People from this area of NH (Manchester/Nashua/ect.) are constantly claiming this and I agree, either you're driving 200mph or you're a liar.

?????
I’m literally sitting outside terminal E while my wife dumps my son at the baggage check right now. It took me 2:25 to get here from Lyme NH. 134 miles into Logan on I89/I93 on a Friday evening. How is it 2 hrs to Manchester??

You gotta factor in all the stop lights.

That’s door to terminal. The first 10 miles of the trip from Lyme takes 20 minutes to get to I89. I don’t see how it would take anyone 2 hours to get to Manchester from Logan. Let alone 1.5.

YMMV

Oh. Okay. Sorry. 300mph. Final offer. Take it or leave it.

Are we talking African or European swallow?

It's 55 miles from Logan to Manchester. 2 hrs is more likely than 30 minutes.

Psshhhh, if someone takes 2 hrs to go from Boston to Manchester with no traffic, you're driving like a f**king old geezer. Manchester is mile marker 20 on I93 and Boston is 32 miles from the border. I93 is 65mph speed limit and no one goes that slow (unless you are old or afraid of driving). Math says its not 2 hrs. Lets not exaggerate here.

So, if you are an old geezer, but you drive fairly quick, are you still driving like an old geezer? Asking for a friend.

When I see one for real, I'll let you know.

Or have out of state plates and don't want to be a target.

Traffic speed on that section of road is 70-75mph. I set the cruise control at 73 and I get passed just as frequently as traffic passes me.

It's the plates from CT, NY, PA and NJ that are passing everyone like they are standing still. Point is, 52 miles does not take 2 hrs, even when there's some traffic

I used to attend another convention held at a hotel that made Sturbridge look like the Ritz.
It had the same issues. Bugs, mold, mushrooms growing on carpets in the rooms. Several hallways were crumbling like the pictures posted earlier in this thread. Parking lot was like a wild garden. Active water leaks down the walls in some spots.

It was horrifying. The hotel was “renovated” by building smaller and smaller wings within the formerly very large hotel and slapping additions overtop of severe structural issues. One of the rooms had a ceiling collapse and inside the massive ceiling was the old balcony of that wing which was covered by a renovation.
The place was essentially the Sturbridge Host Hotel within the next 5 years.

They ended up having a business conference booked just 3 weeks after our con, and the hotel was abruptly and completely shutdown right in the middle of the event on Friday night as the state revoked their license. Police were involved, workers and patrons were locked out. Utilities were simply turned off. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted. It was insanity.

The hotel was then demolished later that year and the owners ended up in prison. The business conference also defaulted due to contractual obligations and the massive loss of revenue.

I’m glad to hear the show is moving.
There’s a strong possibility that perhaps this “renovation” situation isn’t on the up and up. When hotels start to nosedive like that, you might get totally screwed by powers outside of your control. The state could very easily step in and shut them down and wouldn’t care about anyone else impacted by such action.

Albany is stopping it from being in Albany.

I do business in the area and New York’s capital is about as hostile and unaccommodating as it could possibly be! And they want to charge you outrageous prices for trash.

Saratoga is way better, but prices can be very high

I tried to host a convention for one of my professional organizations in Albany. The convention center is in a not-great neighborhood and the only hotel nearby is pretty expensive. The convention center on Wolf Road is ABSURDLY priced.

We ended up hosting that convention at the casino in Saratoga... but I don't think they would have the do-whatever-you-want attitude that Sturbridge does.

Is this the first half of a math word problem?

There appear to be plenty of mathematically challenged folks here, so it appears so. YMMV however.

If you're not driving 400 miles per hour, don't even talk to me or my son ever again.

Somewhat off topic. Pintastic (pre Covid) I think it was 2019. Does anyone remember what the cocktail pin was in the freeplay area? It was just inside the entrance doors to the freeplay hall.

was it Caribbean Cruise ? was there a TV behind it? do you recall?

