I think the chicago expo is really fun. it's unlike other shows. i go every year and always have fun. we went early this year, wednesday, never done that before. i like it, the dinner mike provides was very nice. i like rob's repair room too. though frankly he has way too many groupies hanging in there! ha! (i didn't even see the dog this year.) Mike was very gracious to me. but i try to not bother him as i know his job is big and tiresome and probably high stress. and i know after a show is done there's still a lot of work, even after all the visitors are long gone. so i don't try and talk to him for a couple weeks after the show is over.

A couple loose facts seem to be running around. first on the banquet. In the old days the banquet was the request of the hotel. The hotel made money on the banquet and it was required that the expo have the banquet to satisfy the needs of the hotel. At this point I don't know if that's still the case, but it's pretty clear that the expo really does not make any money on the banquet. I'm not sure the hotel requires it anymore, Michael could answer that better.

Another thing to remember is, welcome to cook county. The fire marshal issue that mike deals with is a real one. I've personally seen it. It's a huge hassle and people do not seem to understand it. Yes many years the fire marshal actually comes through with the tape measure. He checks for people putting stuff in front of doors. He checks Isle width. Any of these things are incorrect there is a large fine. Usually $500 to 1000. I do not know any other show that has to deal with this. Again welcome to cook county.

On MGC. Tom taylor's collection is about 250 games. He no longer lives in Wisconsin. Tom has not opened his collection up and probably won't again for some time. Tom is retiring in about two years and at that time he will probably move back up to Wisconsin and may reopen his collection. But don't bet on it. Tom has also been selling games. Mostly because he has no use for them when he lives four states away.

I always thought that the expo should somehow get out of cook county. I don't know what a good location would be that would still allow all the local pinball famous folks to come. Pheasant run in st Charles? I'm not sure. But the Westin has started to become very popular and Mike may have a hard time in the next few years negoitating a fair rate. For example when I tried to get another room night, they wanted $500 for the night. Obviously the expo is not the dream the Westin is probably hoping for.

The point is is things are not always what they seem. We should all be very thankful that there is a Chicago pinball Expo. Nothing lasts forever.

I talked to Tom Taylor a week ago for 30 minutes, thursday of expo. i'm just stating *exactly* what he told me. tom is my friend too. tom is getting older (we all are). and frankly pinball is a much smaller part of his life now.

on the banquet i would say to make it wednesday night. convert the current dinner on wednesday to the 'banquet', and then it doesn't conflict with the other show activities.

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it's probably good you talked to Tom. As my take away from my conversation with him was that he really didn't have the time or energy to do much of anything in WI until he fully retires in two years. He said he had a kid in school too down south, and there was no time to do much of anything in WI, between that and his job.

I saw Tom Taylor at the expo not at pinball life. I was only at pinball life for about 15 minutes to pick up some parts and I left, it was just too crowded. Perhaps the version of what he told me was different because I'm not asking him to do anything. I'm not asking him for any favors or anything else. He was just talking to me casually as a friend. I can only account for what I heard.

Since you keep bringing up the VFW show I will give you some facts about it. Yes there will be 300 games all restored and ready for play. This includes a nearly complete collection of Bally Williams WPC games, system 11 games, Zaccaria generation 2 games, Bally –35 games, dataeast games. Also all the highly collectible Gottlieb system 80 games (including spirit) and Bally 6803 games. A Extremely large collection of Gottlieb wedge heads from the 1960s and 1970s. Also the highly collectible Gottlieb wood rails from the 1950s including some really rare ones such as mermaid. In addition a lot of really rare games like big bang bar, Varkon, joust, still crazy, etc. and a number of Proc style games too, Including some where there's only one or two examples in the world.

Kids are always allowed to the VFW show but they must be well behaved and accompanied by a parent. Nobody has ever been thrown out but we do police activity for poor behavior. Poor behavior is not good for anybody that attends any show. We try to provide the best games and best environment for playing pinball. For example what happened at Expo with pinball Molly would never happen at the VFW. We police continually for this kind of poor behavior and make corrective actions to stop it or head it off at the pass. We sell a limited number of tickets to keep the game to people ratio very nice at generally one To one. We also allow camping on the facility and have a large portion of the VFW open all night for a pinball play and fun.

I'll take a stab at those...
Arcade expo has a lot of pins (and a lot more arcade machines.) But only half of the pins work, and even smaller numbers are actually restored. He (John) has the most fabulous facility though. just needs a lot more time to get the games ready. I love that facility.

