The show was great, the tournament had some issues, and I like a few others was upset about the scoring issues, but when one person is doing it all it's hard. I appreciate the work that Ken and Marcus both did because they worked their asses off.

Also: To the guy that said go up in price on tournament tickets instead of general admission have you ever bought one of those tickets? It is $5 for two games on one machine which is already crazy money, but we pay it for the chance to leave with a trophy, points, and some recognition.... Leave the tournament ticket price alone!

Double post sorry.

And first up will be me, as I think (hope?) you already know

Actually, 95% of Chaos when it doesn't have stuff going wrong is really fun. It's like a welcoming party. The 5% is when things go wrong, and I honestly think that having someone not named Dan Loosen running it will greatly help, as that shmuck has to be at 25 other places too.

That is a shame people don't step up and help. It's their show too.

Last time I as at MGC. ( 2010 ) While my seminar turned to crap. I helped Rob Anthony and Andrew Barney for seven hours Saturday night into Sunday morning running games up and down the elevator and repairing them. And I was there around four hours after the show closed to help tear down.

No one asked me. Stuff needed doing and I helped where I could. Makes things better for everybody.

LTG : )

True, but it should just award points under these circumstances. A lot of games, going back 20+ years, will award points in place of an extra ball. To my knowledge there is no way to shut off the "points ball" the game may award except game-specific changes like (for Avengers) increasing the minimum number of COSMIC completions required to light the extra ball.

JonnyO hit my recommendations for tournament software perfectly. I am hopeful that collectively we can build something that makes event-running a lot smoother and simpler.

I gave up my vacation days to run this event for folks. I do it because I love the hobby. I had zero complaints from tourney players in side tourneys that did not award wppr points. Those tourneys are just for fun and the players were excited at getting to compete. I must balance the needs of non professional players with those of people in it for the points. That is why I created three divisions two years ago to keep professional players from stomping all over the locals who just wanted to have fun.

As far as the number of trophys someone needs to recount. There were close to 70 of them.

Tourney volunteers do not play in the tourney for free. We bought our tickets just like everyone else. I have a whole wallet full of them I never got to really play due to all the glitches. And I didn't ask for a refund on them. I ate that 100 dollars. I also had travel and room expenses just like everyone else. I can't even tell you what games were on the floor because I never really had a chance to go look. I have always wanted to play a Hercules and I know it was there but there wasn't a chance. I also had parts I needed to buy....forget that....swap meet? Not a chance....I did not play a single game on the floor all weekend. I had two games on the floor that went down that i did not have time to repair. (Sorry about that) I had a grand total of three meals over three days. I also had a few things i really wanted Dennis and George to sign but sadly did not have time .

Our volunteers get free admit to the show, a shirt, and I throw a volunteer party for them at my house. Many of them can't attend that because they are not local. That's it that is all they get. I have the utmost respect and sincere appreciation for them. I doubled the number of people helping from last year. I thought that this was enough. Had we not have had all the issues manpower would have been okay. However, next year either we will have more people or less games. Less games means longer lines but it also means less to keep going and keep up with.

The other gentlemen in this thread is very correct about tourneys being very difficult to organize and run and run well. I have been doing TPF for several years and every year it got better. This year was a giant blip. He is also correct about it being hard to find people who want to volunteer especially when they receive verbal abuse from certain players. I have dealt with this over the years and it is never locals who do that. I guess that is because Texas is the friendship state belligerent and complaining players are rare but it only takes one to sour a whole group of volunteers. Why would anyone volunteer for abuse? That being said most top players ie Trent, Bob, Colin, DNO, and others showed a level of sportsmanship and conduct that I highly admire and should be studied by all players in all sports.

As far as what games are used we always get the latest games in the box. This allows us to have new games that won't break down as much. We help buyers of those games by helping pay for the games in exchange for their use over the weekend. How many tourneys are running 5 high dollar le games? This isn't expo. We are not right next to a pinball factory were games can be loaned etc.
At TPF this year were 9 nib games if I recall correctly. This is also a tourney expense most don't account for in their calculations.

As far as Woz goes I really really like it. Mechanically it held up extremely well. Full disclaimer here is that yes I have one on preorder. The JJP were extremely nice and helpful. Same can be said for the Stern folks who came. I truly believe that pinball people are good people.

We have a few vendors at TPF but one of the things that make it such a great show is all the games brought in by locals. TPF reminds me more of a car show than a pinball show. If you have been you have saw the amazing restored and modded games for people to play. A local brought his Big Bang bar. How many others would do that? At car shows you get don't touch, at TPF someone brought a 20k game and said have fun.

