PINBALL EXPO 2023

Welcome to the start of our coverage of Pinball Expo 2023, held at the Schaumburg Convention Center in the city of Schaumburg near Chicago.

The Convention Center is attached to the huge Renaissance hotel – part of the Marriott chain – and it is here where most out-of-town guest stay for Pinball Expo.

The show occupies the Discovery and Adventure halls, which are located at ground level, allowing vendors and machine-bringers to drive their stands and games straight into position.

Wednesday

We begin our coverage on Wednesday afternoon. At this point, the show hall is still being set up ahead of the public opening on Thursday at noon. So this part of the report looks at the set up and previews what will be available for guests.

As you enter the hall, on the right are several laptops where those looking to buy on-the-day tickets can register and make their purchases.

On the left is the registration desk where anyone who pre-registered could collect their entry pack for the days and events they purchased.

So, let’s take a picture tour of the main show hall during set-up on Wednesday.

Across the corridor from the main hall entrance is the tournaments room, where several competitive events will be held during the show, with the main Flip Out tournament ending on Sunday afternoon.

At 7pm, buses departed from the Convention Center for the short drive to Enterrium in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg which was hosting the Bumper Blast welcome party.

As guests entered the building they were told what food and drink was available, as well as how the smart cards they were given worked on the multitude of arcade games available to play.

There was a dedicated dining room where guests could help themselves to the hot food and cold drinks. Additional paid food options as well as a full bar were also available in the main bar area if that was preferable.

After dinner, almost the entire array of amusement machines were available to play for free using the provided Enterrium smart card. This card added credit to the games throughout the evening until closing time at 10pm, but didn’t collect any redemption tickets you might be awarded.

The games included pinballs, shooters, driving games, skill games and many more, including Enterrium’s bowling lanes.

The venue was also hosting the finals of the Stern Pro Circuit Championship, using two banks of machines set up alongside the bowling lanes. The Championship is a series of twenty tournaments held predominantly in the US but also comprising events in Canada, the UK and Australia.

Last year the finals commandeered nearly all the pinballs in Enterrium, leaving only a select few for Bumper Blast guests to play. Fortunately, this situation was rectified for 2023, with plenty of pinballs available.

The Championship finals came down to a battle between two young players – Jared August and Escher Lefkoff. Escher triumphed, collecting the prize of $5,000 plus a new Stern Pinball Pro machine. Jared, in second place won $2,000, while cash prizes were awarded to all 32 competitors, down to $250 for the eight players knocked out in the first round.

Buses ran between the Convention Center and Enterrium throughout the evening, allowing guests to come and go as they pleased. The final buses departed Enterrium at 10pm, taking guests back to the Convention Center and the hotel, ready for the events on Thursday which began with the Stern Pinball factory tour.

Thursday

The buses for the Stern Pinball factory tour arrived on-time at 9am. By then, the queue to board them extended from the doors right down the length of the hallway.

For our coverage of Pinball Expo we have concentrated on bringing you the extensive schedule of forty-five seminar talks and presentations. That meant setting up all the audio, video and computer equipment in the seminar hall on Thursday morning while the Stern Pinball factory tour was taking place.

As a result, we weren’t able to join the tour ourselves. However, we do have pictures courtesy of Jonathan Joosten from Pinball Magazine who was assisting us with the seminar recordings but was able to take time out from the set-up to visit Stern Pinball.

Seth Davis, Chief Executive Officer and President of the company, was on-hand alongside Chairman of the Board, Gary Stern, to welcome guests to their new factory.

The most-recently announced new title, the Blood Red Kiss edition of Elvira’s House of Horrors, was on-show to visitors to the factory.

Stern Pinball decided not to let anyone take pictures during the tour – including media representatives. They policed the policy very tightly with staff all along the tour route making sure nobody took out a camera or a phone.

Seminars

The first seminar began at 1pm on Thursday in the dedicated seminars room on the floor above the entrance to the show hall. The schedule was published in the show guide, online on the Pinball Expo website, and we have it here too for future reference.

You can watch all of these seminars either below or in the Pinball Expo 2023 playlist on our Pinball News YouTube channel where they are joined by many more videos from this and previous shows.

Thursday’s Seminars:

1:00pm – Mike Gullo Solid State Repair Tips & Horror Stories

Mike describes some of the hacks and basic errors he found when repairing solid-state pinball, as well as the damaging effects of battery corrosion on circuit boards.

