UKPINFEST 2021

After the 2020 show had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, UKPinfest was back at the Mercure Daventry Court Hotel for 2021.

Held over the bank (public) holiday weekend at the end of August, UKPinfest is a pure pinball event featuring over 100 pinballs, a few vendor stands and multiple tournaments. It’s as much a social event as a pinball-playing one and, after missing out on so much in 2020, everyone was eager to see all the familiar faces again and catch up on everything that’s happened over the past two years.

To help facilitate that, the hotel has two bars – one in the lobby and another in the main show hall. There is a separate restaurant serving breakfast for hotel guests and a pop-up hot and cold food service in the bar at lunchtime and in the evening. Food could also be ordered at the bar throughout the day.

With reasonable weather over the weekend, the courtyard area was also a popular place to gather and socialise.

Back in the lobby, four of the latest pinball machines were brought in just for the show, provided by Pinball Heaven. We arrived on Friday lunchtime just as they were being set up.

The left two games – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Mandalorian (Premium) were for the youth and adult High Score Tournaments respectively, while the The Avengers – Infinity Quest and the second The Mandalorian (this time a Pro) were on pay-to-play for charity at a cost of £1 ($1.38/€1.17) per game.

Access to the main show hall is via a corridor to the right of the bar area.

However, to the left of the banner above is a smaller room which was used to host the Classics Tournament.

The Classics Tournament was run by Shaun Harvey and featured eight solid-state pinballs. They were:

Devil Riders Elektra Fireball II Joker Poker

Meteor Paragon Raven Super Orbit

Qualifying took place throughout Saturday after which the top two scorers on each machine moved on to the play-offs which were played on Sunday morning.

Continuing down the corridor towards the main hall (a.k.a. the Danetree Suite), we come to the show registration desk.

It was here you could usually find show organiser Philip Murphy as he answered questions and greeted guests.

Admission was by way of different coloured wristbands depending on the type of entry purchased. Adult entry to the show cost £20 ($27.50/€23.33) per day for the Saturday and Sunday daytime sessions. These ran from 10:30am until 6pm on Saturday and from 10:30am until 4:30pm on Sunday.

Entry for both days cost £35 ($48.20/€40.80), while there were also evening sessions on Friday and Saturday priced at £10 ($13.80/€11.70) each. A VIP pass covering all sessions was also available at a cost of £50 ($68.80/€58.40).

Once visitors had received their colour-coded wristbands, they could enter the main hall and find the 101 pinballs set on free play.

Here’s the list of machines set up in the free-play area:

AC/DC Addams Family, The Aerobatics Alien (Highway Pinball) Alien (Pinball Brothers) Attack from Mars Austin Powers Avengers, The – Infinity Quest Avengers, The – Infinity Quest Banzai Run Batman (Stern) Batman 66 Baywatch * Black Knight Black Knight – Sword of Rage Black Knight 2000 Black Knight 2000 Blue Chip Cactus Canyon Champion Pub, The Circus (Zaccaria) Cirqus Voltaire Count-Down Creature from the Black Lagoon Deadpool Demolition Man Doctor Who Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Eight Ball F-14 Tomcat Farfalla Fathom Fish Tales Flash Gordon Flintstones, The Genie (Gottlieb) * Getaway, The – High Speed 2 Getaway, The – High Speed 2 Gigi Goldeneye Harlem Globetrotters Hook Indiana Jones (Stern) Indiana Jones (Williams) Indiana Jones (Williams) Iron Maiden (Stern) Johnny Mnemonic Jokerz! Jurassic Park (Stern) Lethal Weapon 3 Lethal Weapon 3

Lord of the Rings Lucky Strike Machine, The – Bride of Pinbot Mata Hari Medieval Madness Metallica Monster Bash Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man Munsters, The Nautilus No Good Gofers Orbitor 1 Pharaoh Pirates of the Caribbean (Stern) Police Force Queen’s Castle Revenge from Mars Revenge from Mars Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends Riverboat Gambler Riverboat Gambler Roadshow Robocop Shadow, The Simpons Pinball Party, The Ski Jump Space Station Spider-Man Star Trek – The Next Generation Star Trek – The Next Generation Star Trek (Bally) Star Trek (Data East) Star Trek (Stern) Star Wars (Data East) Star Wars (Data East) Starship Troopers Strikes and Spares Swords of Fury Tag Team Taxi Terminator 2 The Machine – Bride of Pinbot Tommy, The Who’s Total Nuclear Annihilation Transformers Tron Turf Champ Twilight Zone Wizard! X-Files, The

The main UKPinfest Battle Tournament organised by Wayne Johns and Paul Garner was run at the back of the hall. This used ten machines with qualifying taking place all day Saturday and for two hours on Sunday morning, before the play-offs and final on Sunday afternoon.

Participation cost either £10 for registration and one entry of three games, or £20 for registration and four entries. Unlimited additional entries could then be purchased for £5 each.

All entry fees were returned to the players, with the winner receiving 35% of the prize pool, second place got 20%, third got 15% and fourth 10%.

Here’s the list of machines used in the UKPinfest Battle tournament:

Avengers, The Avengers, The – Infinity Quest Batman (Stern) Getaway, The – High Speed 2 Hot Wheels

Indianapolis 500 Iron Man Jurassic Park (Stern) Led Zeppelin Wizard of Oz, The

Along the side wall were three NBA Fastbreak machines used for the NBA Challenge which cost £5 to enter. These were provided by Northern Lights Pinball with the tournament run by the Scottish Pinball Association.