To the gentlemen who is expressing the most negativity in this thread, I'm sorry you were disappointed and I'm sorry you chose to air your concerns in such a public forum. Spending time with me by email or on the phone would have led to a productive discussion.

I am trying to grow the hobby. Isn't that the goal here? For example the women's tourney was a lot of fun, ran smoothly, and was enjoyed by those who played in it. They asked to have another one in the future. I think that will happen as long as it continues to be fun.

I'm not just trying to grow pinball as a pro sport. Keeping to cars as an analogy not everyone can be a top fuel driver but most people can afford to go race at the local strip if that's their hobby. If I can make the tourneys fun for all kinds of players the hobby grows. I was told time and again to take away the little side tourneys because they use games that the pros could be playing eating into their game time. I'm not going to do that. I did have dedicated kids machines this year and that was cool and helped. I tried to leave the settings on these really loose so kids would have more fun I did take time out to play with my son in the parent child tourney since he will only be eligible one more year and I'm not apologizing for that.

Most people who complain have no idea what it takes to pull off a show of that size and complexity with a staff of five core people. I always keep in mind that for the few negative Nancy's there are many more who love and praise the show. I really appreciate those folks

As far as software goes someone give me a software program that will run qualifying, keep track of it, assign points for the state championship qualifying, while allowing input from multiple mobile devices at the same time and I would be ESTATIC to use it. But don't change me anything for it because we all know tourneys can't have any expenses (sigh). I have a local tourney coming up at my house and I would be glad to test it there. Heck, charge me for it. I'll pay for it out of my own pocket.

As far as charging for seminars we decided some years ago not to do that. Oh btw, I also set up the av equipment for use in the seminars. The JJP people helped out with this as well. That is one reason why I disappeared at points on Saturday was to help make sure the seminars got started and speakers had what they needed.

Im about having fun playing pinball. Are you? If it ceases to be fun I won't do it anymore. I have plenty of other non fun things I could be doing Did anyone else notice that someone created a new profile just so they could start this thread? I did. Why? Why hide? I'm not. Like I said before I can take criticism with the goal of improvement. Can you? What have you done to grow the hobby? More importantly what more can we do together to grow the hobby? There are a lot of constructive points in this thread and I read every one of them. Will changes be made? Yes, you better it.

I can vouch for that.

Friday night I was helping with the qualifying and even people keeping score that played gave me their tickets before they started.

LTG : )

Llyod...I thank you and several others who when they saw we were getting swamped stepped up and tried to help take the load off I hope you wont avoid Texas in the future because we put you to work lol.....

It was a pleasure to help.

I would have done more at the tournament but my knee was killing me and I was on it too long Friday night. So I helped over at Rob's Saturday and Sunday.

When I'm at a show, I usually keep busy somewhere. And it was a pleasure to help such a great event !

LTG : )

There are many players that usually step up and help with tournaments, but I do know in years past you didn't want players to help and play in the same tournament -- the exception was clock chaos.

I know that in 2010 and 2011 I asked if you wanted help and you said you didn't like the idea of those playing also helping -- which is fine by me. I know the Sharpes helped some in 2011, but it was not that much compared to others they've been at.

I haven't heard of many shows having "professionals" ready to step up. If you're out there, send me your demands, or heck - offer to help this year.

Seriously? How many tournaments and shows do you attend each year?

Adam's software works great, but can be a little challenging to setup at first, but he provides a nice detailed PDF on how to configure everything.

We used it at Louisville with zero issues.

My software will be ready for public consumption too in the coming months. I generally don't toot my own horn, but I thought it went very well at INDISC (http://www.iepinball.com/neverdrains/2013standings/) and received a number of thanks and compliments from various people for it. Web-based system with mobile scorekeeping (iPod/iPad/Android/WHATEVER). Zero paper, instant score postings, less frustrations, etc. More hardware/software requirements than anything else though so setup is trickier.

Most people don't account for this because outside of Expo no one else does this. "High dollar LE" games are not always the best games for tournaments (from a ruleset and reliability perspective) and when properly dialed in many older games work much better for events like this.

We are also trying to support the people who still make pinball to grow pinball. What good does it do to use a WMS pin? They could care less they want you to play slots. But if new folks to the hobby get to play avengers and then they want one that is good for all of us who love pinball. I know for a fact a guy bought an avengers at the show because he played it and loved it.

I'm trying to grow pinball as a hobby/industry not just as a professional sport.