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2:00pm – Jim Schelberg 1,2,3 PINBALL! And A Peek Behind The Curtain at American Pinball

The publisher of the PinGame Journal shows some new media clips containing pinball references, well-known people from the industry and hobby saying “pinball”, and a visit to Dennis Nordman at American Pinball.
Note: In the seminar recording below, a couple of Jim’s clips had to be removed for copyright reasons.

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2:45pm – Tanner Walters “The Pinball Scientist” Pinball Mods, Kits, & Restoration & Getting Kids Involved!

Pinball repairer and restorer, Tanner, talks about the creation of his high score records add-on for electromechanical machines as well as a device to add attract-mode lighting effects.

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3:30pm – Mark Patzke & Vince Patzke Multi Products Update (The Motor Guy)

Mark and Vince are the father and son team running Multi Products, a company which has a long history of supplying motors and gearboxes to manufacturers in many industries, including coin-op. They talk about the motors they developed for pinball toys, the requirements, the problems, and the design process.

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4:00pm – Jeff Cernava, Corbin Angeli, Zach Angeli, Kyle Crison & Don Garrison Marketing to New Audiences and the Power of Pinball

The panel explore the different ways pinball is currently marketed and how those methods can be expanded to extend pinball’s appeal.

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4:45pm – Joe Newhart Honey I Bought a Church!

Joe runs the PinballSTAR Amusements company and described how his pinball collecting hobby turned into his business, how he needed a new building which could house his collection, and where that led.

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5:30pm – Brett Davis Troubleshooting Aftermarket Electronics

Brett designs and sells the X-Pin range of replacement pinball displays and circuit boards. He spoke about some of the poor design choices, hacks, or outright wrongly installed components he’s seen on various pinball boards over the years.

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6:00pm – Rob Rath & Alec Gleason Above & Beyond: Topper Talk with The Electric Playground

The Electric Playground burst onto the pinball scene at the start of the year with their animated topper for Twilight Zone. The duo talked about the development of that product, as well as their new Godzilla topper.

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6:45pm – Mark Ritchie, Josh Sharpe, Scott Pikulski, & George Petro The Making of Pulp Fiction Pinball

The team behind the design, programming, rules and artwork of the Play Mechanix/Chicago Gaming pinball, Pulp Fiction, describe the journey from initial concepts to getting final approval for the game.

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7:30pm – Dan Rosenstein, Ernie Silverberg, Aaron Davis, Greg Brault & John Manuelian Under the Playfield

The panel describe how each of them got to build their own homebrew machine together with the skills they brought to their projects and those they needed to develop along the way.

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8:00pm – Jack Guarnieri & Steve Ritchie An Evening with Jersey Jack Pinball

This was the public reveal of Steve Ritchie’s first design for Jersey Jack Pinball, the Elton John game. Steve introduced and thanked the many people who had worked on the game, before three models were made available for seminar attendees to play.

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9:00pm – Ken Head Meet Evel Knievel

Ken Head has earned a reputation as the go-to guy if you want an Evel Knievel pinball. He explains how he converts another more-common title, the work involved, and shows the result.

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9:30pm – Michael Gottlieb & Roger Sharpe Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game

Michael introduced Roger who spoke about the history of the movie project and shared some of the behind-the-scenes details as it evolved into the movie about to be screened. We have this introduction to the movie but, as it is a commercial production, we aren’t able to bring you the whole feature here. It will be available to purchase soon, both on streaming platforms and on physical media.

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Friday’s Seminars:

8:15am – Ron Coon, Jr. Adventures in Repairing Foreign Pinball Machines

Ron is back with a collection of repair horror-stories and audience questions about pinballs imported into the US along with each company’s idiosyncrasies.

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9:00am – Brian Colin Brian Colin’s Arcade History Tour

Besides being the creator of such video game classics as Rampage and General Chaos, Brian has a long history as animator, artist and game designer at Bally/Midway and his own company, Game Refuge. In this seminar he recalls the many highlights and occasional lowlights of his games industry career.

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10:00am – Colin Alsheimer Building a Stronger Pinball Community – The Three P’s of Pinball with Kineticist

Colin is the founder of the Kineticist website and in this seminar tells us his history in marketing and promotions and how that knowledge can be applied to growing the industry and extending the player base into new areas.

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10:45am – Ryan Gratzer, Scott Wainstock & Beth Poore Mappin‘ Around (with Pinball Map)

Ryan and Scott are the founders of the Portland pinball locations database which, with Beth’s involvement, later expanded into a global list with its own app and a dedicated community to provide location updates and add new machines.

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11:30am – Kathy Camden & Guests How We Make Pinball Accessible

For many, the ability to operate a pinball machine is something we take for granted, but there are many players (and potential players) who aren’t able to use the control buttons or even see the playfield clearly. Kathy asked her guests to explain how simple modifications can be made to provide alternative control surfaces which allow more players to enjoy the game.

