EURO ATTRACTIONS |
Date: 23rd - 25th September, 2014 Report by Evert Brochez of Bingovit
It’s Wednesday morning on the 23rd of September 2014 and here we are in Amsterdam in the Netherlands to visit the Euro Attractions Show (better known as EAS) for the very first time. For most Pinball News readers this should sound slightly familiar as you may have read about the EAG show which is held each January in London. Some of the big differences are that this show is vastly bigger than EAG and is held in a different European country each year.
But we’re here to talk about the EAS which is run by the same organisation which holds the large amusement show in Florida each November, IAAPA.
So let’s get started touring this huge show which took place in two very large halls filled with animatronics, amusement devices, roller coaster (or parts of them), 3D cinemas, kiddy rides, scenery… Oh, and did I mention pinball already? Yes, there were only three real pinball machines in the whole show, but we managed to find them quickly as The Walking Dead made its European premiere.
On a little side note, the funny part was that a few days later this very same game ended up at my place since we had arranged a deal to have this game available at the Belgian Open Pinball tournament a week after the EAS.
The code on this game was pretty rough but played without any major faults and was already a lot of fun. Thanks to the good support of Gary Stern we were able to have a code update right before the Belgian Open Pinball which made the game a lot more complete! A fun fact was that Star Trek was so loud you could hear it halfway across the hallway which says a lot since there’s a lot of noise at the show coming from almost every exhibitor. But Stern wasn’t the only pinball manufacturer at the show… And that concludes the pinball part, as this show is a lot more focused on the bigger attractions! I’ve tried to group some of my pictures into smaller categories to make it a little easier to navigate.
In the case of this next section, miniatures of big attractions which were easier to set up at their booths.
There were also lots of kiddy rides and other kid-friendly devices to be found across the two halls. It was at this point that we entered part two of the show in the other hall!
And of course no show would be complete if it didn’t have video games, cranes, air hockeys, boxers, and redemption games!
Lots of things are needed to theme a theme park, so there was a selection of everything you could imagine, such as animatronics, backgrounds, themed buildings, etc.
As with every show of this kind, you also had quite a few simulators and 3D (or more) cinemas available. And the last category I’m dividing the pictures into is the miscellaneous one where you can work out what they’re all about. :-) These informational touchscreen terminals shown above were really funny to watch. They were pretty intelligent devices, and so when the terminals hadn’t used for a few minutes they would start driving towards people to get noticed. A funny story though is that we noticed several times how the exhibitors would have to run after the terminals when the people they wanted to reach were several booths away. To conclude this article I’ll end this photo tour with the picture below of Berk Concession Supply. This might ring a bell with some people… As you may already know, this is none other than Rob Berk, co-organiser of Pinball Expo! I didn’t even realize it was him while I was taking this picture - it’s only now when writing the article I recognise him. Luckily for us Rob recognized us in the hallway as pinball people. It was fun to finally meet him and talk some pinball! EAS is a BIG show, and there was so much to see as you will have seen in this small selection of the huge number of pictures I took! Prices for tickets are really high when you register on the day itself, starting at around €120. You could purchase tickets up to €1000 if you included lots of seminars, visits to nearby theme parks and networking meetings. In 2015 EAS will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden. Check the IAAPA website for more details and to register.
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