I know people got to see Woz and Avengers and ACDC and several were sold due to the fact people got to see new games.

Yup, Karl's software worked great as well.

Where can I sign up?

I have been saying that the #1 thing I want is a locked down (i.e. password protected) application where a scorekeeper can just directly enter a players score on the game they are monitoring and it automatically uploads to the big board.

NO MORE PAPER would be great!

Hoping to be ready with the latest revision late April/early May after tweaking it based on responses from INDISC. Here's a video tour of the system as of just after INDISC:

Much has changed since though, so it's not a perfect representation of the system but it'll give you a general overview. Score entry will be faster with fewer verification pages. A few tweaks to the queuing system. New option for taking a photo and attaching it to the recorded score. I'll make a new post around here once I'm ready to share it.

Doing a show of this size requires, unbelieable acts of faith,work, dedication and money.
We do not run this show to get rich, and its a good thing.
Moving to a new location, requires massive work, planning and $, to resolve every issue.
We Produce the show, because we like to share, and spread the hobby of pinball, allowing everyone a common place to gather with friends , and show off thier skills, and make freinds.
It is very easy to make assumputions without knowing facts,
or the real problems that must be over come, to produce a show
of this size and still hold everything together.
for instance; the Hotel coordinator ordered all Electrical work stopped until Friday at 5:00.
We could do nothing with projectors and computers setups with no power.
(We usually have these setup Thursday night.)
We could not control when the loading doors were open or closed, or which doors.
We had multipule issues with the new Facility, and fought tooth and nail with Hilton Anatole.
It is easy to sit back after the fact, and pickout the issues, not so easy before hand.
The newest avalaible pins (just like we always do) we used did not help.
Running the tournaments is no picnic, were mistakes made yes,
will we improve, and learn from them yes.
Forums are good open information, we read and try and improve from suggestions.
If you wish to help, either phisyically @ the TPF show,
or just offer suggestions, or your view point,
please feel free to drop us an email: Info AT texaspinball.com
we answer every request, or suggestion submitted.

thanks, Texas Pinball Team / Shannon Smith

My guess is we'll be hearing a lot about how great Karl's software is, so I want to get in early on the well-deserved praise! It's the best. For years I've been going on about how a paper trail is absolutely necessary and how computers leave too much margin for error and blah blah blah...screw it. User-friendly, seemingly bulletproof, easy to enter to fix an error; I loved it! Go Karl.

Troz> Love it!

Is it going to be free to use?

Thanks in advance. It looks awesome!

Sign me up for this software too. How about this, fix it so a player could take the photo and select his name and score for the tourney at hand. He then hands this to the tourney volunteer who enters a code on the verification page that is known only to tourney workers. What a system that would be

This looks fantastic. I hope to see more information about tournament formats supported by your software.

Wow. Wow! This looks fantastic.

You go to a pinball event and then complain about being too tired to play.

Sounds like you might be better off playing Friday Night Bingo with the old timers.

Thanks - I'll have to check this out!

It's a shame there were so many problems, but it takes a lot of guts to run an event of this size and I'm personally aware of the sacrifices that are involved so I still tip my hat to you for your effort. And as you said, this was a blip in an otherwise solid track record.

I do have experience running tourneys 2013 isn't my first rodeo. However, never ever have I been hit with all the issues that hit at the same time on this one. How many have you ran? Have they all been perfect? How many hours would you like to volunteer to help so it runs smoother next time?

I think a possible solution might be to run completely separate "amateur" and "pro" tournaments that don't use the same machines at all. Use the new machines for the amateur tournaments, but use "tried and true" machines that are at least a year old for the pro one, instead of having everyone qualify on the same machines and using how they did to place them in "A B C", have a seperate bank for each.

It seems like the new hotel was a lot more difficult, and did a lot more price gouging than the old one (parking etc) even though they were both Hiltons, am I correct?

Someone came up to me at TPF and said I was doing a great job - I was scorekeeping for a while Saturday and checking on some fellow volunteer scorekeepers making sure they were good to go, including the teenager that stepped up and helped out (he did a great job). It really only takes one person's kind comment to make it all worth it, as well as the passion for the game. And I think my reply was simply 'just doing what I can to help' but his type of comment let's you know that people appreciate volunteers. But all the unseen efforts the tourney directors put into the tournament, regardless of some of the problems, far outweighed my contribution. I think that directors need to be thanked more often as well.

In this case, you're both right so I wouldn't argue over it. It's just a sucky situation.

