Allentown is $20 for 60,000 sq ft and York is $15 for 30,000. Unless York becomes quivalent to Allentown i think the door fee should go up. Although $20 is typical for most shows, York is a lot smaller and sparse. Would I go for $20? Of course. But it doesn't sound like a deal for most people. For the current square footage, quality of games and dealers, and quantity of games and vendors, I see charging $17 on Friday and $15 Saturday. IF the show grows, I can see charging $20 Friday and $17 Saturday.
Now, something I can definitely have a suggestion on is that the hours should be justified. Make it 12-9 or 10 on Friday (with 9-12 setup) and 9-4 on Saturday.

Checked my coin counter at lunch for the Multi vs photo taken during load up - over 8000 coins, which equates roughly to 400+ games.

Very excited with the extreme lack of bugs and issues. Thank you all again for playing.

All shows have a different deal with there venue and layout of space. I was just making a suggestion but it may not be fesable in your location.

It's not cool to mock anybody, but it's VERY understandable to question why a guy wearing a Dr. Pinball name tag is sitting in a chair sleeping at EVERY show.

Sleeping in public at a venue like this is definitely considered to be socially awkward. I know that I'd go out to my truck if I wanted to take a snooze, but then again, maybe the guy has some sort of sleeping disorder that we're not aware of. Who knows...

Not only not cool it's crap. Bob brought me a part I needed, he travelled 5 + hours from CT to attend. I'm thinking he was most likely tired from the long drive and or working long hours. He also cleaned and adjusted the contacts on the part at no charge. Just happens to be a part PBR and Marco don't carry. Bob may be a little eccentric but he's okay in my book.

Another possible way for Rich to offset the cost is if we the public doubled or tripled his T-shirt sales ? I liked the old hall and the outdoor flea. I also liked the tailgating but after seeing the fire in 2016 the Fairgrounds committee had every right to squelch the flea cookouts . Sturbridge has Thursday night reduced entree fee , this may add revenue. Me thinks with the later setup and thank you pizza there would be a conflict .

True

I have mild ADSD. Let me tell ya I can fall asleep with the dentist cleaning my teath. If I sit down to long I'll end up taking a nap anywhere, anytime. At least He doesn't snore. No shame in taking a nap sitting on a chair.

I agree with you about the time, I really enjoyed the show in Louisville KY and feel like York could take some of their highlights possibly incorporating them into next year's venue simply because of 3 things, the times are geared more for families to enjoy, Friday and Saturday night it goes until 12. Sunday till 4, let's face it most families can't do anything on Friday night until after 6 p.m. at best and we're closing the show up at 8 so they don't have any incentive to show up. Which leaves them trying to get to the show on Saturday which is going to be closing by 6 p.m. They also dim the lights in the Louisville show, which makes a lot better gaming experience and they have the game characters walking around in costumes and encourage the children to show up in costume. Maybe I'm missing something but, if the people don't come, the show won't go on. Their prices are $21 per day if you purchase online and $25 per day at the door or a three-day pass online purchase is available at a discount. I'm definitely not saying they have all the answers but it was an awesome family experience for us. While both Allentown and York in my opinion was geared more for resellers, vendors, business people Etc, because when I take my family out on the weekends they don't stop at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who contributed to the show. I was able to get their Saturday morning at opening and stayed until about 3pm. Thanks to everyone who makes these events possible.

Really enjoyed playing TNA. Fun fast game and was really excited the game made its east coast debut!
L

The York show was great and I really appreciate the efforts of Rich and everyone involved! TNA, Alien, Dialed in and all of the new games were fun and I felt like the floor had a nice mix of tables and vids to keep me occupied. I am also enjoying the bk2k I picked up from Ivan!

Can't wait till next year!

Wick

Increasing the admission fee may also be an incentive for someone to bring pin(s) for free admission.

Kudos to the show promoters. This was my first time back at York in several years (schedule conflicts) and it was great to see old friends and socialize under the West Virginia tent. I did miss having the outside swap area. Hope to attend in 2018.

There was an outdoor flea market offered but only one person signed up for it but then decided to get a vendor booth.

I'm not trying to take away from the pins but, the show could use games in free play area of all types. I know all the arcades I brought saw a lot of play and the bowler someone brought stayed extra busy. My opinion is bringing any working games would be great.

Rich,
My son & i enjoyed the show.
York show is different then other shows and we appreciate that, don't feel you have to copy other shows with clowns and other things. I hauled two pins from NH to set up in free play because we wanted to. If people are complaining about $5 admission increase, then bring games to the show and get free admission.

i'm telling you, you need more incentive for free play games than just waving admission. that doesn't cut it with most people, and imo, that's what's holding the show back.

how many free play games were there? 100-125? allentown has at least 200?

the new hall was awesome. definitely stick with that one, if you can.

