The 40th edition of Pinball Expo is upon us and Pinball Magazine will try to report on a daily basis from the event. As Pinball News is reporting from the event as well, including all videos of recorded seminars (in which Pinball Magazine is assisting), this report will be more of a personal diary.

Monday, October 14, 2024: Travel day.

Flew from Amsterdam to Dublin, and from Dublin to Chicago. Clearing customs in Dublin was surprisingly easy, no lines whatsoever. Arrived in Chicago around 7:00 PM, arrived at the Schaumburg Renaissance Hotel by 8:00 PM. I’m sharing a room with Martin Ayub of Pinball News, who arrived before me. Dropped my bag in the room and checked out the Pinball Expo showfloor, which was mostly empty; a few pallets here and there and the red carpet for the Stern Pinball booth was already layed out.

Speaking of Stern Pinball: they announced Metallica Remastered to be revealed on Wednesday, October 16th. The game will be shown at the Stern Pinball Factory tour, which is part of Pinball Expo, on Friday the 18th and at the Pinball Expo booth on the Saturday of Pinball Expo. Pinball Magazine will report on that game in a separate article.

The rest of Monday evening I spent at the hotel, catching up with several friends that also just got in.

Tuesday, October 15: Pinball Expo kicks off

Setup in the vendor hall started early in the morning. Around 10:00 AM, the registration desks opened and attendees could pick up their wristband, Enterrium playing card and show program.

The first official event of the day was the factory tour to Chicago Gaming Company / Churchill Cabinets. In the lobby outside the Pinball Expo vendor hall a line formed of attendees waiting for the busses to arrive to take them to Cicero, IL.

Martin and I were in the luck position to get a ride from Mick and Terry Brown, so we left before the busses.

Once the tour started, there was a strict No Photo or Video policy. I’ve asked CGC whether they would be willing to provide photos themselves. If I receive such photos this section will be updated.

The tour of CGC was impressive. Martin and I have visited CGC in 2016, but we didn’t remember the factory being as clean as it was today.

Following the Chicago Gaming factory tour, our next stop was the Galloping Ghost arcade.

The arcade consists of several rooms, each packed with videogames and a new videogame added every week. This is the largest collection of Arcade videogames in the world and well worth a visit.

We didn’t stay long, just took some photos and played one game. Next up, we went for lunch at Portobello’s, known for their hot dogs. From there it was a 45-minute drive back to the hotel.

At the hotel, I dropped my swag bag in the room and went to take a look at the vendor floor. Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball both have most of their booths already setup. PinGame Journal was also setting up its stand, which has at least over 30 different pinball flyers of games from the ’90s and ’00s by various manufacturers. The flyers are free of charge as PGJ editor Jim Schelberg is cleaning out his archives. Jim also brought many key chain plastics, including all Doctor plastics for Doctor Who and all seven different martian plastics from Atack from Mars. With upcoming editions of the So You Think You Know Pinball quiz in mind, I seized the opportunity to bring home some prizes for upcoming quizes. The first one coming up being the quiz at Dutch Pinball Open Expo, the weekend of November 2-3.

Once the vendor hall closed, I took the stuff to my room. I went back to the bar where I joined Jersey Jack Pinball animators (and fellow Dutch citicens) Jean-Paul de Win and Olaf Gremie, and Eric Bartels, the technician who managed to turn Magic Girl into an actual working pinball machine. Around 10:00 PM I went up to my room to finish my report today. Tomorrow is another busy day with Stern Pinball revealing Metallica Remastered, a factory tour at American Pinball and the traditional Bumper Blast Perty at Enterrium. Somehwere in between all that, Martin and I have to set up the seminar rooms with all audio and video equipment for the seminars starting on Thursday.

Wednesday, October 16

I was up early and headed to the vendor floor where I met with Nicolas from PinSound and Juris Purin from Quetzal Pinball. Quetzal Pinball is a Spanish pinball company founded by Antonio Arturo, who designed several games so far. His Super Hoops design was taken into production by Bitronic, also in Spain. He also designed a game called Tokyo Perfect Drift, which was shown at Pinball Expo several years ago. That game is currently being by Bitronic and will become available soon. Both Super Hoops and Tokyo Perfect Drift will be setup in the vendor area.