I did a tournament at PPM and *everything* went wrong. It was like a malfunction every 10 minutes, it seemed. A guy named Chris fixed everything as it happened, including a couple MacGyver fixes to just keep the games limping through qualifiers since we didn't have the parts. Every game had a major malfunction except one, and all were relatively maintenance-free before the event. It was just bad luck.

I was so grateful for Chris' help I gave him one of the prizes - a translite. Then someone stole a translite so I was one short. He didn't end up getting it till this past weekend, and the tournament in question was six months ago.

This is the best tournament by far when it comes to trophies, and for most players that aren't ranked in the top 300, that is one of the best rewards. My two trophies from TPF 2012 are prominently displayed next to my pins.

You have no idea how much truth there is in that question

To Pinballrebel:

I read this thread not because I attended this event, but because I intend to host my first tourney in May... much smaller scale of course. But it's good to know what can go wrong.

My own experience from organizing events or acting as a referee for... martial arts is that you hardly get praise, and mostly critics. Sometimes constructive, often not. And people underestimate the efforts, time, etc.

That is to say... Thanks for organizing tournaments. And thanks for giving your own feedback and reacting in a non-anonymous way. And I hope I will visit Texas one day!!

Don't get me started on the parking. First of all I hate price gouging on parking and the Anatole is one of the kings. Even if you wanted to park in their lot they had 99% to the entrances blocked off which just put everybody right back out on the street. Then once you finally located the additional free parking across the street you really did not feel safe leaving your car there.
I thought the funniest part was driving all the way down the "additional parking" road and seeing the sign that said more parking to the left, and the only thing to the left was an alley that looked like something out of Modern Warfare.

I don't know if it was me you asked, because I have no issues with it. I have issues with the be-all, end-all guy that has to make decisions playing in it, which is why I put myself in that position generally (and have maintained it this year), but if you check the records, Jim who has been an official for us since 2006 has played in every tournament. I actually encourage it, and usually buy entries for everyone who helps myself so they can understand what they are doing.

By all means, if you got that impression, I apologize and again by all means, I'd love to have you step up and help out.

I attend enough and know enough people that run them to know that none of them have "professionals" come in and run their tournaments. You can make arguments that [fill in name] is the best at running tournaments, and there are certain people who run more than others, but none of them are "professionals".

If you would like to get any of the professionals to take over our tournament next year, I know we would be very open to this. As I proposed in the past - I won't charge you for space (within reason), I won't dictate what you need to give out for prizes, I would like some input on how things are done to the extent of I don't want to lose Kids division for instance, but beyond that, if there is a professional out there who comes in and does this, send them to me!

The festival was great, incredible representation of machines from all eras with most of the more popular and desired ones represented. The layout was good - machines were spread out throughout the large room so there were not large crowds in most areas. The waits to play popular titles were rarely more than two or three people ahead of you (except WOZ).

The hotel compound was visually beautiful but huge - it was a ten minute walk from our room in the atrium to the festival. They are very proud of the facility and the prices reflect it - starting with the discounted parking rate of $10. a night to the prices in the bars and restaurants, it was not a cheap weekend if you didn't venture out away from the property.

The tournament was a trainwreck from my point of view. It was frustrating to me to have no idea where I stood in the standings for the side tourneys and the main event. I had some good scores on some machines and some terrible scores on others but I didn't know where I stood. Financially, I am not able to continue to throw $5. dollar bills around to continue blindly playing qualifying games. Had I known where I was compared to the field, I would absolutely have played more games to try to improve specific machine scores. The continued extension of the cutoff time for qualifying did nothing but complicate matters and the communication was less than ideal.

The World Series tournament (just for fun) was scheduled to begin at 9:00 but it was after 11:00 before we got started.

Many people were complaining/commenting on their scores not being correctly entered, I still have no idea if mine were or not, I have not seen them. I would really like to see Ken post a link to the qualifying score spreadsheet.

If I had not participated in the tournaments it would have been a fantastic event for me, I would have not gone through the frustration of all that I have mentioned and much more I didn't plus I would have had an extra $65. in my wallet.

Live and learn...

I agree sir! I wish they would post the qualifying scores. I put way too much money in that tournament playing blindly...

Boo! CSI is a great tournament game!

If you enjoy punishing people

Don't get me started on the parking. First of all I hate price gouging on parking and the Anatole is one of the kings. Even if you wanted to park in their lot they had 99% to the entrances blocked off which just put everybody right back out on the street. Then once you finally located the additional free parking across the street you really did not feel safe leaving your car there.I thought the funniest part was driving all the way down the "additional parking" road and seeing the sign that said more parking to the left, and the only thing to the left was an alley that looked like something out of Modern Warfare.