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12:00pm – Captain Chris Campbell & CC Castaneda Meet the Captain of Captain’s Auction Warehouse

Captain’s Auction Warehouse is a California-based auction company specialising in coin-op and amusement machines which came to prominence when they organised the liquidation of the Museum of Pinball collection in Banning. Chris talks about that as well as all the company’s other activities.

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12:30pm – Retro Ralph, Bob Rose & the Token Taverns Team Token Taverns’ Q&A

Members of the team behind the Token Taverns movie about the resurgence of bar arcades take questions from the Pinball Expo audience about its making.

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1:00pm – Oscar Terol & Juan José Trigueros Screen XL – Display and Sound

Screen XL is an upgrade kit which gives Stern Spike games a larger 18.5-inch LCD screen together with improved illuminated 4-way Pioneer stereo speakers. The team were at Expo to show how the kit is installed and answer questions about its creation.

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2:00pm – Chris Turner, Matthew Brozusky, Gabe Hernandez & Brad Duke Turner Pinball – Innovating Outside (& Inside) the Box

Turner Pinball were at Pinball Expo with the production prototype of their first title, Ninja Eclipse. Company founder, Chris, demonstrated their novel cabinet design and asked for feedback from the audience on that and their other unique game features.

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3:00pm – Brian Eddy, Dwight Sullivan, Mark Tremonti & Zombie Yeti The Making of Venom

Stern Pinball’s design team, led by Brian, talked about the initial ideas for the Venom game, the way they developed, and the many elements and skills which go to make the final version seen on the show floor.

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4:00pm – Jack Danger, Tanio Klyce & the Foo Fighters Team Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters is Jack Danger’s first full-featured production game design for Stern Pinball, and he was here together with other members of the creative team to explain what he wanted the game to be, working with the band, what ended up in the game, as well as what didn’t.

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5:00pm – Lonnie Ropp & Mike Vinikour 007 Game Rules Deep Dive

The rules for 007 James Bond have expanded hugely since the game was first announced just over a year ago, so software designers Lonnie and Mike explained how all the key features in the game work and how to optimise the scoring opportunities.

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6:00pm – Roper Fuentes & Bob Burnham How to Become a Pinball Operator

With many collectors outgrowing their gameroom space, there is a trend to look at operating some of their machines, so Roper and Bob look at the pros and cons, as well as the common pitfalls when putting your games out for the public to play.

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7:00pm – Dan Spolar Pinball Is For Everyone

In a follow-up seminar to the morning’s talk about making pinball accessible, Dan talks about Project Pinball’s work to help develop a common controller which can be used to access a pinball’s flipper and launch buttons and work with operators to add connectors for the controller into location machines.

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7:45pm – Rob Berk & Guests Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame Inductions

The latest inductions into the Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame were announced at the show, with citations for each inductee read out by one of their peers. There were also two inductions into the Service & Support category.

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8:00pm – David Fix & the Creative Team American Pinball: Galactic Tank Force, Save the Cows & Eat Ice Cream

David was joined on stage by the four actors who play the principal roles in the Galactic Tank Force game: Kerri Hoskins, Clementine Morfoot, Jeff Hoover and Mitchell Politt to talk about their interests in pinball and the work they did in the game, along with artistic director Jack Haeger.

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9:00pm – Lloyd Olson LTG

Owner and operator of SS Billiard just out Minneapolis, Lloyd relates stories from a lifetime operating all kinds of coin-op amusement games but with the focus on his arcade’s extensive pinball collection.

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Saturday’s seminars

9:00am – Eric Meunier, Mark Tremonti & The Godfather Design Team Take Your Seat at the Table

Game designer, Eric Meunier, is joined by the team behind the recent The Godfather game to show the evolution of the design, artwork and playfield mechanisms, while Mark Tremonti give a behind-the-scenes peek from the recording session for the game’s soundtrack.

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10:00am – Dave Marston Highlights and Lowlights in the History of Books on Coin-Op

Dave gives an overview of the history of printed game-related publications, with the focus on dedicated books about coin-op and the industries which created and supported it. He also wrote a bibliography of the books referenced in his seminar and those for further reading, which is printed in the Pinball Expo show guide.

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10:30am – Dino Gaspari How the YRC Freight Bankruptcy Affects You!

Dino runs the shipmypinball.com self-service shipping website and was at Expo to talk about the state of the freight shipping industry in North America and the fallout from the recent bankruptcy of shipping company YRC Freight.

