Luckily for Ed, in the DFW TX area, the game will be available all day long to tournament and non-tournament players alike at the Nickelrama event.

Plus we will have TWO parties. Fun!'s event will definitely not be used as a tournament machine. It will be available for groups of 4 people to play together, just like we did the WWE event.

The Sunday party starts at Noon, but the tournament doesn't start until 3pm. And it's an all day event, combining Kiss Pro, Father's Day, IFPA Tournament and a good ol' fashion fun. Plus Kiss is not the exclusive game during the tournament. It will be one of 11 games available for the tournament.

So there will be two opportunities for pinball players to come out and enjoy the new Kiss machine.

Marcus

As an organizer, the biggest obstacle is scheduling. Typically, at least my experience with local players, players are willing to travel once in a weekend for something like a launch party.

And the locations hosting the event are typically business that are donating their time and location to host an event. And I believe most parties are from 3-5 hours. While that seems like a lot of time, when you have 20 people lining up to play one machine, that 5 hours goes by quickly.

In the perfect situation, having having a launch tournament AFTER a launch party will cater to everyone.

In reality, organizers should cater to their local audience. In the DFW, we have an eclectic group of collectors, so hosting two events may become the norm for us.

Marcus

The reason is that IFPA carved out a special exemption for "Launch Tournaments" so that they would be official IFPA sanctioned events without being on the IFPA calendar 30 days before the event.

Launch Parties have evolved in some locations beyond the tournament, but the "Party" has been a combined effort between Stern & IFPA to market the latest Stern offering as a synchronized event.

Nothing is stopping a location from hosting a Launch Party that does not include tournament play. However, the events that are "official" are the ones that have a tournament on the IFPA calendar.

Marcus