Check out my comments when the new location was announced last year:

TPF_2013a.PNG TPF_13b.PNG

I attended the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival and played in all the tournaments. It didn't go as smoothly as we would have all liked. However, instead of criticizing, why don't we give a thank you to all the volunteers that worked their tails off to provided us with the show. I for one would like to see the Festival continue for years to come. Lets stop the bashing and offer ideas to make future Festivals better for us all.

A huge thank you !

Remember when things didn't go smoothly, ran hours longer. The people doing the work were working longer and harder too.

LTG : )

Was the show awesome? Yes.

Could the tournament have run smoother? Of course.

To anyone considering not going back to TPF because of the 2013 tournament experience:

- The tournament ran smooth (as far as I could tell) in 2011 and 2012, and I have no doubt that future years will be just fine--2013 appeared to be a perfect storm of multiple things all hitting at once. The organizers had no reason to anticipate it would've gone down the way it did. Could they have made better decisions during the event? Heck yeah. But you know what? Considering what they had to deal with, they did what felt right at the time based on their years of experience. Can't fault them for that. Whatever frustration we were feeling as players, I'm sure was quadrupled for them.

- Marcus and Ken are EXCELLENT representatives of the pinball community.
Ken spent the ENTIRE show doing what he could to smooth event and tournament issues. As he wrote above, he did not even get to the floor to play games.
I only saw Marcus in two places this weekend: In the tournament area (usually working on his laptop while constantly, and calmly, addressing everyone who had questions), and I saw him once on Classic Stern row fixing one of his many fantastic machines that he brought.

I would like to give Marcus and Ken a HUGE thank you for everything they gave to us, the players, over the weekend. I will be back, and I will be in the tournament again. I just hope that everyone who thought or said "I'm never coming back here" (which I heard from 4 or 5 people) can change their minds. TPF is a very, very important show to the scene and has shown consistent growth over the last decade. I know these guys usually put on a great event, and I hope you will not let this year's unfortunate turns keep you from attending in future years.

I'm also going to put my money where my mouth is and solidify my faith in TPF by becoming a volunteer for 2014. Will you do the same?

Dayvv
Ozark Pinball Syndicate

I second that !

LTG : )

+1. I also appreciated the decorum, tact, and patience that Ken & Marcus had when tempers flared / nerves ran raw / sleep deprivation reared its ugly head.

I helped with the score keeping for a couple hours saturday morning while marcus was fixing games and it is a lot of work. Trying to keep up with each sheet, each person, making sure the score goes in the right place, watching people making sure they're doing what they should be, keeping people out that don't belong in the section.

Ken next time just hollar and we will grab you some food on the way back lol!

Not sure what you have been reading but 90 something percent of us have thanked them for the show in our posts. There will always be a few bad eggs in any crowd, it's just to be expected.
I also believe lots of ideas have been put out there as well.

I was helping out in the tourney area... i was also in the tourney until 6:30am Sunday morning, then had to be back at 9am to continue the competition. I had been up since 7am Saturday in order to catch the early-morning swap meet, so I was operating on fumes during the finals. I ended up winning one division and just missing the money on overall.

It was a challenge... I did my best to deal with it, as I think most players did... it definitely affected my performance in the finals of the championship... and I feel for the other players, some of whom couldn't or didn't hang out to compete. It was a certain sequence of events that happened - games broke down, some of the officials had to repair their own games and these same people were in charge of tabulating the scoring data. So things got delayed.

I am friends with the organizers and I appreciate their efforts. I also feel for the players who ended up pulling an all-nighter to compete. since i'm looking to organize my own events in Louisiana, I learned a lot from this experience.

One thing I can unequivocally say is Ken busted his ass almost 24/7 holding things together. The same with Marcus. It is unfortunate that the event had some glitches, but it sure wasn't due to the organizers not giving less than 250% trying to make it work. Can it be improved upon next year? No doubt and I am sure it will be.

By the way, I thought WOZ made an excellent tournament game. The only caveat is that you couldn't run multi-player games on it. Otherwise, it went a long way towards leveling the playing field. I took out a few top-level players using WOZ.

Why isn't there an open source tournament software that we can contribute development to?

I get the sense that there are a decent amount of coders/tech pros on pinside, why not all contribute to one system?

Troz, I don't know what your plans were money-wise, but maybe open source it on github or something if you were going to give it away free? Let the community contribute?

Just some thoughts.