I don't have the exact #'s in front of me, but we were over 180 on Friday and over 170 on Saturday. The larger hall made it look that there were less games

how about winning a free pin raffle! those who bring a game get raffle ticket for each game entered in freeplay and raffle for those who bring a free play game only.

How about you get more raffle tickets based on the era of the game? DMD games get more tickets than an EM game and maybe more for "A" and "B" list games? The show def needed more DMD era pins in the free play area.

The show used to give away a game every year. It is the one thing that I want no parts of ever again. It was OK when you could find decent project games for $500 or so but nowadays decent games are more like $1200 or $1500. And I have to get them shopped and working and transport them. Then inevitably the winner doesn't have a way to transport them so then I have to drag them home.
The money and time spent dealing with the giveaway game is far better spent on other things.

a NIB Pro or equivalent may cost little to nothing if promoted correctly over the up coming year.

I have a couple ideas on how to get more machines to the show but I do not want to make them public before I talk to Rich personally because it could cost a few bucks out of his (or the show proceeds) pocket as well as my son & I making an investment into helping Rich pull more newer games into the show.

As Rich stated above the freeplay count was actually pretty darn good at well over 150 machines on freeplay but I am sure with a little help we could get that number well over 200 next year. I am not talking about major cash spent I my ideas all involved everyone just giving a little more. Vendors donating a little bit to the show, paying a little more to get into the show, extending the hours Friday night (if that is possible with the fairground & the rent), etc.

I have always loved York show and it has only gotten better each year! But my goal for 2018 is to try to help Rich push it to one of the "great" shows that will draw people from further away and have everyone saying "how the heck do this show get this good so quickly".

With a little help from everyone we can have three great shows here on the east coast. Pinfest in the Spring, Pintastic in July then the White Rose show in the Fall. But what would be even better is if a few more people stepped up like Adam (Force Flow) did this year and start some local shows between the major shows. The hobby is growing and I really think the size and number of shows can grow also.

Keep the great ideas coming! Rich is reading them here and I know Rich likes all the input he can get.

I have to chime in here. I'm a bingo collector from Denver. The York show is, as far as I know, the only show in the country where there are more than a couple of bingos set up for play. Most shows have none. I flew out for the weekend to specifically attend and I was not disappointed at all. I caught up with old friends and met some new ones. The Denver show is great, and probably had way more games set up for free play in the hotel, but I enjoyed the atmosphere at the fairgrounds as well. So thanks for putting this together and I was glad to meet more than a few people I plan to keep in touch with. I'm already thinking about next year I had so much enjoyment.

More incentive? What does Allentown offer incentive wise that York doesn't? I've brought games to both shows and I don't recall any extra incentive from Allentown. Hell I don't even get a raffle ticket for free giveaways.

My incentive is no charge for the door and the ability to sell and trade games in the free play area.
I do agree with the statement that the free play area could use some newer games, not that there's not a place for the oldies, it's a good mixture. Thanks Rich for the great show and hard work.

That's unfair and discriminatory!

I'll post part of my idea here before I talk to Rich just to give Rich and everyone else an idea what I am thinking as far as a little more incentive to get more SS & DMD machines to the show. Bingo & EM guys - I still don't have you guys figured out yet but I think we could come up with some type of a little thank you for you guys also.

Anyway a couple months ago when Force Flow was trying to get his NY show off the ground my son Wayne (Pinitech) donated a couple hundred dollars worth of product for Adam to raffle off and everyone bringing a machine to the show was entered into that raffle. Even though Wayne is always out of town the weekend of the York Show I am sure I can get him to give Rich either some gift certificates or discount coupons so that we can incentivize more DMD & SS machine owners to bring machines to the show by raffling off that stuff to people bringing newer SS and DMD machines.. But it could get even sweeter if Rich could get some other vendors to do the same thing.

If a few the new parts vendors would either give Rich some 10% off coupons or some free merchandise to raffle off to anyone bringing a DMD machine for freeplay it might be enough to get more DMD machines to the show? I don't want to make it sound like the EM & Bingo guys should be excluded but York always has a great selection or EM's & Bingo machine. But it is lacking in DMD machines at times so it would be nice to see an additional 30 to 50 DMD machines at the show.

If this idea works everyone wins. There is a bigger & better selection of machines at the show which helps the show, if the show grows there are more customers for the parts the parts guys are selling so they make more money. And if Rich bumps the price up $5 and uses some of that money to advertise in the Washington & Baltimore area the bigger show should draw even more people. So in the end more paying attendees, more customers for the vendors, and more customers for machines that are for sale. I think it could work?