I didn't think it was Caribbean Cruise. But then again it was several years ago. I played it and thought it was pretty neat, and am considering maybe picking up a cocktail pin for the hell of it. I don't really remember if there was a TV behind it, but it was just inside the doors.

Yes, it was a Caribbean Cruise that someone "modified" to play some sort of video game. I remember looking at it and thinking "oh cool, a Caribbean Cruise... I've always wanted to try one.... oh.... but this one is all hacked up with some game screen.... I'll pass"

Point Blank Carribean Cruise... they weren't actually connected to each other, don't remember the explanation.

Thanks to all who chimed in on this cocktail pin question. Yes, I believe it was Caribbean Cruise. I found a picture in this thread and it was 100% CC.

As seen on Facebook:

Hello pinball fans! We at Pintastic have been hard at work searching for a new venue and we have found it! Stay tuned for a announcement on our new hotel venue and new date for 2023 coming up in the next few weeks. Bigger and better things to come. Thank you for all your support!

Looks like we have a location! Looking forward to the announcement!

Pintastic has a location and date!

AEF8A68C-AE46-4255-8D8D-25EA4BADCEFB (resized).png

Um, they should have read the yelp reviews before locking this in. I would keep looking for a respectable venue. Sounds like only a microstep above what they had before. These are from the majority of reviews in just the last year that are almost all 1 or 2 star:

"DRUGS AND UNCHANGED SHEETS. Stayed here in March, 2022. In the middle of the night, I reached out my hand under the covers in the bed and found a used crack pipe in the bed. "

"The hotel is worn out--in need of a total renovation. It's painfully overpriced for what amounts to a dumpy motel."

"the pool was so green you couldn't see the bottom"

"I paid $188 for a night in this crowded, unprofessional, dirty, shockingly terrible hotel. I would obviously never stay here again, and I strongly advise that you stay away."

"The carpet was tacky damp, found feces peeking out from under the fitted sheets (photos) disgusting!!! You mean the house keeper didn't see this!"

"Absolutely the most disgusting, dirty place I've stayed in 20 years."

"the room smelled, ac did not work well and to top it of, under one of the blankets was a water bottle, yogurt and panties. "

"Lots of weird sounds going up the elevator, sounding like some possible maintenance is needed. When I get off in the hallway, it is very hot. I suppose they don't believe they need to air condition the hallway. Finally, the walls in the room had some Schmutz on them. Not as clean as it could be."

"What a rundown place! The pool was dirty and smelly, the room wasn't clean- the sheets were dirty, the bathroom was dirty and the customer service was poor."

"Poor room service no clean sheets for 2 weeks and as for my trash I had to leave it outside my door so they would take it and throw it out. Plus my toilet seal wasn't working. I work in the afternoons they could have fixed it but did not. Tiolet leaking water and human waste. So I reported them to the board of health. Stay away from best Western."

I have not stayed at the hotel but I have done a tour with staff and from what I saw it was clean. We did visit a room just to confirm and it's good. Certainly not a new hotel or 5 star however the pictures you see on the Best Western website are a good example. I'm obviously biased but I would book a room and it's at a perfect spot. Right in-between Worcester and Boston. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g41662-d77558-Reviews-Best_Western_Royal_Plaza_Hotel_Trade_Center-Marlborough_Massachusetts.html

From the frying pan into the fire.
And extra driving for many attendees. Nah!

I'm sure they gave you the best of the place on the tour. What you needed to see was the worst of the place because that's what the special rates will be given. It's literally less than $200 to find out what they give to "non-VIP tour" people, and the reviews with a recurring theme of NON-FRESH BEDS with stuff in them (panties, crackpipes, poop) should be a major concern. Book a room through a cheap hotel consolidator under a name not connected with your show and see what room you're given.