ReplayFX was a complete disappointment for me personally. Sure they had a lot of games (a ton of video games unfortunately.) And all the pins in the tourney area worked great, so i hear (not accessible to non tourney people). But the pins on the floor, meh at best. Many were still on credit play (with no credits), or just plain broken. Also that facility was HUGE and gave this weird cavernous effect to everything. And the jump piles for kids, please... Personally i wish they would go back to the PAPA facility because everything there worked and the facility is top notch (and it's all pinball.)

California extreme is a lot of video games. not nearly as much pinball, though there is a lot of pinball too.

I too don't know much about Texas. I hear it's a good show though.

I'm personally not a big fan of shows that are not pure pinball. Mostly because it brings in a lot more people that end up in the pinball area, that aren't really pinball people. Making it a lot more crowded and harder to play. But that's me. Your mileage may vary.

I love the chicago expo. there is something about that show that can't be replicated by other shows. it's always a fun time. not a ton of games to play, but i've never seen Lexi P3 at any other show, for example.

I'm not a fan of kids, they are totally over-rated that whole parenthood thing. I'm still thinking Hipsters are the future of pinball. Not that it really matters to me. I'll be long dead before any of that stuff comes to reality.

On replayfx, i thought it was one of the worst pinball shows i had been to. We went friday, and damn near everything i tried to play (non-tourney) was either broken or didn't have credits. there were techs there but they were concentrating on the tourney. i guess that's to be expected. but moving that volume of games doesn't generally go well. games don't like being moved. also going from a pay-to-play venue (PAPA) to a free-play venue (show) requires a lot more work, which apparently did not get done.

that venue though just wore me out. the echoing of sound or the hard floor, i'm not sure, but man it just grated on me. also getting anywhere in that building seems like a 1/4 mile walk. that probably contributed too. the place was just too big, way too big. Also way expensive too. getting a drink and a hot dog was an expensive process. parking was expensive too. heck the whole thing was expensive and not worth the trouble/money in my mind.

I really like the PAPA facility. i wish it would stay there. that place is awesomely perfect.

I can't believe that people actually like replayfx. I just thought it was one of the worst pinball show experiences I've ever been. It was like they took the most perfect thing, the papa facility, and turned it into mush. For the people that thought that that was a good experience, the only explanation I can come up with is, you've never been to a real pinball show or a real pinball venue (like the papa facility).

Sure replay FX had a lot of games, but they also had a lot of video games. Again I like pure pinball events. I don't really like videogames or the crowd that comes with them. Video games just make the venue more crowded, more confused, and the techs (assuming they have them) more spread out. It complicates things.

On the Midwest gaming thing, would like to come, it's just a really far drive. Add to that they also have a strong video game presence, which again as I explained, I'm not really a big fan of. Also it's kind of a bad time of the year for me personally I have a lot going on right then. A lot of things going on in the March April May timeframe for me personally, so it makes a show that's a fair distance away a difficult one to attend. Hence I've never been to the Texas pinball festival either for pretty much the same reasons. I haven't been able to attend Allentown for the last few years also because of this - and I really like the Allentown show (one of my favorites).

Speaking of Allentown, I really like that show a lot. I love the venue, and the East Coast just brings in a lot of vendors and a lot of games that you normally don't see. It's a very well-done show. There's a lot of EM collectors on the East Coast too which brings great variety of games that are shown at Allentown.

I don't like kids. I don't like chocolate ice cream either. So what? I don't like black squirrels either.

Black Squirrels don't have phones that I can tell.

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I love dogs, especially rescues, and babies are fine. Kids I don't like much. There are exceptions, but generally no.

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I thought the summer papa ordeal was just fantastic. When they made it bigger I think it just took a great thing and made it a bad thing. Also the silverball country club event went away with replayfx. How is replayfx better? I can't see it. But not everybody obviously agrees.

The enemy of good is better, sometimes.

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Reduced? I don't think so! Dogs are the best thing about this thread.

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The VFW actually has a much greater selection and a better representation of pinball thru the eras then Papa by far. I had numerous people come up to me after the show that were from the Pittsburgh area and said how the VFW blew away papa as far as game condition and the variety and type of games.