Around 10:00 busses arrived for the factory tour at American Pinball followed by a visit to Logan Arcade, or the other way around, as the attendees were split into two groups, without knowing where they were going. I didn’t join them, but may visit American Pinball later today if I can get a ride.

I returned to my hotel room before 11:00 AM to report on the reveal of Metallica Remastered. Then it was down to the seminar room to setup all audio and video equipment for the seminars that will start tomorrow.

While helping out setting things up in the seminar room, I was offered a ride to American Pinball to attend their factory tour. There was a strict ‘no photos’ policy, but I visited American Pinball last year and those photos were part of my Pinball Expo 2023 report. So those will give you an impression of the factory. What was interesting today was that a short tour through the Aimtron side of the building was included. Aimtron manufactures printed circuit boards for all sorts of parties, including the boardsets for American Pinball’s pinball machines.

Following the tour I picked up a few boxes at a postoffice as I may need these for my return trip.

Back in the vendor room, the amount of progress in setting up booths and games is huge. I’d say 70% of the vendors is now set up.

In the evening the traditional Bumper Blast party was held at Enterrium. International visitors were invited to come first to this Barcade. Busses departed late in the afternoon, but I missed those and had to wait for the next round, which was an hour later.

At Enterrium, there was a long line of people waiting to get food at the buffet. The buffet included salads, mac ‘n cheese, pasta, bread, chicken and more. Later in the evening, chocolate and lemon cakes were added as deserts. The quality of the foor was pretty good. Although it wasn’t that warm, it was still very tasty.

At Enterrium it became clear how many people have arrived for Pinball Expo as I saw many familiar faces that had just arrived in the afternoon. As I was very tired, I left Enterrium around 9:00 PM, as I could get a ride back to the hotel. With the seminar program kicking off early Thursday morning, I went to bed early.

Thursday, October 17

Just updated the Metallica Remastered article on the Pinball Magazine website with the main part of the official press release, which wasn’t available immediately at the moment of launch, yesterday.

Early in the morning, I went to see if I could get on a bus for the Jersey Jack Pinball factory tour. It took a bit of talking to several people to get on the list for the tour that would depart from the convention enter at 1:30 PM.

Up to that time I hopped in between the vendor floor and the main seminar room to assist in the recording of the various seminars.

Contrary to the schoolbusses that were used to visit Chicago Gaming and American Pinball, deluxe busses by Windy City were used to visit the Jersey Jack Pinball factory. Once inside the factory, groups of ten were formed and given a tour. Unlike Chicago Gaming, American Pinball, and Stern Pinball, the photo and video pocily for the JJP factory tour was “Take all the photos you want, but try to respect the privacy of employees and avoid taking photos of them.”

I didn’t time it, but I guess my tour was under 20 minutes, but still included the entire factory. My tourguide was Ken Cromwell, but Eric Meunier, Joe Schoeber, and Jack Guarnieri were also guiding groups through the factory. At the end of the tour, there was a waiting area with Avatar flyers and cars and a small survey that visitors could enter to win a prize. Elton John pinball designer Steve Ritchie was also present to autograph Elton John flyers.

Once back at the hotel, it was assisting in the seminars again. While some seminars were fascinating, others just seemed like bar talk that didn’t need a podium like this. It was hard not to fall asleep during those. Several seminars in the smaller Nirvana C room were completely packed, while the seminar in the larger Nirvana AB room was hardly attended.

It was very busy on the vendor floor once the floor opened for attendees. The unmanned PinGame Journal booth, with free flyers and promo plastics, was plundered in record time. Flyer collectors, like myself, could find various different versions of recent games like Funhouse Remake, ABBA, Avatar, and even a homebrew Friday the 13th on the vendor floor.

The homebrew section of the floor is bigger than ever, with over 40 different projects being displayed.

From what I could tell, the longest line, all day, was to play Dutch Pinball Exclusive’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This may not be a fair comparisment with titles like The Uncanny X-Men and Avatar: The Battle for Pandora, as both these titles have more playable machines on the floor.

Friday, October 18

Today starts with the Stern Pinball factory tour. The line at the conference center was up and down the lobby and then taking a turn into the Renaissance hotel, which is quite a distance. Schoolbusses started arriving at 9:00 AM. Luckily, I was able to get a ride just before the first busses left, which meant we were among the first groups to tour the factory.

