Pingolf?
Zen tournament?

Pingolf with a score threshold as the goal. Keep it low. The worst that can happen is people get hole in one and feel great about themselves. You just want guests to have fun. Don’t make it last too long either. With 12 ppl and 13 games you can easily over do it. An hour tops for non pinheads. So you may need to use fewer games. Fun prizes for winners.

I’ve also done a thing where the rule “put up a high score on any game and win a prize from the grab bag” and bag has namely nip liquor bottles. And of course set the default high scores all very low before the party.
This is a way to encourage periodic play without having an “event”.

Have fun. Let us know how it goes!

I've had success with using the pingolf format at my show for both beginners and experienced players.

Here's the format and rules that were used:

https://pinballsaratoga.com/show-details/tournament/#Format

A round of 9 holes/games seems to take a group of 4 about 90 minutes to complete.

I like the easy Pin Golf recommend. 5-6 holes would be plenty. Maybe pair it with a high score challenge on 1-2 other games.

Parent/kid teamup tournament (Could be Husband/Wife as well.)

"Stall-ball"

A "flip frenzy" is a good timed event. https://matchplay.events/handbook/flip-frenzy

Hah, I forgot about stall ball. That one is a blast.

You'll find this is a common issue overall, That Some/most people are just not that into playing pinball machines or arcade games.

I'd just get a whiteboard and put up highscores

Pin golf all day for non pinheads. It’s simple. Another thing to keep interest is to get some cheap “prizes”…lots of stuff you can do to make it fun.

I'm a fan of the "3 strikes" tournament as played at the local Crabtown league.

Everyone is paired off in groups of two and plays a game of what ever pin. You win or you lose. If you lose you get a strike. 3 Strikes and you are out.

Round 1: 10 people, 5 groups of 2. 5 people have 1 strike at the end of the round.
Round 2: 10 people, 5 groups of 2. The people with no strikes play other people with no strikes. The people with 1 strike play against people with 1 strike. Around 3 people with 2 strikes, 5 people with 1 strike, and 3 people with no strikes at end of the round.
Round 3: 10 people, 5 groups of 2. The people with no strikes play against each other, with one play against each other, and with 2 play against each other. At the end of this round people who have not won any games are eliminated.

This format is great as better players play against each other and worse players play against each other.

If you do something like this, don't participate yourself with the noobs and run the tournament yourself. Maybe challenge the winner.

Split flipper.

Agree with Satan…3 strikes is a good idea and usually doesn’t take too long. Non pinheads can get a little bored or lose interest if a tournament takes too long.

The only times I’ve gotten non pinheads to play is by setting up a comp. They literally just look at the games only if I don’t do that.

I'd favor a simple group match play thing. Super simple to set up & run with matchplay.events - You can have the ongoing standings/matches/scores on a smart TV. Everybody plays in every round (versus eliminations in something like a strikes tournament) Way more straightforward/simple than pingolf.

split flipper is great because you can pair off people who are new and people with a clue

Who’s forcing anyone? They are always into it. That’s why I do it. They don’t know what to do, but appreciate direction.

Setting up a split flipper tournament that takes a hour is a good way to hang and learn about pinball.

YMMV

I did something similar for work people at my local arcade - with 80 pins on site. I picked about 6-8 games, and tried to pick different stuff. Banzaii run for the backbox PF, spiderman because the rules were easy, medieval madeness because it's a classic, JJP Pirates because its pretty, etc.

I set a time limit of an hr, and had my laptop there with a spreadsheet. Honor system. Play as many games as you wanted in the hour. Keep track of your score. Players could look to see what other peoples scores were and try to best them if they were able. End of the hour - play offs bracket style. Everyone loved it.

Not sure what it’s called but I played this at CO Bar in Frisco, CO and have now done it twice as beginner tourney for my coworkers. It goes over very well with my coworkers:
- players play in groups of 3 or 4 each round
- winner of group gets 0pts, 2nd in group gets 1, 3rd gets 2, 4th gets 3.
- once you have X pts, you’re out.
- after each round players are reseated for next game.
- I’ve played with 7pt cap. Players typically start being eliminated in rounds 4&5. Final is usually completed in round 8 or 9.

I just ask people if the want to play split flipper. They’ve always said yes after they understand what it is.

