Hey drsfmd, you can plan on the Friday seminars leaning more toward technology and repair, and Saturday being the more general interest topics. We don't plan to have seminars on Thursday - that day is just for the free play rooms opening up and setup for other rooms. In last year's schedule, our "late-breaking developments" time slot was late Saturday and stuffed with news; expect something similar this year.

Anyone reading this who wants to propose a seminar: we could handle 1-2 more, especially if the topic is about the coin-op business (or game-selling business), New England arcades of the past, playing techniques, or building a game of your own design. Presenters who live in New England are especially encouraged! If we get too many topics, that just puts us in a better position for the 2017 show.
.................David Marston

If your game is present for Friday and Saturday, you get a free admission for those days. We have early setup hours on Friday morning (starting at 7:00) for people like you who can't get there until Friday.

More than two, in fact! I know there will be some EM experts there. And probably more experts for the newer games.
.................David Marston

There are other hotels within walking distance, but I think they are more expensive. If you can only stay in the show hotel Thursday night, you at least saved money that night, and qualified for the after-party. Then you could switch hotels during the day on Friday.
.................David Marston

Friday afternoon, starting at 12:30, will be mostly technical topics, ranging from simple preventative maintenance to designing and building your own machine.

Friday night, we have the John Youssi seminar starting at 7:00 PM. This time is subject to change if other Famous Pinball People decide to attend.

Saturday, we start off with John Trudeau at 10:00 AM, then our reserved slot for late-breaking developments.

Saturday afternoon: Jaap Nauta, Jeremy Saucier, Steve Ritchie.

Saturday night: the Jersey Jack Pinball team.

This is all subject to the usual disclaimers.
.................David Marston

As Gabe pointed out, it's expensive, and also we plan to rotate speakers year by year. But now I see that some people have started their own rotator for Lloyd. Next year, you can buy him a booth, too, which automatically gets him on the expo map.

PM me suggestions for speakers/presenters for the 2017 show! We have a limited budget for pin-celebrities, so buy an extra Pintastic T-shirt or something to increase the budget.
.................David Marston
Seminar Director

Aside to LTG: some of the above may have been said in jest.

Do you have a game with John Youssi artwork? Please bring it!
How about a game designed by John Trudeau? Please bring it!
A game with software by Lyman Sheats? Please bring it! Especially the ones with rock band themes!
I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
.................David Marston

I just spoke with Lloyd. If all the transportation logistics work as planned, we can have the LTG show Friday night, July 8th. So the Friday night schedule would then become:
6:30 John Youssi talking about pinball art he's done
7:30 The LTG Show
8:30 After-party for those eligible (see post #154 in this thread for eligibility criteria)
Lloyd will be eligible for the after party due to his Special Guest status.
.................David Marston

Pintastic got a mention in Games World of Puzzles! (August 2016 issue, page 33)

This successor to Games Magazine is nationally distributed on newsstands and runs a pinball story about once a decade. Mention of Pintastic is on the same page as The World Boardgaming Championships and GenCon, two big-league gaming events.
.................David Marston

Electromechanical arcade pieces are welcome, too. Especially pitch-and-bat baseball machines!
.................David Marston

If there are any Pinside moderators who plan to attend Pintastic New England, please PM me.

I think there is potential for a Pinside meetup and an r.g.p meetup.
.................David Marston

I'm designating 9:00 PM on Thursday, July 7th. We'll meet in the foyer outside the Ballroom, toward the back. ForceFlow (a Pinside moderator) plans to be there. If there seems to be demand for a serious discussion, I can find a later time slot for a follow-up meeting. Please come prepared to state your real name! This is social, but it's also an opportunity to build trust within the community.
.................David Marston

Maybe the Thursday night meetup will result in the designation of a particular time/place for Pinsiders to go to dinner at one of the fine eating establishments in the vicinity.

It has to be #Pintastic2016 because plain "#Pintastic" already has widespread use in the Pinterest universe.
.................David Marston

Referring to the Thursday 9:00 PM meetup:

If you and other pinsiders were to gather in the area in front of the Seminar Room, which you can locate on https://pintasticnewengland.com/expo-map/
by clicking Seminar Room on the list down the left, at 5:00 PM or so on Friday, we could form traveling groups for various restaurants. Or a group could elect to stay there and eat the grab-and-go food. Actually, let's say 5:15 PM to allow time for those who brought free-play-room games to see if they won anything in that day's prize drawings. Is that enough of a plan?

PS: There's still time to sign up to bring a game for the free-play room!
.................David Marston

Gerry has a session at 3:30 Friday in the Seminar Room. Be there!
https://pintasticnewengland.com/speakers/
.................David Marston

Actually, the game-bringer giveaway drawings are 5:00 PM Friday and 9:00 PM Saturday. (Saturday early evening was just too loaded with other awards, including the drawing for the *other* VPCabs game at 5:50 PM.)

The game-bringer thank you drawing is separate from the game-bringer giveaway, other than the fact that you qualify for both by bringing games. As Gabe said, that's the one where we go around cutting off a piece of each game card starting at 9:45 Saturday night. If you bring a game, you will get a handout that lists all the key times for these prizes and more.
.................David Marston

And while looking at the game-bringer situation, I noticed that games are coming in from all six New England states, plus NY, NJ, PA, MD, and VA. Can we get some games from Canadian provinces? How about Delaware?
.................David Marston

Live report from the show: an additional ATM has arrived! And it's convenient to the vendor hall. The first ATM is in the hotel lobby. And remember our at-show financing.
.................David Marston

He should be here tonight.
Yes, tonight's hours are 6:00 PM to Midnight.
.................David Marston

You get early access to both. I don't know if the auction guys will be waking up that early. However, the one-hour-early time for Friday is 9:00 AM (public opening at 10:00). Saturday times are 8:00 Super Pass, 9:00 public.