Recent reviews on hotelplanner.com are similarly concerning:
"Not have house keeping service is a huge draw back. Front desk was not manned all the time during work hours. Calling front desk was horrible. No working WiFi connection. " VERIFIED booking

"Bathtub was dirty toilet dirty pool disgusting and not even turned on toilet kept running this was the second room. We had to move because the first one smelt like dog urine. Oh ya the phone did not work in room or pool thankgid there was no emergency. " VERIFIED BOOKING

"Upon checkin I was given a dirty room that had never been cleaned from the prior guest and had to return to reception for another room. " VERIFIED BOOKING

There are about equal good/bad recent on hotelplanner.com, so it seems like they have a "good section" and a "bad section" but the lack of staff, housekeeping, wifi problems, and AC issues is a major red flag.

I don't envy you or the ones putting the show on, but it seems like a lot more research is in order.

That's a strong no for me. UGH...

Well luckily for all you chumps who will find a reason to complain about any hotel ever, there are literally 4 other hotels in walking distance and I'm sure one of them will suit your needs.

Happy you all found a new location that is happy to have us.

I never had a complaint with the chosen hotel for California Extreme. I'm not saying it's easy, but it can be done for large shows.

Have you ever been to a Pintastic? We don’t want a super nice hotel lol. Yelp is the worst, always negative on every hotel we looked at. Staff shortages are everything and effecting all hotels. In a year staffing will be much better. Marlboro is a good upgrade from Sturbridge.

Sure. And then people will complain about the price. It's a lose/lose.

A segment of pinball people are notoriously cheap and loud about it. I think this is dragging the entire hobby down.

I'd much rather pay a little more for a show and have it at a nice facility than save a few bucks and have it at an absolute shithole, and I think most people would too. But the cheapskates are always the loudest and too many people pay attention to them.

We see this in the tournament scene too - people love to whine about cost but if you give them a quality product - like say, Pinburgh, or NYCPC, or INDISC - they will pay up and they will show up.

Up in the Northwest they've bullied ops into charging 50 cents a game, which is about 35 years outdated. That's bad for pinball in the long run but nobody cares as long as they can party like it's 1989.

No I have not, but I was concerned for the really bad health and safety reviews of that new location on NUMEROUS sites, not just yelp. Basically any site not controlled by the venue's marketing had gross experiences like poop in bed, nasty pool, leaking feces from toilet, crack pipe in bed that clearly wasn't changed between guests, etc. They seem to have a LOT of experiences where housekeeping isn't cleaning the rooms AT ALL, or just superficially cleaning, which is gross and unsafe.

It's your show, I was just trying to help by pointing out management may have tried to do a snowjob on you based on the large quantity of negative reviews, so you didn't have a repeat of the thread from this year's show with lots of negative attendee experiences. Shows are hard, I get that. I'm not implying you don't care, exactly the opposite. I posted the review excerpts because I thought you WOULD WANT to know about them.

Let them stay home, then. I'd rather pay a little more for a show that runs well and is a good memory than a drudgery I'd rather forget. I think any whining about price disappears if the show delivers.

That said, I don't envy any people involved with running a show to strike that balance. No illusions about the difficulty involved.

PinMonk: are you planning on attending?

Nope, they can't afford my appearance fee. My agent's a ballbuster.

But I want this and every pinball show to succeed. More great pinball experiences makes more players.

Biting lip.

Lol, SOMEone was having a good time in that room. Damn!

Why? It's not good to bottle that up and bring it into your relationships. I've been around, I can handle whatever opinion you might have, if that's what you're holding on to.

Nope. My agent told me to clam up.

The reviews of the new hotel are not stellar but Sturbridge had major problems and I don't think it is going to get better anytime soon. I have a allergy to mold and I have been getting shots for it but it was so bad last year I only stayed a night and had to go home, it was that bad. Whoever decided to renovate made just terrible choices. You can't take a wood lodge type hotel and turn it modern but replacing furniture and painting over the wood with the trendy grey and white color schemes. It looked like what a idiot first time flipper would do and actually lower the value.

Crack pipes and poop? Seriously hard pass on that shit.

It keeps life exciting