Hotels - might be giving up a good secret here but I have stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which is just over the river/ 6th street bridge by PNC Park. Like a 10 minute walk. Good prices *and* an excellent free breakfast and new renovated rooms as of last year. Good value and a bit of exercise or take the free shuttle. Personally I enjoyed the walk back by the ball diamond and for this year - there was a boxing match held on the bridge Cuba VS US or something like that .. very interesting night life. Oh yes a pool, free wifi and a few pokemon stops too.

The bike share system is $12 for the month. That's how I did it. No brainer. A lovely (and quick) ride. Was easy to go back and forth during the day to crap, rest, and even shower.

I did uber it Saturday am for finals as it was raining.

People who live in PA, NJ, NY, DE, MD, etc. could also take the Amtrak train, which comes to a station one block away from the convention center.
.................David Marston

ok, what are dates for 2017?

Wife has to put in PTO a crazy amount of time in advance, so dates ASAP would be appreciated.

Dates for 2017 haven't been confirmed with the convention center yet.

doe you have an Estimate of when you hope to confirm them? The more notice to plan, the better the chances of us being able to put in the time off and attend.

side note: when is PAPA this year?

PAPA 20 is April 5th through 9th, 2017.

We have to negotiate with the convention center on some issues before we can confirm the dates.

thanks! Hoping this does not conflict with MGC again... fingers crossed.

do you think you will know in the next month? 3 months? thanks

The goal is to announce the dates as soon as possible.

Your political training has come far

Glad to hear replay continues to push forward with expo!!

Remember to include family of 5 pricing as well.

Or maybe just a multiple ticket percentage discount. Buy 2-4 tickets 5% discount. Buy 5-8 tickets 10% discount. Just throwing out ideas.

100% agree a multiple ticket discount is good especially when its only one person paying for all of them.

The eye roll is throwing me off. Is that sarcasm?

No, I wanted the eyes to roll down in sadness but couldn't find one. This face is more appropriate without the family pricing option.

Ninjadoug - How can I found out who owned a particular arcade game. There was a Crazy Climber arcade there that I would like to find out if the owner is interested in selling. Feel free to PM me. Thanks!

I loved that game growing up. and I played it at replayfx, and showed my kids. they didn't get too excited. but man I sure did.

hard to find game.

The vast majority of games there are owned by the Replay Foundation and not for sale. Crazy Climber included

I agree fxdwg. Seems hard to find. I was just happy to get to play it there. The hunt continues!

Thanks for the response Doug.

Right, these games aren't for sale.

That's why the Star Trek vector cockpit isn't in my apartment.

Check in the What's for sale in Indiana? thread. Seshpilot is selling his recently refurbished one.

Way to call me out.

Ok, I admit I probably won't buy one. But it's awesome and always nice to see it when I go to a PAPA event.

Sooo...apparently Pittsburgh has not changed much...still a great party town

Back in 1985 I was a freshman in college living in downtown Pittsburgh. We used to have parties on Lockhart St. on the North Side every weekend. One night I was trying to make in back to my dorms, and I "fell down". Somehow I forgot how to "get up", and managed to grind my face along the sidewalk while trying. Eventually, my friends managed to get me back to the dorms. The next morning when I came to, I had a scab from my forehead down to the tip of my nose. Needless to say, a few days later on Thanksgiving break, my parents seemed less than enthusiastic about the money they were spending on my edumikation........ ........I'm pleased to report that I finally received my degree at a ceremony held at The David Lawrence Convention Center!

On a pinball note.....I used to play all the great late 80's games everyday at Smithfield News, on the corner of Smithfield St. and Blvd of the Allies........wonder if they still have any pins on location.

Extra thanks to Bowen for play testing every, EVERY game in the tournament, a daunting task which seemed to leave him giddy/delirious

Sorry if someone already asked, but I am dying to know. Was total attendance over all four days up or down from last year???

Up.

But by how much? Hopefully allot.

We won't disclose specific numbers, but we are pleased with the turnout. We will be back next year.

This was the crowd just for Pinburgh finals

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Hey, that's me in there somewhere! (talking with Dead_Flip; great guy and great player)

Nice crowd.
We did not get to see the A finals because B division was going on at the same time just over the stage from them.
But I can't think of a better way to miss the A finals.
I need to go back and watch the recorded stream.
Can't wait for next year.

Would be curious to know if the political rally helped out with walk ups on Saturday. The only thing that could have hurt is people trying to get to replay on Saturday and all the parking in vicinity was sold out. I was thinking you got good walk ups after the rally to attend replay or I could be wrong.