This is called progressive strikes.

Thanks.

This works well for my non-pin coworkers because each round seems to turn out to be a friendly social multiplayer game. I made an excel worksheet to manage the tourney and it always reseeds players to current ranking…so nobody is consistently overmatched.

…also it keeps just 4 to 6 machines playing at a time, so I worry less about tripping a breaker!

I usually do this at family events, sports parties, and used to when my daughter was younger and her friends parents were over.

You won’t know if they aren’t interested until you ask them. Haven’t had someone decline split flipper yet.

I’ve found the reason they aren’t playing is because they think they are gonna break them or something like that.

I like talking to people to see what they are or aren’t into. But everyone’s different.

This is more like suggesting a new board game to the group imo.

Oh and these people are still not into pinball, haha. They just have enjoyed split flipper when I’ve suggested it.

Sometimes it's easier to engage people in a structured group activity, rather than letting them go off on their own to explore.

I'm hosting a one handed tournament (July 24th at Bearmoose Brewing Co. in Everett Ma. if anybody here wants to join) that is going to be pretty interesting. We've got a few people signed up who are NOT pinheads or regular tournament players. While the flip frenzy part might get a little confusing, the one handed thing I think is going to be a hit. Really levels the playing field between really good and just okay players, and doing something as radical as forcing someone to use one hand really helps someone understand some of the geometry and control a little bit better.

Recently I won a small tournament with a very basic setup that I enjoyed very much. Participants are grouped in groups of 4. The first four rounds they are playing in this group on four different machines. Each round the order of players rotates, so everybody plays first, second and so on. They play one game on each machine against each other. Winner hets 9 points, second place gets 6 points, third place 4, last place 2.

After four rounds each player's points are totalled, resulting in a ranking. The best players continue in new groups of four for another round. From that round the two highest scores per game move on to the next round, and so on until there are only 2, 3, or 4 players left for the final.

The more casual the format, the better, IMO. People can be turned off by competition. A team concept is helpful in that regard so I concur with the split-flipper suggestion. Also, it cuts the wait time by half which will also keep people engaged.

Another thing you could try that is casual and a bit goofy would be to have a gauntlet relay. Pick some very simple/easy objectives (<30 seconds or so to achieve) on several machines and have your teams run the gauntlet and tag their teammate(s). Fastest time to completion wins.

For single player competition you could mix in some stall ball. It is simple and frenetic but has the disadvantage of more waiting and elimination.

If you decide to do pin-golf make sure the objectives are VERY EASY. People always seem to underestimate difficulty with pin-golf objectives.

Whatever you decide, report back and let us know how it went!

I would consider very easy tasks for each game for pingolf.

Like Metallica, shoot sparky once.

Medieval madness, drop the drawbridge

AFM, drop the visor.

Stuff like that. Getting a certain score may seem too random to them.

I used to have annual Halloween parties at my place and play horror themed pinball tournaments. The one that people talk to me about the most was the zombie pinball tournament.

The format theme was when you lose a ball you get closer to being dead. There were four states of gameplay. Human, bitten, zombie and dead (out of the tournament). Each player has a card which tracks their loss/undeadly state during the tournament. Each loss brings the player closer to being knocked out of the tournament, but it also has the advantage of their game having more balls to be played during their game. After a player loses the third time, they are dead and out of the tournament.

Human, state number one. Play all three balls on the game. Second game, play 2 balls. If you are STILL human playing your third game or later... you play a 1 ball game. If you lose a game as a human, mark your tourney card and play as bitten.

Bitten, state number 2. The losing player would get a strike on their scorecard and be bitten. The next round played, bitten players would play with three balls the second round, and two ball games any round after that. Lose a game when bitten, you are now a zombie.

Zombie, state number 3. Make sure that your card is marked as zombie indicating that you’ve had two lost games already. Zombies play with all three balls in their game. At this point you are into (at least) your third round of the tournament. Bitten players now play with 2 balls during the game, and humans play with one ball. This continues until there’s only four (or fewer) players left.

The only thing that needs to be managed with this is that when players finish their games, they have to immediately get into a queue line to be matched up with their next opponent. The only caveat with appointments is that you can’t play the last appointment you did last time. So depending on how quickly or how long games take, you can end up with very different players playing each other.

