Finally home,
Man what a blast!
I hope I can go next year.

Wow!! What time was that? I wish I could have stayed overnight I would never have slept.

I only attended Friday and Saturday. Had a wonderful time with some good people. Great to finally meet bangerjay and play those crazy games. The show was very well organized and I am very surprised that there wasn't a larger crowd. It was fantastic to play so many great machines and hang with friends from all over the country. Burningman, Fattrain, PDXMonkey: see you clowns in 2-1/2 months at EXPO! Cheers, brothers. I'll try to get in on the tournament next year.

Went sat night - best public pinball show I've ever been too. Haven't been many but this really was great. SO many tables and condition was great. Met some really nice people too. One guy was a top player from jersey who literally explained how to play ghostbusters. Really nice guy.

btw - batman forever is very underrated.

Had a great time with my Corn-Rages crew! Can't believe it's over.

We're still here on Monday. Gonna check out Kickback and Pinball Perfection this afternoon.

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Had an absolute blast. I just wish they could have the arcade open all the time. It was a major buzzkill to get booted out at 1 and 2am Friday + Saturday nights.

I was pretty astounded by the amount of people who were still enjoying themselves at that hour.
But, if they hadn't kicked everyone out, I wouldn't have been able to get my 4 hours of sleep in.

Thanks for the neg, Levi!

By the way, I could have taken your life... but I didn't want to be the reason you lost Pinburgh.

Also, dude... sandals?

Kudos to Kevin, Mark, and Bowen (and everyone behind the scenes) for putting on another fantastic ReplayFX. The staff and techs did an outstanding job the entire 4 days, and made it a great show and (several) tournaments for everyone attending. Last year was great, and somehow they managed to make it even better this year.

I heard from many people that they were a bit surprised that Stern and Jersey Jack didn't attend this year, and it did seem like a glaring omission considering the importance of the show and tournament. Sure, there were distributors there with several of their respective machines, but when you hear so many comment that the major manufacturers, Stern and Jersey Jack didn't bother to attend, you could tell that people thought they should have been there. Hopefully, they'll show their customers how much they appreciate them, and put on a big splash next year!

Glad to see even more vendors there this year - probably at least triple the number from last year. This show definitely has room for a larger variety of vendors with different products. Have to give credit to Melissa at Cointaker... despite running around busy all the time, she always had a smile for every customer that approached her booth. Her customer service was excellent.

I had an awesome time in the Pinburgh tournament, meeting lots of great pinballers from all over the US, Canada, Sweden and the rest of the world. Pittsburgh is a really nice, pretty city, with lots of good restaurants and friendly people.

I will definitely be going to ReplayFX 2017!

so what is the most effeicent way to do Pinnburgh.

Looking for serious advice from those with experience.
What hotel to stay at?
Will I need a car rental if I fly in (limited PTO so driving burns 2 more days)?
When do tickets go on sale (I know it sells out every year)

Are there pre-activities that I should plan for? I think I saw something about a warm up event on Wed?

You don't need a car rental. Fly in (flights are cheap). Uber or taxi to downtown. stay downtown. Find some other cheapskate to room with. Room will cost about $150 all in a night, so split that in half if you find a roomie. You can fly in Thursday am early to save a night at the hotel if you want to, though I prefer to come in on Wednesday.

Stay at any of the many hotels near the venue, and transportation won't be an issue. Plenty of bars and restaurants within walking distance. Cab back on Sunday to the airport.

There is a pre-tournament on Wed but sounds like Hell to me. Not a fan of pingolf and it runs crazy late Wed night. Instead of messing around with that nonsense we went to Kennywood on Wednesday.

what is kennywood?

Locals would slap you around if they heard this shit!

It's one of like 10 amusement parks in the US that claim to be the "oldest" in one way or another, great local park, nothing like a Six Flags Hellhole, classic coasters. Nice place to spend a few hours not playing pinball.

The wed pre tournament isn't at the convention center I think it's in South Pittsburgh.