Not to anyone attending the show and getting to play a wider selection of games. Idea is to increase the quantity and quality of the pins in the free play area and also bump attendance.

The show would've been a bust for me and my wife without Cointaker and PinballStar's presence and all their new games. Since we were only able to make it on Saturday the DMD and SS games were pretty thinned out and got thinner as the day went on.

I actually think he might have been joking. I think York is one of the best shows around if you like Bingo & EM machines and York has always been known for having a great selection of EM's that has gotten even better with the addition of "bingo row" a couple years ago and that is all great. But a certain percentage of people are like you and your wife and go to shows mostly to play DMD & the latest machines and York was lacking in that area for sure again this year.

That is what got me thinking about what I could do to help and like I said in my previous post the only thing I can come up with so far is to give some of the kids (Pinitech) stuff away to people who bring newer machines. Typically when I give Wayne's product (or work) away I help him cover the expenses of doing that for the sake of improving the hobby or a show. Wayne is younger and needs to make money - I am semi retired so it is more about the fun of the hobby to me than it is about money.

Anyway - keep the thoughts coming! I really want to try to help Rich do what ever it takes to make the show even better in 2018.

NIB Pro? I've heard of some SW Pros getting out the door under $5K.

Man... When you think about it like that, it really puts the crazy prices people are willing to spend on something that was built in the 90s into a weird perspective. Are they always worth the money, when you can get something brand new in a box for less. Yikes.

Rarity tends to come into play.

Thanks for your kind words on "Bingo Row". It obviously takes a lot of effort to collaborate and put that together year-after-year with unique titles. Have you noticed that we have only had one duplicate title in any of the three concentrated years we've been doing that?

I am a younger guy. I like interesting games. Mechanically, electrically, etc. I first started going to York within the decade, and I keep coming back because of the game selection and the friends I've made and only see a couple times a year.

I grew up in the era of DMDs. I would rather play a game from the 30s-70s as they were made before I was born, and I tend to find those games more interesting. I think that if we really want to incentivize people, how about we make it so the person with the largest weight average per machine gets an incentive? It's not fair, any way you slice it, to push one group above others when we all have to put in so much effort to get the machines there.

I thought we did this for the love of pinball, not the love of freebies? Honestly, I would be happy to pay my way in every day to display. I take the free admission as a gift, a token of appreciation for me lugging stuff from a few states away for the public to bang on for a few days. It's supposed to be fun (and it is)!

I can go to another collector's house down the street and play DMD machines. Heck, even my city, with two locations, has DMD machines. Many of the folks my age or a little older collect them almost exclusively. But how many Baker Twinkles will you get to play? How many Gottlieb Derby Day or Basketballs? And those were just in the row opposite mine.

York had all of that this year and a whole lot more.

How many one-of-a-kind machines? There were at least two that I counted at York that were available to play all weekend. I know I put in hundreds and hundreds of hours to share mine with everyone. And tuning up a game from 1955 for York takes a bit of effort as well. I would do it again in a heartbeat, but not for an incentive. But because I love the games and I love sharing them with people.

My point is that if you only come for the DMD games, you are missing a lot of really interesting and unique titles from all the other eras of pinball. Play them all. You may never have another opportunity.

I actually like the mix of games and I played one SS game and went right back to the EM's. I cordially finished the SS game when in fact after 2 balls I had enough. Played about 200 games over 2 days ,very glad I attended.

In no way am I trying to play down the importance of all machines at any show but I know from the people I talked to both at the show and after the one common theme of almost every conversation was the lack of more & better SS titles. Like I posted earlier - my ideas or suggestions are not intentionally trying to exclude the Bingo, EM or Woodrail guys and I am a big fan of earlier machines myself. My issue is I don't know exactly what extra incentive Wayne & I could offer those guys since all Wayne's Pinitech stuff is geared to SS machines.

With Rich's blessing I am hoping to try to come up with ideas for something a little extra for anyone bringing a machine to the show but for that to happen I'll need the help of other vendors as well as for Rich to be on board with any ideas. Right now I am just kind of thinking out loud and looking for any input that might help Rich improve an already great show.

PS: I know from experience if we reward people by weight of machines the bingo guys would win hands down. GOD those beast are heavy!

i don't take games to allentown either .

Just saying there was a great selection of EMs and Bingos, but that's just not the type of pinball we gravitate towards. My wife specifically said she doesn't like "flat" games - she enjoys ramps and stuff to shoot for. She didn't even want to play TNA but I got her to play and she loved the music, but that's about it. She even destroyed a Reactor and she beat my score too.