Unlike last year, where people had to stand in line outside, this year, people had to wait in line inside of Stern Pinball’s massive building. Right after the reception area, a large area was freed up, which eventually wlll become Stern’s arcade. Two rows of games were currently setup. One thing I noticed instantly: the building has been decorated a lot more since last year.

Every year, the Friday and Saturday of Pinball Expo are so busy that there is no time to continue updating
this diary during the event. So, the rest of this report is written after Pinball Expo ended and I made my way back home.

At the Stern Pinball factory tour, I managed to ‘flip’ through the DJ Mixer mode on the displayed Metallica
Remastered games at the end of the factory tour and take a photo of each of the 23 songs in the game. As this info was not part of the game’s official press release, I added it to the Metallica Remastered reveal article.

Having attended all four factory tours during Pinball Expo, I have to compliment Jersey Jack Pinball for
being the only pinball manufacturer of these four that encouraged visitors to take photos. It is a smart move, in my opinion. Having said this, Stern Pinball was the only company with every tour guide carrying a headset and amplified speaker on their chest so everybody in their group could hear them talk—also a
smart move.

Once I returned to the convention center, I took photos of all five Hankin Pinball games in the free play area. There was a Thursday seminar on the history of Hankin Pinball, in which it was mentioned that it is very rare to find any of these games, let alone all five.

One of the highlights of this year’s Pinball Expo was the seminar on licensing in pinball on Friday at 4:00 PM with Tom Nieman, Roger Sharpe, and Jody Dankberg. LJ Greene hosted this seminar. Having published interviews with all three licensing veterans in Pinball Magazine, I sat down with LJ for a coffee and briefed her on the background of all three panelists. This ended up being a great seminar, with all three panelists explaining how they got into the licensing aspect of the industry. Roger Sharpe and Jody Dankberg are still active licensors today—Roger is a consultant for various parties, and Jody is for Stern Pinball. Roger’s story is documented in-depth in Pinball Magazine No. 1. Tom Nieman and Jody Dankberg’s stories are covered in Pinball Magazine No. 3.

Saturday, October 19

Before the vendor floor opened, I captured this moment: Jersey Jack Pinball-founder Jack Guarnieri
playing Dutch Pinball Exclusive’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Looking on is Christophe Lienard of Pinball Pleasure, the European distributor for both Jersey Jack
Pinball and Dutch Pinball Exclusive. 

One new pinball title I had not yet been able to play was Hexa Pinball’s Space Hunt, which was exhibited at the PinSound stand. Thankfully, I was able to play a few games on Saturday morning. I first thought it was an interesting, good game to play, but the music was rather repetitive and could have used better choreography. I expect to play the game again at the upcoming Dutch Pinball Open.

I filled in for Martin Ayub with the recording of the seminars on Saturday morning so he could go out to
the vendor floor to take photos and his famous walk-through video, which lasts over 45 minutes. One of the seminars I recorded was on the history of Bally Pinball from 1975 to 1985 by Ray Gay. The title doesn’t cover the topic discussed very well, as it turned out to be on the development of solid-state pinball boards at Williams. Much to my surprise, Ray Gay has been deaf all his life. Despite this handicap, this man has designed the board sets for Williams, including the soundboards (!). He also created the first boards that added speech to Williams pinball games, a first in pinball back then.

Early in the afternoon, the traditional autograph session was held. Pinball designers, artists, programmers,
and others are signing flyers, translites, playfields, and whatever else is related to their games that is available. As I had already boxed up the flyers I collected from the PinGame Journal booth, I figured I had nothing to have signed. Then Marcel van Kessel of the Dutch Pinball Association showed me a signed Twilight Zone speaker cutout plastic. So I rushed to my room, picked up speaker cutout plastics for Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, and had these signed by design team members. As Marcel missed out on the Indiana Jones speaker cutouts, and I had a spare set, I gave that to him to get signed.

Although the autograph session takes place in every edition of Pinball Expo, this one was special as
it included Pat Lawlor. From what I understood, that is pretty rare.