Ok, here is my recap from a pinburgh newbie. I went to Expo in chicago in 2007 and I went to the show in Louisville a few months ago. I also went to the Louisville a few years ago. (might have been the first year), This show was far and away the best. Louisville was packed. Lines for everything. And it was packed into too small of an area. Pinburgh was luxury. I'd gladly pay a bit more for a well run show like this. I was only there sat/sun. So I didn't compete in pinburgh but I did the Intergalactic tourney. The IG tourney was fun - but I wish they had more games or less people. It took me over 3 hours (10pm to 1:20am) to play my 10 qualifing games. The upside of this was I got to hang with some great players and meet some interesting people. I feel like I would have played better if I wasn't picking games based on the shortest lines at 1am with many drinks in me. Still placed 61st? 64th?. Which I was happy with. Had the 6th highest qualifiing score on LW3. Steve Bowden knocked me out of 5th around 1:15am. Dang dude only used 6 entries and easily qualified.

I had never been to downtown Pittsburgh. It was nice - wish I'd had more time to explore. Next yeah I would love to stay for a whole week and bring the GF. I never had to wait in line to buy tickets or get in the show which was nice. The layout was perfect. I liked how one side was mostly video games and the other was mostly pinball. I felt like they were trying to tempt pinball players with some video games and vice versa. It also made the show feel like one big show and not 2+ smaller shows under the same roof. Also the pinball machines were in great shape. Especially some of the older games. Some of them looked brand new. I really enjoyed playing machines from the 50s and 60s. And I was totally excited to play Hobbit again and Big Lebowski and Rob Zombie for the first time. I was really impressed with Big Lebowski. The Rob Zombie machine was pretty cool too. I also got to play Full Throttle for the first time. And it was great to see so many pinball celebs hanging out. I think Jack Danger was the first celeb I saw and was all freaking out... but after a while it was a continual stream of OMG it's this person and this person!!! And eventually I would be playing a machine next to Gagno and it seemed like no big deal. But I still wasn't bold enough to talk to any of these guys/gals. Next year!

And now for the complaints. One of my biggest complaints was lack of alcohol. I'm not sure who gets the $ for the alcohol sales (convention center or replayFx) but someone lost out on $$$. I waited in line only once for a drink and it took about 15-20min. The beer selection was weak, much like the mixed drinks. The food was horrible too and very expensive. I was also dissapointed there was not a GB premium there. Heck I don't think I even saw a pro - I think there was one there - but I never saw it. Also I am a big fan of FarSight and TPA but their "booth" seemed thrown together. Which was disappointing. I also wish there had been more seminars sat night and sunday. I also agree with the people saying it was too bright in there Sat night. Another big complaint is the size of the viewing monitors for the pinball machines on the stage. From the back of the viewing area I couldn't see much. And you can't see the score at all unless you have eagle eyes. I would have liked to have seen at least one giant projection screen with the papa stream on it. Heck broadcast the audio over FM and rent out headphones to people who want to hear the commentary. The finals need more pomp and flair. The confetti was cool, but I want it to look like a WWE events with search lights and intro/walkup songs like in baseball. I think Elwin's song should be Black Sabbath's Iron Man. Or maybe queen we are the champions. I think the stream needs to be promoted more too. I checked in and during the finals there was under 300 viewers. That makes me nuts. There has to be plenty of people that would watch that just aren't aware of the stream. Was twitch even at the show? It seems like they would be a perfect sporsor.

Overall good times were had. I will be back next year.

PAPA negotiates great rates with the area hotels. The Westin is literally right across the street. My total cost was $660 for Wed-Sunday for hotel. The courtyard also looks like a great option as its half a block down and right across the street from the main bars we end up in.. but is more expensive. Hotel is great for stumbling distance.. but probably anything within a 5min cab ride would be acceptable.

There is no reason to have a car in downtown.. none. It's an expense only. Uber, walk, taxi.

