For people suffering from sticker shock on the hotels. Stay on the south side of the river. 10-15 buck Uber ride and like half the price per person if you split the room.

It wasn't obvious whether or not there are reserved tickets, say for previous years' winners. Either way is fine, I think. Just state which, so people don't need to speculate.

The tournament info also doesn't say if there are spots reserved for Martians. #wheresthetransparency

I don't think there is any more than 1 spot reserved. I know I asked this years ago and I think the response from Mark Steinman or Bowen was:

The only spot reserved in advance is for whomever places 1st in A the previous year or whomever wins PAPA A. In other words, a spot is only reserved if it was offered as part of a prize for winning a previous event.

I have no idea if they awarded any spots for 2018 or not.

When an event is as popular as Pinburgh, with over 400 people missing out, it doesn't hurt to be explicit.

It's an impossible task to list the things you're not doing. Not possible. That's what I'm saying. Just because you think it's obvious that of course they need to say they're not reserving spots doesn't make it true that it's obvious.

I agree. It's possible to list what you are doing though: "All tickets are sold on a first-come first-served basis."

Is anyone else put on the waiting list even though you clearly purchased and have a printed event ticket in hand? I bought three tickets right away and two of us are in with one on the waitlist. The only difference is the one player had a wppr ID.

They auctioned one spot on eBay for charity. See how hard this is?

Maybe in the future there needs to be a Pinburgh and a Pinburgh II.

Take advantage of having the hall for the full week... run Pinburgh I as the lower tier prize pool event with some sort of eligibility filter... run Pinburgh II on the following 3 days as the high tier prize pool event.. Or even take it as the 'first fills up, then fill the second...' I dunno.. take your pick of design intentions.

Running two events at different times may not be viable.. but maybe it's viable to run two back to back?

The question remains to be seen if the 'pinburgh player' can be drawn to the location without playing 'in pinburgh'... and if some alt form of tournament is enough to draw those other 400+ players into an event.

Based on my quick and dirty (aka not flawless) comparison of weblists... 37 names on the waitlist are top 300 IFPA players.. and 14 of the names are from the top 100 IFPA player ranks.

The problem with this idea is, they need the time that they have at the beginning of the week for setup & testing (and I'm sure they'd prefer MORE time!) so there isn't really any time to run another event.

Not to mention that everyone would want to be in 'the main one' whichever that is and not in the step-child version anyway.

On Point 1 - this depends on their booking window for the hall... maybe it can fit.. maybe not. But doing it once has to be easier than doing it twice. And there isn't another papa collection, so you can't run another major of the same type without alot more pins. Just throwing it out there as a way to increase capacity. It's done with all the papa side events...

On Point 2 - I think this depends on the player profile... and how you setup the event. Do we need to rehash so many threads about people so interesting in winning how far they'll go to sandbag, etc. Maybe Event II satisifies some of those people... maybe Event II satisifies the desire to 'expand the player base'.. or other ideas. You really have to set your goals to be able to setup the entry criteria that set up for that goal.

No PAPA WC's tourney didn't help this situation one iota either.

Yes. Chris Frame is 22nd on the list and I got him a ticket so that waiting list hasn't been paired down yet. Once they go through and remove people that are on the list, but did end up getting tickets it will drop a little.

For those looking for hotels you can still find rooms at:

Marriott Courtyard (across the street from the event - https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/pitcy-courtyard-pittsburgh-downtown/) for $239/nt

or the Kimpton Monaco (very nice hotel a few blocks away but still closer than the Omni - http://www.monaco-pittsburgh.com/) for $218/nt.

Not quite as cheap as the room block but both are closer and good (or very nice in the case of Kimpton) hotels.

To help secure my tickets for Pinburgh, since I had to use my cell Hot Spot and was certain it was going to lag out, I opened up notepad and had my credit card nunber, exp date, CVV, and IFPA numbers all ready. I then copied the CC number to the clipboard for quick pasting.

Was that necessary though? All you had to do was get the tickets in your cart. Once in your cart you have 15 minutes to check out so that you can enter all that information.

i believe you are correct. once it's in your cart, the ticket is "off the board" unless your cart times out.

No idea. First timer and didn’t want to chance anything, especially on a spotty hot spot.