When the tournament gets to four players or less, everybody plays a single four player game and the four surviving players take their first, second, third and almost bronze place. As during the rest of the tournament, humans play with 1 ball, bitten players, play with 2 balls and zombie players play with 3 balls. The final scores determines tourney placing. Prizes and bragging rights are up to the tournament Director.

I’m sure you could switch the theme around this for fun pinball tourney format quite easily. However, it was originally conceived for a spooky evening. It is great for a Halloween with people dressed up in their costumes and having a good time.

Just make sure that people assign their name to their tournament ticket, and try to keep cycling players as quickly as possible back into the tournament. NO SMOKE BREAKS or any other non-vital interruption that could keep them off of the undead pinball path. Now when they’re dead after losing a game as a zombie, I made sure give participating players some sort of a treat. Food, a piece of candy, a drink, plastic vampire fangs that glow in the dark... something to make them feel the pinball party vibes. It’s all good fun and part of the Halloween celebrations!

If someone complains about this format, I tell them that this is for fun. There are no wpprs involved and if you are a “human” playing 1 ball and a “zombie” playing 3 balls beats you, that’s part of the fun. This tournament format is not designed to be competitive. It is designed to equalize higher level players who encounter more casual players in a party like setting. If people are still complaining, roll your eyes and tell them that they’ve got a bad case of the seriousnesses.

Because, I never do that...

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Zombie Pinball sounds fun

I've played "Pinball Poker before & was alright. At the time I wasn't as good as those I was playing against ...but

Anyways, anti-up for your first ball as well as the other players, 2'nd ball you can bet another chip and raise ect. (same with 3'rd ball) or you can fold , go all-in ect

.

I've also heard of "Price is right" set a target score and do NOT go over that score ...NO tilting-out bonus either

Teams of two. You could do alternate shot or split flipper. I agree with using very easy rule-based objectives rather than score based as chuckwurt stated.

Let us know your lineup and we can make objective recommendations.

These tasks are listed easier to harder.

Ultra-ween:
Start a mode (center ramp)
Rip a spinner on the top of
Start multiball from the 3 holes on the left

Afm:
destroy a saucer
Start multiball from center ramp (easy settings)
Start martian attack

Mb:
Start any monster
Start Frankenstein multiball
Start mosh pit multiball

Tz:
Start a mode
Lock a ball from either multiball
Get to the upper playfield
Start any multiball

Taf:
Hit the train
Start 2 modes
Spell greed
Start multiball

Shadow:
Start a mode.
get to the upper pf.
Start main multiball
Start vengeance

Who Dunnit:
Get off on an elevator floor
Start roulette
Solve a mystery
Start any multiball

Johnny mnemonic:
Start super spinner
Get to the glove
Start Yakuza strike

Jurassic park pro
Start t Rex
Start a mode
But the ramp from the upper flipper
Capture a finosaur

Mandalorian pro:
Start razor multiball
Get to the upper playfield (skill shot!)
Spell child

Tmnt pro:
Start multiball
Shoot under the upper flipper
1-2-3

Star Wars pro:
Don't play star wars pro
Start time fighter button bash
Start any mode
Boost playfield x to 20x

Godzilla pro
Start main multiball
Start a Kaiju battel
Start mechaggojira
Collect a saucer

Munsters pre
Start 2 characters
Collect dragula
Start crow
Get to the lower pf

Sometimes having multiple goals will make the tournament more interesting and easier for some.

More than anything else, have fun!

c2s

C2c has a lot of good suggestions but some of them will be too hard.

I would definitely try to incorporate the game’s main feature int the objective. Maybe for some you could adjust the settings to make them easier such as lowering the number of Frank Hits to open the ramp.

Definitely include:
achieve a mag a flip on TZ
Use the glove on JM
Achieve Thing flip on TAF

Access upper playfield on TS
Access mini playfield on MANDO

Yeah I would make them easier.

Monster bash. Just light Frank MB

TZ - shoot the left or right ramp once

Stuff like that.

No tourney. Split flipper teams and Tommy Dollars on the glass. Doesn't hafta be real money, but more fun if it is. That way even the people not playing get in on hooting and hollering. The "dollars" could be like drink coupons or monopoly money good for various prizes. Team playas up with noobs. Lubricate with alcohol. Go.