Tickets for the show are available up to the door.. packages are available usually up to the week of. PINBURG registration is the one that sells out quickly. Last year I think they went on sale in Dec.

Pre/Post are more about individuals offering things and less about the big organized events. I highly recommend heading out to the Coin Op Museum by Ed Beeler which is about 30mins outside of town (www.pinballpa.com) if you like Arcade games. He also has a HUGE pin collection (200+? maybe). He has a lot of rare Goetlibs and Sterns that Replay does not have. (Spirit, Viper, Iron Maiden, Star Gazer, etc)

Food is the convention center.. from what I understand Replay has little influence there. It was worse last year, at least this year they added some carts and had some more options.. but we still buy them out and the only one 'after hours' cart is murder. The selection gets worse as they sell out of stuff. Hopefully with a track record.. the convention food vendor would step up to capitalize on the demand. Certainly way more demand there.

Well no one has GB premium yet.. so that's a tall order There were two Pros there.. one at Cointaker's booth (along with GOT Pro, GOT Pre, MET PRO, MET Pre) and the second was in the pinburg banks. But it was taken for finals on Saturday, so it wasn't available all day Saturday until late.. and then was packed up on Sunday as its new owner was taking it home.

That is another area of growing pains. The stage was new this year, and that puts everyone further away than they used to be. The monitor setup is basically the one from the Papa facility moved over there.. so its not exactly a great fit. IMO they'd be better off with a huge projection overhead and focus just on the finals group vs multiple games concurrently.

Scoring is something I nag Kevin over every year as its always been deemed less important for some reason. This year they used the DTM software and had live scoring online which was great for tracking. Wish there was more of an 'in person' experience still for that aspect.

This is an area I think they are still continuing to try to evolve. Last year, the stream took backseat to making the event actually work.

Any hotel nearby would work - the Westin is 145/night which isn't horrible. No car needed - you can walk to any food from McDonalds to Mortons, and there's 7-11s and CVSs around for random needs. You can fly in and take a shuttle bus to downtown from the airport. Watch replayfx site for ticket anouncements. The 'timed' buys are Pinburgh tourney entries and Westin rooms - general passes and other hotels don't sell out as quickly. And yes, definitely hit Kennywood if you can!

man we wanted to check this place out today, but it's closed on Monday!

ReplayFX is amazing! Thank you to the Steinmans, Fred, Doug, Elizabeth, the Replogles, and all the other staff and volunteers who poured their time and talents into making the show one of the best -- and most diverse -- in the country.

Benefit/cost ratio is top notch. Quantity of games and activities and shortness of lines was sooooo good. Extraordinarily family friendly: besides pinball... bounce houses, video games, console games, board games, balloon animals and face painting (no additional charge). I brought my entire family: wife and 3 kids ages 8-11. My wife commented on how much she enjoyed getting to PLAY vs WAITING to play when compared to other shows.

We drove all the way from Texas as part of a summer road trip, and it was worth every penny.

Here's my protip for beer drinking: walk 5 minutes to Ten Penny or Tonic, and enjoy a few great 6-8% beers there. Then go back to Replay and you won't mind drinking Stella and Yuengling while watching the bands.

Plenty of people brought their own beer as well. I don't know if this was allowed or not, but I didn't see anybody catch flack for it.

You would think that the owner would have any sort of sense of business and be open around the Replay event.

Just a suggestion to try and add more Wed night rooms to the block. Flying in Wed is pretty common and while it wasn't too tough to get Thurs-Sunday, Wed seemed to sell out faster than Pinburgh entries. It might be limited based on the other stuff that's going on but if possible it'd be nice to try and grab a few more.

So what are the dates for next year, eh?

I had a great time. Qualified for C finals and then unleashed the suck, but it was still the most fun tournament I've ever been to.

Monitors for live standings and assignments would be great. I know of a few people without smart phones that were there and they were not enjoying having to ask others what bank they were in every time.