Comfort Inn. Two within 5 miles. $120 a night prepay ....

I just logged in at noon sharp
Like everybody else, and got a ticket.

I don’t think there’s a secret formula.

There are no reserved tickets for previous winners.

We would have to rent the Convention Center (keep in mind this is a full convention center and not a hotel ballroom) for two weeks to pull this off. At this stage it is not financially feasible to do that. It would also require us to take additional time off of our real world jobs to run the tournament which would probably be a non-starter for a lot of our key personnel.

Just fyi ...Modern browsers can save this kind of stuff in auto-fill form features. Names, addresses, cc info, etc.

Also for showclix, once the ticket is in your cart, it should be secured until the transaction is complete or times out.

Alas Scaling vertically is always going get harder and harder verse horizontally...

I mention the schedule fit or not because I didn’t know in what increments they’d let you schedule... and what portions. Surely there are options that allow you to have some of the facility but not all of it? And maybe allows more suitable time increments?

just curious when you hope to have this resolved and the new block go on sale.

I have noticed the algorithms for other places must notice the uptick in people searching as some prices have gone up so just want to make sure I am on point for the additional block of rooms.

TIA

Keep an eye on the ReplayFX facebook page as we will be sure to announce it there. I know that Mark is negotiating to get another block set up.

I am trying to figure out my flight schedule and have never been to pinsburgh/replayfx before. What typically happens on Sundays? Event closing time? Etc. Any info would be helpful as I plan flights

Nothing. Free play. You can book out early imo

Sunday is the finals for the Intergalatic Tournament! It's a limited entry tournament that is open to everyone. $10 entry.

With over 400 on the waitlist, sounds like you either find a way to handle 1100 instead of 700. Or raffle the 700 spots next year.

Bowen made it clear he’s very against such preferential allotments

From what I’ve read, this is not a priority of the tournament organizers.

There seems to be a real vacuum for a proper "Pinball Super Bowl" of Pinburgh's size and also the cash prize pool it is able to generate.

I understand the clash of ideals, about what Pinburgh is and who its for, and the real need for a huge big money tournament for pinball's best (and everyone who wants to play the best, or be part of the "Super Bowl") that rivals the best eSports offers.

Our current priority is to get as many people into the tournament every year who want to play in it, while still keeping the experience as the best in competitive pinball.

I wouldn't say that we will 'never' reserve spots in the tournament for players, but it is not something that we currently do.

I personally would like it to stay this way. Just guarantee reigning champ, then let the rest fall as it may.

Doug said a couple of times in this thread that all if the tickets were available for purchase. On post #172 he says nothing was reserved for past winners, but doesn’t share that some may have been reserved for other things.

For example, Level One (a barcade near me with a pinball league) had a couple tournament entries as prizes / for auction. I guess I’m curious why Level One has 2 available. How many others were set aside?

Three groups contacted us ahead of time to see if they could purchase tickets for their leagues/tournaments. We said it was fine to do so for promotional reasons, but they had to be purchased when tickets went on sale during the rush.

#pinburghexposed
#pinspiracy
#thatsreallygonnabeyourfirstpinsidepost
#dontreallycare

Oh boy.

I don’t think people really care that level one can buy early. I don’t think people care if tickets are reserved for other certain players (past champions, top ranked players, etc). But I do think people care that they are led to believe (actually told) that everyone is in the same boat with regards to their chances to acquire a very high demand ticket. Rightfully so, people are skeptical that this is actually the case.

That's not how I was told it was handled, but perhaps I misunderstood.

Either way, if you think it was something we tried to hide, would we have posted the bar name on the player list?

I'm just passing along the information I have. When the player list got posted I received questions about the businesses that were listed on it. The response I received was that they had asked about running a promotion but had to buy tickets like everyone else. I'm not directly involved with ticketing or these promotions in any way. I'm just trying to pass along the information I have and give people as much insight as I can into the event and process as I can.

Dang so I want to go to some big tournament this year so I thought "Hey the PAPA tournament sounds cool." realizing it's probably not even happening.

So then I remembered Pinburgh and thought that would be cool too. Then I read this forum then realized I was way too late.

You're in luck: There has never been a time when there were more big and awesome pinball tournaments than there are now.

There is a waitlist for Pinburgh you can sign up for to be notified when spots open up.