I played like a 5 year old girl in the tournament this year. Still had a great time. I didn't take nearly enough pictures but here were my best ones. Enjoy!

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Here are pics courtesy of GeneX

http://fb.me/2QMApC1PJ

Love how two people who don't know the first thing about me downvote me for saying I'd sandbag into B. Even more funny considering I've never attended Pinburgh, PAPA, or IFPA. Lawls. If you knew jack squat about me, you'd know that losing, in any manner, pisses me off to an extreme degree.

I didn't downvote you for saying you'd sandbag. I downvoted you for implying that you could just win B div if you wanted to. Look at the names, man. I know you are good. There are great A level players who failed to qualify for B division. I am a 3 time state champion and I failed to qualify for B division. Granted, I didn't play even close to my ability, but it happens. Given that you haven't played in a Pinburgh or PAPA, please don't assume you could win B division easily.

We had some walk ins from the rally. I was up in the skywalk as they were heading to the ballroom and most reactions from people were fantastic. Like most not in the community, it was like they were being launched back in time and they remembered how special that time in their life was, like we do.

It was free advertising for next year

I bet that was real fun to watch and hear.

The papatv stream has yet to be archived correct? I haven't been able to find it.

https://www.twitch.tv/papatvpinball/v/80872109

Just go to their twitch channel and watch the last broadcast. it's labeled 'setting up' but its the semi-finals and finals of pinburgh.

So what...I shouldn't have confidence in my abilities just because it will be hard and unlikely? Screw that noise. If you go into something like this with the mentality that everyone else is better than you to an impossible degree, then you're going to make that loss happen even if they aren't. I'm pretty sure I *CAN* do anything that I truly *want* to. It's a matter of time, effort, and priorities. Clearly, my priorities have not been in the realm of accumulating another 2k of debt to try to go to Pinburgh as of yet. =P At any rate, I'm never going to subscribe to the idea that just because something is hard, even EXTREMELY hard, that taking a defeatist attitude up front is a fantastic way to go. If you want to be a realist, go ahead. I'd rather eternally struggle to improve than assume that I've peaked out though.

If I had to guess...my odds of winning B div versus making A finals? 5-to-1 is probably a good guess. I think it would take me 5 times the number of attempts to make A finals as it would to straight up win B division. Hence the "sandbagging" comment and the rest. Frankly, I don't *WANT* to play B. My desire to play against top ranked players is way too high to want to ever play in anything but A. But...again....4 grand potentially, or getting to play 4 games with a top ranked player and likely getting pounded into the ground...hm.... not really a hard decision to make.

I don't have to assume anything. You know what I see when I look at the names of the B Div qualifiers? 99% people I don't know and haven't ever played against. But.....I've played against Preston a bunch of times. He's a more consistent player than I am, but is he out of my reach? I don't think so....he might have a different opinion, especially on Twilight Zone, haha. It's not hard to extrapolate that if he can win B division, and I feel like we're fairly closely matched, then logic presents that I would have a decent shot at winning B division if I can improve my consistency. I love playing against the Austin and Houston guys. I wish I had more time and more opportunities to do so. If it wasn't for the competiton from them, I very much doubt I'd ever have had a lasting interest in competitive pinball, or much reason to try to do better. Glad to see one of them bring something major home... I'm just kind of shocked that as good as he is, he's not A restricted, but again....looked it up...restrictions on Pinburgh are waaaaaay looser than I figured they would be, that was my mistake for not having checked that. I wish I had skipped Nationals and gone to Pinburgh...I chose the wrong one. Grats to him, I just feel like his potential is much higher than 1st place B. He does usually better than I do against the other ATX/HOU guys that went into A div chasing nearly impossible money.

Me too bro!

I can win any tournament, especially ones I don't go to!

Those guys all suck!

thats why everyone overall should just qualify where they do, no "restrictions" playing games blind with no practice makes the play field level (no pun intended lol), esp when on em and ss games and lock stealing games.. look how many "B" and "C" players made the "A" cut. that should tell the tale. that doesn't happen at papa.
at pinburgh, even you are a highly skilled players, it comes down to who is in your groups per round and what exact bank of games u play. if we all played on the same exact bank of games, different story.

I just read they are going to have driverless ubers by the end of the month in Pittsburgh. Too bad they didn't have that for Pinburgh. I am kind of worried for the loss of jobs for Taxi drivers.

They had regular uber, and several other options. It's not like the lack of magical wizard cars was a loss.

The lack of magical wizard cars is a heavy loss for us all.

EXACTLY!