I'm posting this at 8:00 AM, and at least one of the outdoor vendors is setting up.
.................David Marston

Actually, RZ is at the adjacent Southern NH Pinball booth. I almost missed it, too.
.................David Marston

I'll note those suggestions on the "things to do better" list that I maintain. (All who attended can PM me with suggestions.) We should have had some signage about the repair tickets, and maybe extra distribution points for blank tickets. For your information, the white-paper repair tickets were available for anyone to fill out. I noticed that some people returned the whole ticket to the repair station, even though the design was that part of the form would stay on the game so that others would know it had been reported. I haven't seen a better system at any other show, but if you have, send me details. We processed quite a few tickets, in addition to the unticketed work, so I'm sure there was apositive effect on uptime. We saved the tickets in case we want to analyze them as part of our planning for next year.

Speaking of which, mark July 6-9, 2017 on your calendars and try to have a game you want to show off ready to bring next year!
.................David Marston

Big thanks to Tony Dziedzic, Dave Metrando, and Lloyd Olson (straight from the airport) for filling in, and winging it. There were enough questions, and prodding from me as moderator, to fill out the hour. It was all ad hoc, no prepared material!
.................David Marston

That's great news for all concerned. Between the incentives and the appeals to the generosity/conscience of the bringers and buyers, we achieved an extremely low attrition rate. This meant more hard-to-find games available on Saturday night for both pinball enthusiasts and locals who saw our publicity and advertising and visited casually after dinner.
.................David Marston

Now that we have proven our ability to deliver more room-nights, we have the potential to work with a second venue as the official overflow hotel. But that second hotel would have to provide something we can use to enhance the show. In order to channel Levi's issue in a constructive direction, I pose this question: does anyone know of some real precedents for such deals? Note that ReplayFX is somewhat different; they have several designated hotels, but the show itself is not in a hotel, so all the hotels are equal. I'm asking about an unequal relationship between the show hotel and a designated secondary hotel.
.................David Marston

I noticed that quite often, the person *was* there, but did not yell out anything or raise his/her hand, and just quietly walked out from way back in the crowd. We'd be more willing to cut that person some slack if they yelled "I got it" as soon as they realized they had a matching number. It's one of those irrational aspects of human nature. I have a couple ideas that will help.
.................David Marston

My remarks about people responsing promptly were exclusively directed to the general prize raffle (pink tickets), which had only one drawing on Saturday at about 6:00 PM. The only participants in this were people who bought in, and who put the other half of the pink mticket in the jar corresponding to the prize they wanted. Perhaps we need to make it clearer that when you buy those tickets, you ought to make it a point to be in a particular place at the one time that the drawing occurs.

For the white tickets (door prize) and green tickets (game-bringer giveaway), numbers were posted on whiteboards so you could come by at your convenience. The general prize raffle (pink tickets) is under review.
.................David Marston

Arrange for better weather? I don't believe that the price of the spot is going to make that much difference. Is there anyone who wants to set up just one table or one trunk/tailgate load? Maybe a low price for them and keep the $125 for "professional flea marketers" with their tents, trailers, and multiple tables. Or is there anyone who wants a one-day rate?

Potential flea market vendors: reply in this thread with your idea of the best deal for you, given that space is limited and the show has to recoup expenses.
.................David Marston

I'm thinking about this, but my plan involves upgrading our audio-visual capabilities. We would want to make the seminar a complement to available on-line info (e.g., http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Beginner%27s_Notes ), where the live demonstration amplifies what you heard or read before.
.................David Marston

Or maybe inside. I could offer my pinball-related vinyl records this way, but only if the booth is inside. For people interested in this consignment-sale deal: would you be willing to pay an up-front display fee? Commission if it sells? Both?
.................David Marston

In our defense, there *was* a system. It used paper repair tickets. There was a full-fledged workflow. I think that the Tech Team made lots of phone calls to game owners, but only when needed. Also, the game-bringers were given a handout that told them to visit the free-play room periodically and both look at their games and check for their name on the call board. We coached game-bringers about ways to implement free play at several points in the process, and I think that Dave Madore's Setup Team also checked for free play. I go to several shows, and this is the state of the art to the best of my knowledge. But we definitely want to push the state of the art further.
.................David Marston

If we have the QR code that anyone can scan, which I like, we should also make it facilitate sales and awarding of prizes. I'm starting to think of several uses for the code, some of which involve contacting the owner and some don't.
.................David Marston

We asked for contact info to be put on every game card, even Not For Sale games, for the specific concerns of making repairs as well as awarding prizes. But we want our Tech Team to be able to improve uptime with or without timely response by game owners, so we only ask players to submit a repair ticket to the Tech Team, who will then decide whether they need to involve the owner. For low-tech simple, how about if we have signs on the walls around the free-play areas that tell people how to report a problem? (I hope we have a range of ways to report, like some or all of: the tickets, voice call, text message, email.)

I also think there is value in having part of the paper ticket stay on the game, so that you know when a problem has already been reported.
.................David Marston

We can expand the options of the game card if need be, but I think if we have Pintastic game cards on every game that was brought in under the game-bringer incentive program, that covers most of it. Tournament games will be in a separate area, well protected from casual wanderers. In 2015, they were at the stage (East) end of the Vendor Hall. Some tournament games are from game-bringers and some are from the Sanctum Collection. We could put game cards on all the Sanctum games if that helps.
.................David Marston

How about the Buffalo group? Check buffalopinball.com to see what they're doing. If they have a caravan going to Pintastic, it would pass by you in Rochester on its way.
.................David Marston