I'm guilty of not bringing games this year. I always bring two DMDs to Allentown and York since that's what I can fit in the van. But we couldn't make it on Friday, Saturday was our only option and we knew we'd be getting there around 10am and leaving before 4:00.

I enjoy reading all of the ideas as it shows how much people care about this hobby. I live about 45 minutes from York and 1:15 from Allentown. I plan on going to both shows every year regardless. There can be more machines, less machines or whatever, but as long as there are people there that like talking pinball, some machines to play/buy and vendors, I will pay more, come earlier, wait longer or whatever. Thanks rich and thanks also to the guy from WV that sold me the T2 - I'm really enjoying it!

I'm happy you are enjoying a great machine, it played flawlessly for us at the show, seems it never stopped almost the whole time. I'm already missing it at home, lol. I hope you and the family make some great memories with it for a long time to come.

Way to show your support!

Well, not really. No class of games should be rated higher than any other, nor should those bringing certain titles be given any kind of preferential treatment.
I only own EM games, and I would be less inclined to bring one if I felt it wasn't appreciated as much as the more modern games.

There are several ways to look at things but the way I am seeing it is like a new car dealer (or company) having an overstock of a certain model car and discounting that more then other models that are selling well. York always seems to have a great selection of earlier machines but always seems light on DMD titles for some crazy reason. So my thought was maybe a little extra incentive to get more people bringing DMD machines.

Personally I love York the way it is but a good many people I talked to over the weekend kept saying the show seemed light on DMD machines.

In any event - I am hoping some of my ideas offer something extra to everyone bringing a machine for freeplay. First I need to see what Rich thinks, then I need to do some leg work to see what I can come up with for next year. I can't say too much before both talking to Rich and doing some research. But my main interest is to grow the York Show to draw more people that have to drive several hours to the show.

There is nothing in this for me other than work but I know Rich already puts a ton of time & effort into the show and if I can help him get more machines to the show I am going to try in every way possible. But maybe I am looking at things all wrong - maybe the show is perfect the way it is? I don't know and that is why I keep posting here looking for suggestions & trying to get some additional feedback for Rich to consider when planning for 2018.

Keep the ideas coming! And for you EM & bingo guys - well done! We had a great assortment of EM's & Bingo machines at the show again this year!

My 1st time at York. Been to Allentown 4 times in the last 12 years. I liked York a lot. Got to play a few classic EM's I never had before. My take on the free play area. I have a very modest collection, 5 working games. I would ever haul one of my restored early Bally SS games 135 miles unless I wanted to sell it to save a $15 admission. No. My hats off to those who do, but to pull a game, tear it down, load, unload, set up and devote the time over several days? I can't. However I'd pay $25-30 to attend that show easily.

Just to point out with what you are saying. I mostly collect early SS games. Yeah I have a few DMD pins but my love is for the classics. I met up with several of my new league friends at the show for the first time. Most are a lot younger then me from the range of early 20's on up. I was very surprised to see them going after the EM's, bingo's and early solid state pins. Yeah they went for the SW, TNA, DI first but for the free play area it was the older games they played the most.

One thing I would like to point out for all the people on the fence about bringing games. I've been going to the shows for a long time and always worried about bringing a game. My biggest concern was if the game would break down. Well this year I finally brought a game since I wanted to sell it. Luckily didn't even have a hiccup with it. However from taking notice to others that had problems. There were always several people that were offering help. Jim from JT Amusements and Bob the pinball doctor too name a few. Next year I plan to bring at least two pins to set up whether they are for sale or not.

Same. I never brought a show for the same reasons. I can usually fix whatever I need, but I do it leisurely, at my own pace. At a show, there’s a moral responsibility to keep it running as well as possible.

I brought my Buck Rogers since I sold it previously, and the buyer was going to pick it up there. Of course, while we’re packing it down Saturday afternoon after the show, a leg bolt I probably haphazardly bolted on Friday became crossthreaded, and I didn’t have the tools needed to crank it out.

Thankfully, a handful of fine gentlemen came to the rescue after seeing our frustratingly fruitless endeavor, offering tools and support. We got it off 30 minutes later, but we would’ve had to run to a hardware store to hacksaw the bolt off had help not arrived.

There’s some really great people in this hobby. Thank you all!

These shows only work because of people - people bringing machines, people helping get machines moved around, people helping others when they have issues, people like the promoters taking great risk to actually start & run shows, people like the vendors spending countless hours bringing goodies everyone needs or wants, etc. Without any one of them these shows just wouldn't work. At times I think we are forget just what a great bunch of guys are involved in this hobby. Working together in the past and into the future is what will ensure the hobby continues to grow & thrive. Hats off to everyone who helps make these shows great!

thanks, that's one way to alienate hundreds/thousands of pinsiders. guess we'll just stay home next time...