Papa may have a greater total game count than vfw, but we have no duplicates. Papa has what five Adams family's, five attack from Mars, five twilight zone, so on and so forth. This is to enhance their tournament playing capabilities. Which is fine for tournament things. But as far as a general representation of pinball and a variety of different games to play in excellent condition, papa is good but far from great.

What's cool about Papa it's a combination of all the little things. They have an outstanding venue and a huge number of working games. The venue was designed for pinball and enhances pinballs' play. It's the little things that really make papa something special. But as far as games selection and condition of their games, they could use some help.

On LTG's remark about kids being the future of pinball, i call bull crap on that. Let me explain...

First off, i would like to congratulate everyone on "saving pinball." Mission accomplished... kind of...
let's go back in time...

1990s stuff was kicking butt. but by 1994 things starting to sputter and sputter through the decade. The marvin3m.com repair guides came out about 1997 (and lasted through 2010), so people were "saving" games right and left for home use (and probably operators to some degree.) Which really isn't as good as you think, but we'll come back to that...

then 1999 happened. we all went to the WMS factory tour via fall chicago expo to see pinball 2000 being made. it all looked SO good (even though Gottlieb exited in 1995, that wasn't actually pinball's fault, but was a gamble Gottlieb made on lottery machinery which killed the company.) Then the following monday, WMS shut down pinball (moving solely to slots.)

For the next year WMS pinball parts and sales stayed open. i bought stuff right and left, thinking the end for pinball was near. Only Stern was around (formerly Dataeast than Sega), and they always seems one game failure from death. (In fact Joe K. was quoted as saying that he was amazed at each game title they made, thinking their current game was their "last", right from the beginning in 1987.)

Stern started hiring old WMS employees, and things got a lot better. Much better games in most regards. Stern quality was still lacking though. For example, WMS almost never made a hardware game change that made an operator's life worse. They did things to make games run better with better parts and quality and ease of service. Stern on the other hand, didn't give a crap. They would do anything to make things cheaper for them (and hence worse for the operator.) Change in thickness of the metal legs and changing wire to thinner gauges comes to mind, but there is 100s of example of how Stern does anything to make their games cheaper even pennies cheaper.

At the time, probably 2005-2008 ish, we put up with this. We all knew stern was barely alive. But then something happened. And it sure wasn't "kids." It was hipsters and 30 and 40 somethings that all a sudden thought pinball was retro and cool again. All a sudden, i'm getting calls from every married dude with a little money wanting to buy a game for their "man cave." Great right? Well not exactly...

The problem was supply. Demand was taking care of itself. We all managed to get the word out that pinball was cool, and the idea had spread. People (like myself and many many others) were trying their hand at operating. This helped a lot. But pinball seems so *different* than video games, that the press really latched on to it. There were a lot of other factors causing this expansion in demand too. one was video games. They had become insanely complicated and time consuming. Pinball seems more retro and "real", and you could play a game in 5 minutes and then do something else.

Now we're back to the supply problem. Buying a pinball new really wasn't on most people's radar at the time. New Stern games were about $3650, and that got you a full featured game (like an "LE" today.) For example, spiderman, pirates, Family guy, batman, i got these all for about $3650 brand new. All had real lockdown bars too and playfield slide bars. (i'll try to not get off subjetct...) But operators really went buying like they used to. It's just too easy to operate a crane or a video game, compared to a pinball machine.

Stern was only making about 5000 to 10,000 games a year. Unlike the early 1990s when all the makers were putting out 50,000 to 80,000 games a year! So now you had demand, but essentially small supply. That caused a rise in prices. So now instead of an Addams Family being $2000, it was $4000. Medieval? Well that was $3000 for the longest time until it took off, along with Attack from mars and indy jones and many other WMS titles.

Now enter Jersey Jack. Frankly, he screwed us all. His idea of a $7500 pinball machine was quite novel. But unfortunately, a lot of people took his bait and paid up. Believe me, this did not go un-noticed! Gary stern was like, "what the hell, i'm selling decent games for $3650, why can't i double my price and slap on some fancy trim and dumb toys?"

So now here we are... spending way too much money on games, fighting over 1990s titles (which are now often as much or more than new Sterns). And has pinball really gotten better? Hell no. Games are cheaper. Stern frankly hasn't innovated much of anything for 20 years. We have Jersey jack but we can't seem to make games. Did we really "save" pinball? Makes me wonder....