Late in the afternoon, Jack Guarnieri invited me for a pizza, which ended up being a dinner for five at
Weber Grill. As I was helping out Martin Ayub of Pinball News with the recording of the seminars, I brought him back a selection of vegan sides.

The seminars on Saturday late afternoon and evening are usually reserved for Stern Pinball, and this
year was no different. Due to my dinner with Jack Guarnieri, I could not attend all of them, but I could see parts of Jack Danger’s presentation on the making of The Uncanny X-Men. Jack had brought an early whitewood of the game and the final playfield.

The final event in the seminar room was the second edition of Let’s Make a Deal, a live game show
hosted by Dwight Sullivan. Despite not winning any prizes this year, Dwight handed Martin and me some leftover prizes afterward. These prizes will be used as prizes for the upcoming So You Think You Know Pinball-quiz, which Martin and I will be hosting at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo (the first weekend of November 2024).

After Let’s Make a Deal, Ron Coon Jr., Martin, and I packed up the technical equipment we had set up a few days earlier. That took about an hour. After that, I went to play some pinball in the vendor hall, only to notice that most vendors had already shut down their games or even started packing up their
materials.

I headed for the bar area in the hotel, where I ran into Antoinette Johnson, featured in Pinball Magazine
No. 5. It is always lovely to catch up. It was also nice to see pre-war pinball specialist Jeff Frick, despite not being able to play any of the games he had brought. But that’s not unusual. For me, Pinball Expo is mainly about the people. I ended the evening at the firepit, having an excellent talk with JJP’s Jean-Paul de Win.

Sunday, October 20: travel day

As Pinball Expo finishes on Saturday evening, Sunday is usually the pack-up and go-home day. This year was no different. I still had to pack my backpack and everything I collected during the week. On Saturday, I approached Barry Driessen of Dutch Pinball, asking whether he could pack two boxes of collected materials with the Alice games he would be shipping back to The Netherlands. He was willing to look at the possibilities, and then it turned out that Rens Hooijmaker of Dutch Pinball was returning with an empty suitcase. Problem solved 🙂 Thanks, Rens! That was quite a relief. I then walked past the JJP stand, where Ken Cromwell handed me two banners to give away during the quiz at the Dutch Pinball Open. Great! So, I returned to Dutch Pinball to see if they could fit them somewhere. In the meantime, Marcel van Kessel joined me, as we could share an Uber to the airport. Back in my room, I noticed an Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle translite donated by Spooky Pinball for the quiz, so I returned to Dutch Pinball again. By this time, I started feeling embarrassed about my requests, so I offered them some coffee, which was appreciated. By now, I have started to get a little stressed, as I still have to pack all my stuff, and we should be leaving by noon. So I quickly went to the bar to get the coffee I promised Dutch Pinball. In the lobby, I noticed some Stern Pinball banners for seminars that took place a day earlier. Gary Stern was nearby and sent me to see Roper about those. As he had no use for them anymore, as they were dated, I could take what I wanted. Marcel helped roll them up, and by this time, I got him into the hall. So, another visit to Dutch Pinball…

I figured we, Marcel and I, would do a final round through the hall to say goodbye. At American Pinball,
Marcel admired the large four-sided standup banner for Galactic Tank Force. Wouldn’t that look great next to the game at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo? So David Fix is there talking to European importer Stefan Riedler of RS Pinball. Stefan is coming to the Dutch Pinball Open Expo and bringing games. Long story short: David agreed to send the banner to Stefan, who will bring it to the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. He will also use it on his show in the spring of 2025.

After that, I quickly packed my stuff in my backpack while Marcel booked an Uber. Fifteen minutes later, we were heading for the airport.

Long story short: Long days, short nights, five hours of sleep at night at best. Met many old friends, played less than ten games of pinball. Four factory tours, all showcasing more or less the same process but everybody does it a little diferent. Some people love certain games, others hate it. Some companies have their act together, other act they have their act together. This was the biggest pinball show I’ve ever seen. It was a pity the Sunday was not part of it. That may have brought even more people in. Many thanks to Rob Berk, his family and his team of volunteers. It will be hard to top this one, but you can try: the dates for 2025 are October 15-18. See you there! 

This concludes my diary of Pinball Expo 2024. For more coverage of the event, visit Pinball News.