So EXPO 25 was my first time at the "Industry" show and I had a blast.

We arrived on Wednesday night in time for the 'buffet' complete with the lounge singer and the arrival of the Brazilain pin team (15 guys in matching jackets).

Thursday morning was the Stern tour which was interesting as it was great to see the machines being made but also somewhat depressing as I learned that the floor personnel are temps hired as required (and according to Gary the way of the future will be small runs of machines 200-300 or so at a time). Met up with Dan from Moncton at the tour. Talked with Curly from Little shop of games (Orlando) on the bus about parts distrubtion (directly from Stern vs through a distributor (aka someone like Starburst).

Back at the hotel the seminars began .. first one we hit was Pinball in Brazil .. really insightful into the history of pins in SA and the differences in the business as well as how expensive it is to get parts and new machines into Brazil (according to them their is 1 Stern in Brazil .. cost was $11K US$) Customs charges in Brazil range from 60% to 120% depending on the item.


For lunch headed over the RAM tavern across the street (previously recommended by many on this site and I concurr great place)
ran into Medvet, tslam and poolman over at the tavern good folks.

Attend the Weird and hard to find pins seminar (meh not my favourite) and then hung around for the these two guys can do it seminar (door repair and something else) as well as pin trivia ... Both Alienagent and Medvet did MAACA proud by answering trivia correctly (there might have been another London member that answered triviva but I can't remember)

and then the main hall was open .. roamed around played some and looked at the merch.

Headed back to the RAM for dinner and then back to the hall until 1:30am for more pin play.

Wearily headed up to the room to get some shuteye.

Slept in on Friday (Damn)

Breakfast at Denny's and then back for the NuCore seminar

at noon we hooked up with Alienagent and set out for PinLife for their one day sale.

it took about an hour to get to PinLife and the place was jumping .. upstairs food .. 4 or 5  pins.

Downstairs parts galore .. luckily I had lists for both Ballyboy and another TOPL member so I just handed my lists to Rob? and
he started getting the parts. Medvet was there as well ... picking up a new pin (Surprise !!!)

We hung out there for about an hour and got some great deals with Tim going back a couple of times for just one more item  

Back to the hotel and the Restoring and Repairing pin games seminar with Clay.

Well what we actually got was an update on the Lucky JuJu Pin museum in North California (Oakland area) which was interesting and then Clay offered a couple of choices so we ended up seeing a couple of videos of collections in California.

At that point we headed back to the hall checked out more stuff and then off to Lou Malnati's for some deep dish pizza (really really good stuff).

Back to the hall met up with Dan Cadera and played until 1:30am again.

Sat morning packed up and left (next time I will be sure to take the Monday following off so that I can stay for full day Sat) .. enroute home picked up a pin in Grand Rapids (that I had taken a look at on the way into Chicago) and then straight thru to the border and thankfully no problems at the crossing.

There were many highlights

meeting up for the first time with a couple of members (Medvet and Dan Cadera) as well as seeing others that I already had met (Tslam, poolman , Alienagent and a few TOPL members) .. unfortunately I didn't get to meet tartagliag.

The Stern tour ... just a cool experience and who knows how much longer we will be able to do it.

Multiple cool machines in the Hall ... Starlight, StarGazer, QuickSilver and my personal fav the whitewood CV .. totally different ringmaster voice and quotes .. slightly different ruleset ... and hell on the one game I was able to play I got to join the Circus.

I definitely will be back (although maybe put a year inbetween) It's not as much of a players convention as Allentown is (I've been to a couple of those) but the added benefit of the seminars and the tour make it very unique.


Anyways that's my .02 and a big thanks to the other maaca members for making a newbie feel welcome.

I went to Chicago on a personal trip and had only Friday morning until 2:30pm free to go to the show. I got there only to find that the main exibit hall only opens at 6pm!!! Talk about being pissed off. Tried to go back on Saturday or Sunday, but it was not possible . Missed the show....again

Quoted from HP5P

I went to Chicago on a personal trip and had only Friday morning until 2:30pm free to go to the show. I got there only to find that the main exibit hall only opens at 6pm!!! Talk about being pissed off. Tried to go back on Saturday or Sunday, but it was not possible . Missed the show....again

Enzo,

sorry to hear about your luck ... a few people at the show had issues with the timing (they ran the gamesroom from 6pm until 7am or something like that to try to help) but that wouldn't help getting access to the vendors. I know Dan and his girlfriend ended up paying to play in a pingolf tournament just so that they could access to some machines.

Quoted from SquidVicious

Enzo,

sorry to hear about your luck ... a few people at the show had issues with the timing (they ran the gamesroom from 6pm until 7am or something like that to try to help) but that wouldn't help getting access to the vendors. I know Dan and his girlfriend ended up paying to play in a pingolf tournament just so that they could access to some machines.

Yeah, we assumed that the exhibit hall would be open as soon as we got back from Stern...man were we wrong!  Had to kill 6 hours so we ate twice and coughed up $40 to enter the pingolf tournament as a team because as Squid was sayin', we wanted to get our hands on some machines and they said it'd take about 3 hours.  I'm the end though, that tournament was totally worth it 'cause we had a great time playing machines (some) machines I may not have spent as much time on when the main room opened.  I am now a fan of late 70s/early 80s Bally machines for life.

So I got to play a ton of machines I never got to play before, but my favorite part was the people I met.  Squidvicious was an awesome guy and we talked whenever we crossed paths (how's the Barracora?).  Also met up with some other boys from Toronto who we played 3 player games all weekend when I was on my own and they were great.  Basically everyone was super cool and we had a great time as well, even if the exhibit room could have been open more.

Quoted from dancadera

Also met up with some other boys from Toronto who we played 3 player games all weekend when I was on my own and they were great.  Basically everyone was super cool and we had a great time as well, even if the exhibit room could have been open more.

Man, what a great time.  It was awesome hanging out with you Dan.  It was my first pinball expo and it was great.  Played 113 different pinball games over the course of the expo, and most of those I had never played before.

I am happy I joined the Pinbrawl tournaments so that I could play on thursday, and the Pinball Circus tournaments so I could play on Friday.  But that was just luck, I didn't realize there was no access during the day.  Another weird thing was that the show closes 5pm on saturday night.  Wouldn't that be the busiest time?  Plus it was pretty evident that Stern wasn't in good shape.  There was nothing on the assembly line, and there was some recent Stern titles missing from the lineup of games at the Expo.  You'd think they'd put some on the floor.

Well I bought a bunch of parts that I needed, and now have my Black Rose running 100%.

Great time.

Quoted from ninjedi

...Another weird thing was that the show closes 5pm on saturday night.  Wouldn't that be the busiest time?...

It closes at 5:00 PM just because of the banquet, the show reopens after. Most of the attendees are at the banquet, anyway.

tartagliag

Quoted from tartagliag

It closes at 5:00 PM just because of the banquet, the show reopens after. Most of the attendees are at the banquet, anyway.

tartagliag

Yeah, but the banquet doesn't start until 7pm.  I'd think that the vendors would like to be selling stuff.
What happens at the banquet anyways?  I didn't get a ticket to it, as there wasn't any information on it (that I could find).  I didn't want to spend $30 on a buffet (was there beer?).