I had a great time at the show. My only real gripes were the inside temp (freezing on Thurs/Fri) and of course, the bathrooms. Maybe they were better than prior years, but still pretty rough.

Agreed on Fri-Sun. Thursday night is pretty dead and Saturday gets crowded just as the games are getting packed up. I think more people would travel if they could have a full Saturday and Sunday at the show.

Plus you could have tournament qualifying end Saturday night then start Sunday morning with the playoffs. It would be a lot cooler to have the final rounds of the tournament running when there's still a nice crowd there rather than having the finals in a completely empty room as the owner is trying to close up shop.

Here's what it looked like during the last couple rounds of the tournament, which ended around 11pm Saturday night.

potc1.jpg

Yeah, I get that a lot of the vendors have a long drive, but I don't think most of the crowd is there for parts. If so, they could shop Fri/Sat and enjoy more free play through Saturday night and Sunday.

I'm sure there are a bunch of reasons that Sunday hasn't been a part of the show, but I think it would get a lot more casual players in the door and make Saturday night pretty huge.

Of course, this is all subject to whatever works at the potential new venue for next year. Either way, I'd love to see the Ohio show get bigger and better and become more of a destination for people to travel. Thanks Mike, Marvin and Don for all the work you put in and opening up the discussion for improvements.

Agreed that you can't force people to keep their games out according to a set schedule.

A Friday through Sunday show would be better for attendance and make for a bigger show overall. I don't see how taking Monday off work for vendors would be any different than taking Thursday off as it is now. Sunday would definitely have better attendance than a Thursday night.

I think a lot of people are in this same boat. I personally take Friday off work because I live within an hour and want to make the most of the show, but I know that's not an option for many.

Thanks for taking the feedback into consideration, Mike.

Looking forward to many more years of the show getting bigger and better.

Disappointed to see it's still Thursday-Saturday. Was it an issue with the new location? Why didn't you switch to Fri-Sun?

The old location was a 40 minute drive for me, and I always went for all 3 days. The new spot is a 1hour 20min drive each way. That definitely rules out Thursday, and it may not seem worth it if Saturday will still be wrapping up throughout the afternoon like usual. Bummer.

Plus the Ohio show is the weekend after PAPA (March 11-15). Makes it tough on the people who like to do both. I guess too many pinball events isn't a terrible problem to have, but not everyone can do back to back weekends like that.

Very cool, Marvin. I remember you guys talking about two shows a year, but didn't realize it was coming together.

Just curious why you're sticking with the Thurs-Sat format for both shows though? I'd think attendance would be better if it was more of a weekend event.

All night is a good move. It's fun seeing who can win sleep deprived games at 5am at Expo.