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PINBALL EXPO 2007 |
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Date: 24th - 28th October 2007 Saturday has now become established as the third day of seminars at Pinball Expo. Where previously only the occasional talk would be lined-up, there is now a regular schedule of seminars. This year they began with a talk about playfield printing in Canada. Direct Ink Playfields - John Greatwich
This seminar was billed as featuring Steve Kordek, Alvin Gottlieb and Wayne Nyens.
Mike has only been collecting machines for two years but has already amassed a sizeable stable of music-themed pinballs.
The first prize for 2007 went to a pencil drawing entitled Pinball Anarchy.
Subtitled "After years of fighting obsolescence, the pinball worlds have turned on each other..." the drawing shows characters and toys from classic pinball games attacking their counterparts. The formal presentation of the winner's award would be made at tonight's banquet. Speaking of which...
The Saturday night banquet has improved greatly over the past few years, getting punchier and better value for all concerned. The evening began with a charity auction to raise money for the Make-A-Wish foundation.
Goods auctioned ranged from a set of pinballs, a DVD, some Big Bang Bar artwork and a pinball price guide through to the two highest-priced items - a Centipede video cabinet and an illuminated, signed Spider-Man translite which fetched $400 and $325 respectively. After the buffet meal, the guest speaker for the banquet gave his talk to the audience. John Osborne is well know as the designer of games such as Haunted House and Pro-Football.
He talked about the hugely creative environment he found when he joined Gottlieb and how he that creativity worked when designing games with the likes of Ed Krynski and Gordon Morison.
PinBrawl joint organiser Josh Sharpe then came to the podium to announce how Pinbrawl for 2007 was dedicated to veteran game designer Norm Clark.
Norm was a prolific designer for Williams during the 1960s and 1970s, creating such games as Gulfstream, Bow & Arrow and Dealers Choice. As reported yesterday, Alvin Gottlieb had already been inducted into the Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame and today it was time for two more induction presentations. The first was a posthumous induction for the three Gensburg brothers who founded pinball manufacturer Genco. Dave, Lou and Meyer Gensburg set up their game business in Chicago in the early 1930s, employing Harvey Heiss and Steve Kordek, and it was Steve who read the induction citation on the plaque.
The third induction ceremony saw a well known pinball artist join the Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame. Pat Lawlor stepped up to the podium to describe the works and career of John Youssi. John designed the art for many modern pinball machines and worked extensively with Pat on most of his games from Whirlwind all the way through to NASCAR. Pat told how John was first selected by Williams after seeing his previous work and how he has designed many other artwork we may see in our daily lives.
Awards also went to Marco Specialties for the best vendor's stand of the show, Gary Stern for the factory tour and the tournament games, Fred Young for organising the entertainment, Josh Sharpe and John Kosmal for the tournaments, Jim Schelberg and Martin Ayub for audio/video help during the seminars, Charlie for helping with the auction and Roger Sharpe for helping with the seminars. With those awards given, the banquet came to a speedy conclusion and the main show hall re-opened for the remainder of the night and into Sunday morning. Sunday will see the conclusion of the individual tournament and we'll be there to bring you the results and show you the winners.
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