Two of these machines were linked and head-to-head matches were played by the 24 players who were split into six groups of four, with everyone playing a game against the other three people in their group. The top two players in each group then continued to the play-offs on Sunday morning. The remaining NBA Fastbreak machine was used as a spare in case of any issues with the other two machines.

There was an additional competitive event held on Friday and Saturday nights. Neil McRae of Domino Arcade organised the free Stall Ball competition on a The Shadow machine.

In Stall Ball, players line up to play the machine. As it becomes their turn to play, they have to lock a ball in either a ball lock or a saucer without draining.

Once they do that, they leave the machine and return to the back of the line to play again. If they drain, they are out of the competition.

There was a long line to play each night, but once the competition began the line moved pretty fast, and as more players were eliminated the line became shorter until just two players remained. As soon as one of them drained, the other was the winner. Neil provided a nice selection of prizes, with the winner receiving a new iPhone.

There were a few vendors present at the show. Jonathan Melleney’s 1 Stop Pinball has a selection of new and used parts.

Jonathan also brought a beautiful Turf Champ horse-racing pinball.

London Pinball and the Flip Out London pinball club also had a stand at the show selling merchandise and reclaimed parts. They also brought a bunch of machines for guests to enjoy.

The Special When Lit pinball club brought some machines along too, as did Steve Padgett from Electric Circus.

Outside the main hall, Chris Brimacombe had his regular impressive selection of reclaimed pinball parts.

Sunday morning brought the play-offs and finals of both the Classics Tournament and the NBA Challenge along with a final chance to qualify for the UKPinfest Battle tournament’s play-off rounds held later in the day.

The Classics Tournament final was between Andrew Foster, David Dutton, William Dutton and Alan Jones.

It was a three-game final, played on Paragon, Raven and Meteor with 4-2-1-0 scoring for first to fourth place on each machine.

It was a very close final, but the eventual winner was David Dutton with Andrew Foster second, Alan Jones third and William Dutton fourth. Along with a trophy and medal, David won a £275 cash prize. Andrew’s prize was £205, Alan’s £135 and William’s £70. Tournament organiser Shaun Harvey presented the trophies and prizes.

Qualifying players who didn’t make the final all received medals.

The final rounds of the NBA Challenge also took place on Sunday morning, although these were played out in the main hall.

The top two from each of the groups of four made it to the play-offs. They were: Daryl Brock, Neil Derek, Andy Brock, Dave Morgan, Graeme Haynes, Kevin Donovan, Dave Bush and Martin Fox.

The eventual winner was Kevin Donovan who best Daryl in the final. Kevin was presented with his winner’s trophy by Ailsa Clunie.

The NBA Challenge was over-subscribed with several youngsters amongst those who missed out. So, an ad-hoc Junior Division was formed and played out on Sunday morning.

The winner of that was Daniel Vince.

That left just the UKPinfest Battle tournament to complete.

Qualifying entries consisted of three games on machines of the player’s choice from the ten available. Scores were ranked on each machine and points awarded. The total of the points from all three machines made up the complete entry. Only the best entry for each player counted, but unlimited entries could be bought during the qualifying hours.

The top 24 players qualified for the play-offs, with the top eight getting a bye through the first round.

The play-offs consisted of head-to-head best-of-three matches on pre-selected machines.

After the first elimination round, the quarter-finals and the semi-finals, the four who made it to the final were Andrew Foster, Craig Pullen, Andreas Bernard and Paul Owen.

The three machines to be played in the final were drawn as The Avengers, High Speed 2 – The Getaway and Led Zeppelin.

There were some very close scores – especially on High Speed 2 – which meant that the winner would be decided on the final game, Led Zeppelin.

William Dutton won the third game with 365M which was enough for him to take second place. The winner, though, was Craig Pullen whose second place on Led Zeppelin with 349M earned him enough points to secure first place. Paul Owen was third and Andreas Bernard fourth. Along with a trophy, Craig took home a £610 cash prize for his victory. The second place prize was £335, third place received £250 and fourth place £165. Fifth to eighth places each received £80 cash prizes.

You can watch the qualifying games and the final of the UKPinfest Battle on the Pinball Live Twitch channel.

Although the show officially closed at 4:30pm, the final of the tournament ran until 5:30pm. Show organiser Philip Murphy then thanked everyone who contributed to making the show a success and drew proceedings to a close. The break down and clearance of the machines could then begin.

There was definitely some trepidation from visitors about attending a mass indoor gathering such as UKPinfest while Covid infections are still widespread, and time will tell how safe it ultimately was. However, although guest numbers were markedly down on the previous show in 2019, it was still both a social and financial success. There was clearly a huge appetite for the resumption of pinball gatherings, not only for the social side but also for the opportunity to play some of the more recent titles.

Interestingly, after having played the newest games we heard the same comments over and over; that the rules have become too complicated and unintuitive, that they are written by top players for other top players, and average players are simply giving up on ever hoping to learn them.

Fortunately, a show such as UKPinfest provides a wide range of games from electromechanical to the latest LCD models, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

The reduced visitor numbers meant it was easy to find a machine to play and only a short wait if your chosen game was currently occupied. Plus, the hall was never too crowded or hot. In fact, for a visitor, the numbers were just about perfect.

Finally, here’s our exclusive Ten Minute Tour video as we walk around the show floor and the other pinball areas around the hotel.

UKPinfest will be back in 2022 and, naturally, Pinball News will be there once again to report on all the action.