry's and skip expo entirely.

Just being real here, I think that the problems with bringing a game to Expo (And remember, this is coming from a guy who has not even gotten to attend Expo for a few years) are:

- Load in process isn't necessarily the easiest. It's not terrible, but the hotel seems to help in no way whatsoever.
- It's a HUGE commitment. This is I think the toughest part. You need to bring your game on Wednesday and (theoretically) pack it up on Sunday. Five days. During which time, the game is expected to be on and played nearly nonstop. Let's just say that it is on and played for three days, with 10 games an hour. That's still nearly 750 games played on it over three days. If the game breaks, you need to be around for it. Or if the game gets damaged, or whatever.

I think the reason that the PBL event attracts so many machines is that you simply don't have the same level of commitment. Bring a game, set it up, and a few hours later it's done. You can be there the whole time, you can check your machine, if it goes down you can fix it right away.

I get that attendees love having the hall open all night at Expo, but I think (and have heard from some people directly) that doing so makes it much more difficult for them to bring machines. It's very difficult to balance everyone's needs, and it can't necessarily be done. That having been said, I bet if you were up at 4am, there was more than enough open pins to play...

I think MGC has figured out that equation. Special party time and create/expand on the community vibe.

In short, I LIKE to support MGC because it really feels like OUR show, I know that the organizers are not making money on it (pretty sure quite a few years they did not break even and most years 100% goes right in to the following year), and I take pride in helping out to grow that show even more.

I have not brought a game to expo becuase it has no community feel, it has been made clear by the organizers that it is a for profit show, and given the for profit nature the incentives are not big enough for me to bring a game to get beat on for such a long time period while putting profits into others pockets (esp people I am not fond of). It seems like solid games can expect around 1000 plays during expo? Even at .50 a play and a 50% split that is around $250 in value per game for a $80? bracelet. No community feel means I look at it like a business (similar to the organizers). Make it fun, make it a community effort, and/or incentivize it better.

Expo is quite a community... you're just not part of it. Partly because of your last statement, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that... but for those of us who do get along with Mike and are part of the show, Expo is basically the same as the MGC you describe.

You have to admit, your phrasing isn't exactly welcoming.

No, just stating fact.. Expo is not an exclusive club.. there's dozens of people who help out and get in cheap/free, just like MGC. Hilton is part of the MGC community and sees that side of it; I am part of Expo and see the same thing there.

Hilton is certainly welcome to become part of the Expo community, and he doesn't even have to get along with Mike to do so... there are go-betweens LOL but, saying there is "no community feel" just because one is not part of the community is silly.