I flew in Wednesday afternoon/evening and I know a lot of others who did as well. Having to be there by a certain time Thursday morning would make me very nervous when flying in on a Thursday. The check in the night before (Wednesday) in the hotel lobby was nice as well and was simple and quick.

Got to meet a ton of people and had a blast. Great event for sure.

Yes, early check-in was money and I'll be doing that again next year.

Thanks,
I brought the only working game from the 50's, my Gottlieb Hi-Diver.
Every time I walked by it people were playing it.

That game was nice! I played it a few times, needed the inspiration to fix up the one I got last year...

I loved that game! Thanks for bringing it.

You know what would make it better? getting the banners in there, but know that would be humongous amount of work to take em down, rehang them, take em down then rehang them back at the papa orbiting hq.

Had a great show. My wife discovered the souvenir I brought home and fortunately approves:

 https://www.facebook.com/theleahcrane/videos/700999696713779/

Yeah, thanks for that!

As a fellow dumbphone guy...
Banks were also posted on the table where you handed your score sheets in. Find your name, get your bank. Since the names were always in the same order, it was pretty quick to do after the first time.

Also appreciated the signs at the end of each bank that told you which banks were in each row. That was a nice improvement over last year.

This. It wouldn't be too hard to put a big sheet or screen up above the stage there with all of the rigging they have and rear project it or something. Even just the live stream up there would help with seeing the scores.

Watching the finals was a lot better than last year though with the simple inclusion of Bowen giving a review of the point tallies and what the scores were between balls. Great job by all of the crew, the show was incredible and even better than last year. I somehow managed to qualify for the A division and finish in the top 100. A lot of fun and getting to play with some of the big boys like Gagno and Bowden was super cool. I can't wait for next year.

The Westin couldn't give us any more rooms, but we'll have a little more leverage next year.

This. We don't get any of the proceeeds from food or beverage and have to use the contracted vendor for the convention center. Situation was improved over last year, and we can force them to step it up even more next year.

the best show I've ever been too. the pinball olympics games were awesome, my daughter loved em! the vids, the pins, the size of the venue, super staff, very very professional. kong off, video tourney. so much going on its like a circus.
simply amazing!
A show of this caliber takes a super crew to pull off and its honestly beyond my imagination how hard it is to make it all happen and run so smooth. moving all of those games, and all other aspects in regards to before, during and after the event. wow!!!

Loved the event and will do a review soon, but it is late at night now.
Just wanted to post some quick photos of B division winners.
My son Preston Moncla took first place, and it was beyond belief fun watching all the epic battles put up on so many many games.
Preston, for those of you who don't know is the 2015 Texas state champion.

Congrats to all the winners. (Apologies if any names are not spelled correctly).
1. Preston Moncla
2. Todd MacCulloch
3. Greg DeFeo
4. Tim Sexton

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That second place dude is a monster. That's the first time I've ever seen a guy so big that you actually have to have the pinball machine stand on a milk crate to be played.

If we were in grammar school, I'd just give him my milk money every day. No questions asked.

Well, he did play in the NBA

Who are the Black Hole shirt dudes? I've seen them before but don't know their names.

That's Todd M. Former NBA player

And one of the nicest guys in pinball

Todd was awesome.
I think I have some photos of him playing with Preston and Escher.
The size difference in the three is amazing.
I'll check in a bit and post it here.

Edit... Found it.
Here you go

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Pete and Brett are local players who were working as tournament directors.

I can't even imagine his parents' food bill when he was growing up.

(and up and up)

Had a blast, easy to recommend to anyone interested in going. Will start to save up for next year. Amazing show, amazing machines and everything ran well.

Heres a video of my experience:

- D

I hope they add another category on their pricing for an entire family of 5 package deal like they have at zoos and museums etc. Bringing the whole family for 4 days can be real hard on the wallet.

It's a good thing there was vaulted ceilings in that place.

I saw Escher was killing it for most of the tourney.