Oh yea, back to the kid thing. So i had a kid in 1994, a boy. He spent his entire life surrounded by pinballs. A basement with 100 restored games. spent a summer going on service call with me. guess what? he hates pinball. has no interest. He loves video games. sure that's one example but my point is, you can't force people (kids) to like the game. and being surrounded by it as a child really isn't an indicator that later in life it will be in their life. Heck I didn't play a pinball machine until i was 25. So please, stop with this ridiculous "kids are the future" crap, because I don't buy it.

Another thing... pinball is going to die, like it or not. But the death of pinball won't be because of no kids playing it. Virtual pinball will kill "real" pinball. At some point, virtual tables will be 3d and will play like a real game. They are a long way out from that now, but it's going to happen. And playing a game that never needs cleaned, never needs new rubber, never has a stuck ball, never breaks a part, and never needs flippers rebuilt has a lot of potential.

And those people, like you and me, having games in our basements, we're not really "helping" pinball. Operators do that the best. putting pinballs in bars and restaurants. and keeping them working. that's what helps pinball.

For example, my buddy goes to locations and writes down the operator's phone numbers and calls them. "have any games for sale?" often this works. sure it helps his personal collection, but it reduces the number of games going out "to the wild". So essentially we're shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that. Just something to think about...

Bottom line, i don't know what all the answers are. I would like to think we all do something to help. But really we need to support operators. Oh did i forget to mention that with the basic doubling in the cost of a new pinball that operators don't see the ROI on pinball? Yea forgot to mention that! We have ourselves to thank for that, because we bought into the $7000+ pinball machine game. Oh man, did we take that one hook, line and sinker.

Again on the kids, it's a different world today. kids have a ton of choices for things to do. including games on their phones. to get them interested in pinball is up hill battle at best. i think it's better to introduce pinball to 20 somethings than kids. focus is better and far different. it's a better end game. and kids don't have money, 20 or 30 somethings do.

Yes correct Neo. but if you look at 90s WMS games, like say fishtales that's about $2500, is that really not as good of a game as a Stern pro game? that's the problem, and it has raised all the prices of used games. largely rising tides bring up all boats is a good way to look at it.

Jeremy, really, Model Ts? have you seen the price on those? they have been dropping because less people "care" about those. but 60s muscle cars still have financial power, for obvious reasons. I haven't seen a model T in a *long* time.

True true on addams. but using FT again at $2500... is that worse of a game than say wrestlemania pro? (at half the price.)

We got screwed by JJP. i remember seeing Gary Stern in a seminar when Jack announced his first game and the big price. Gary was like, "what the heck??? how come we can't do that??" You could see the look on his face...

i agree with rob. hipsters (20/30 somethings) made those TV shows. kids are a loosing battle. better to focus on 20 to 40 somethings if you want pinball to live on. they have money. kids don't have money. saying "kids are the future of pinball" is not a valid statement. it's not like kids today ride their bikes down to the arcade to play for 25 cents and win replays. Please, those days are GONE. Kids aren't the future of pinball, those freaking hipsters are the future.

it's a game of percentages. tuning kids to pinball is a low percentage game. i mean if you have kids and games in the basement, OK fine. easy enough. but to say they are the future, i'm not buying it. Location games at hipster bars and barcades is a better end game with a higher percentage success rate to people that have transportation and money.

Yeah but they were there because dad brought them and they were probably spending dad's money. It's cool they like pinball and what you did, but they won't save anything because they don't have transportation or money.

I got a story about teaching kids to fix games. So I drag my kid around for one summer to all my repair calls Monday through Friday. I had him soldering stuff and doing easy things. And tried to explain to him that when he's in college that this would be a good side job for him. Just could not get any traction out of it. After the summer was over he showed no interest in going any further.

Fast-forward one year and my kids in college and one of his buddies showed some interest. So I hired him to be my driver for the summer. He drove me to repair jobs and tried to help with some general stuff. But that really didn't go too well either he lost interest quickly. Tried it with his brother too and again it didn't go anywhere. They both ended up just sleeping at the job. They were good drivers in the car, but once we were at the job, It was lights out.

Kids today just have a hard time with Pinball. They're just so used to video games it's really hard to transition them away from that.

Taro probably likes black squirrels too... likes to RIP their heads off!
go taro go!!

Rob you are welcome at the Ann Arbor pinball show too (may 13-15, 2016).

Rob if you want to come to the VFW show you should probably try and do it this year. Normally pin a go go and the Ann Arbor show are the exact same weekend. For some reason this year that is not the case.