That’s what I took away from the sign. This could have been done way, way better if it would have been thought about for more then 5 minutes. IMHO this doesn’t look professional at all, more like the owner scribbled something on a napkin and said “go print this”.

Again. This is an amazing building and accomplishment. Please don’t take a little criticism personally. Nobody’s trying to attack, I think we’re trying to help.

I’m really wanting to see some good quality pictures of the place full of games and all lit up. It would be so cool to get a skyjack and a good wide angle lens to take some truly memorable photos, not just cell phone pics.

Edit. Added photo from Toronto. I envision something like this; but 20x better
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That's called Canada day here. Right in the middle of summer, it's a great day for a celebration, and another reason to play pinball is always welcome

Retro Ralph at the hall of fame. Jump to the 12min mark for 1 min, and then to 16min for another 2 minutes from there, mostly looking at arcade stuff.

IMHO these are all really great points. I believe the devil is in the details and I get the feeling that this is just a warehouse of machines and not a museum telling their history. I could be way wrong, but t seems that this place has a lot of untapped potential.

What’s the difference between great and amazing? The attention paid to details.

I might be alone and in the wrong on this thinking, but a business that is 100% dependant on volunteers to run the place isn’t a success in my mind.

I understand that the whole point of the place is to raise money for charity, but if the volunteers left one day, would the place still be able to run? IMHO a successful business isn’t measured by how well the leader holds it all together, but how well things run when the leader is not there. To me it seems like Tim is the glue holding it together and from an outside perspective it’s only successful because of the unique way the place has been organized.

I have no constructive criticism to offer, and I know it would be ignored anyway. But I agree with blacklightprod in that this place has so much potential to be a museum and not just a warehouse.

To clarify. (Again I could be wrong) I thought that the PHOF was a non-profit organization. Would that exempt them from expenses that a normal business would have to deal with? For example do they pay tax on all of the coin drops they earn? Is the property tax the same rate as the neighborhood, what are the employment expenses. Etc.

It’s great to know that a long term plan is in the works, and I greatly respect all that has been accomplished, and also for the pride you take in your work. Well done, keep it up!

I think that everyone has a lot of love for their idea of the best pinball museum in the world, and we all hope that Tim’s vision will be completed as soon as possible. Hopefully Tim’s long term plan will become everything to everyone; it certainly has progressed very well in the last couple years, and headed in the right direction.

Imagine if they only gave $400k to charity and spent $100k on improvements or a full time tech. For that price you could maybe even get 2 full time techs.

What if you request a donation and they refuse? Last I checked a donation is voluntary, otherwise it’s a fee.

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My guess is with that many machines they don’t even know all of the problems, and if they do, that would be quite a “to do list”. If they did have a cycling list of games that are out of service long term, then it would be nice to have it posted somewhere. I’d hate to travel to Vegas to play a bunch of pinball that I haven’t before just find out that the 10 I want to play the most are all off.

It would be easier for PHOF to defend themselves if they could say that less than 10% of their games are broken. But I fear that it’s closer to 25% (or higher) with some of the comments on here. Having 85 broken games to me means that you don’t have 341 games to play it means that you have 250 game to play.

PHOF is one of the few reasons that I want to travel to the states, but this thread hasn’t inspired me to book a trip yet. Quite the opposite. I keep hoping that this will become a world class attraction, but it just seems like I would come away with a mediocre experience

I just learned about this place that’s only a couple hours drive from me

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/past-times-arcade#post-7608190

“Largest operational pinball collection in the world that’s open to the public”. Is that true? Like largest open to the public might be true, but operational?

Because the Salvation Army is the only one they support?

The poppies are in bloom, are you sure you didn’t have any opium today by accident?

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One question. Can you see the sphere from the PHOF? Because I’m pretty sure it can see you…. But seriously, can you advertise on the sphere? Big ball…pinball, there’s gotta be something there

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Pretty shocking when you watch that video and look not just at the games he’s filming turned off, but all the off games in the background. Virtually every shot in the video shows games turned off. If not the game he’s looking at then the game next to it.

It’s true that he didn’t film the working centre aisle of modern stern games, but I bet if you counted every game shown in that video (by a non pinhead) I bet there’s more off than on.

For anyone looking to go and actually PLAY the games , this was not a good advertisement. If you just want to LOOK at rare classic games then this might be the place for you, but then you gotta wonder why the off games aren’t grouped together in a museum section.

Maybe I’m just cynical

I re-posted this video onto the other PHOF thread. Let’s keep this thread for positive thoughts