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11:00am – Bruce Westfall & Scott Moehring What is a Hard Top… and What Isn’t It?

Bruce and Scott from Outside Edge explain how their Hardtop playfield overlay is a semi-rigid, printed polycarbonate sheet with a permanent adhesive which is applied to the top of a stripped, smoothed playfield. They dispel some of the preconceptions and show examples from some of the 35 titles for which they now offer Hardtops.

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11:30am – Marcelo Adrian Blanco Playfield Restoration from A to Z: LIVE!

Marcelo begins his restoration seminar with paint matching, describing the additive and subtractive colour-mixing systems and the preparation of the wood surface prior to painting, listing the tools and products he uses.

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12:00pm – Rolando Martin Affordable Pinball Components for Your Custom Pinball Machine

Rolando explained how he built a Black Knight game from scratch, cutting his own playfield, winding his own coils, and printing and applying a graphical overlay. During this process he discovered methods to produce various game components in much more cost-effective and customisable ways.

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12:30pm – Gerard van de Sanden, Rob Berk, Charlie Martin, & Dave Alverson Owning and Operating a Pinball Museum

Gerard from the Dutch Pinball Museum, Rob from Past Times, Charlie from the Seattle Pinball Museum and Dave from Classic Arcade Pinball Museum each spoke about their businesses, why they started them, what makes them unique, and what anyone else looking to do the same should know in advance.

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1:30pm – Anna Lengyel & Christopher Wells Graham Female Lead: How Digital Pinball Can Pave the Way for More Women Driven Pinball Everywhere

Anna is here as the first female designer of a pinball machine, thanks to the games she created for digital pinball publisher, Zen Studios in Budapest. She describes her motivation to get into game design, her education and some of the video games she worked on, before joining Zen’s pinball division, and what that ultimately led to.

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2:00pm – Davey Price & Neil McRae Stumblor Mods – The Art of Making Pinball Modifications

Davey talks about how he got into making pinball mods starting in 2019, what qualifies as a mod, the different types available – static, interactive and game-altering – how his projects have developed over the years, and how not all mods are going to appeal to everyone.

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2:30pm – Neil McRae What it Takes to Run a Large Pinball Tournament

Neil is joined by streamer, Marc Patenaude from Backhand Pinball, as he talks about the dos and don’ts of running a large pinball tournament such as the recent UK Open. That includes remembering the event is held for the players when choosing a format, and what to look for in a tournament venue.

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3:00pm – Ivan Cicognani Pinball Restoration: A Radical Change from the Desert of Cyprus through the Italy Flood to Pinball Expo

Ivan began with shocking pictures of the devastation and destruction of pinball and arcade machines caused by the floods in Italy earlier this year. He then turned to how he had totally transformed a Radical! pinball, describing the methods he used to restore and create new parts for the game.

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4:00pm – Chris Franchi & Zombie Yeti (Jeremy Packer) The Dynamic Duo: Pinball Art with Franchi & Yeti

Chris and Jeremy both begin by talking about how they were introduced into the pinball business. For Chris it was from his Batman artwork when Stern Pinball needed an artist for their Batman 66 game, while for Jeremy it was through some zombie illustration he had done which were noticed by John Popadiuk who needed an artist for his planned Ben Heck’s Zombie Adventureland game.

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4:45pm – Eric Bartels & Jim Askey Magic Girl – The Story Continued

Eric has been on a mission to transform the unplayable Magic Girl machines produced by John Popadiuk’s Zidware to turn them into fully-functioning games with a complete ruleset. Jim, meanwhile, wrote the original code and has returned to it to develop it further and make the game function as they think was always intended.

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5:30pm – Phillipe Gregoire Clocked In: a Dozen Heads Inside a 7 in. Tall Box – the Pinball Clock Story

Phillipe created the miniature pinball clock which uses score-reels to display the time of day. He described how the final project evolved, including the way the reels are controlled and the various cabinets used to house the device.

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6:00pm – Todd Tuckey, Frank Lindenmuth, Imoto Harney, Retro Ralph & Jeff Ohler Pinball and Arcade Video Game YouTube Content Creation

This seminar concentrated on the ways to make successful social media posts and YouTube videos which will drive your follower numbers, enhance your business and lead to more professional content creation in future projects, with each panellist giving their top tips.

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6:45pm – Stephen Silver How We Design Games at Multimorphic

Stephen Silver is a game designer at Multimorphic leading the team for Heist!, but today he was talking about the different way games can be created for the P³ pinball platform from in-house designs to third-party developers who can create their own playfield modules or repurpose existing ones with different themes and rulesets.

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9:15pm – Dwight Sullivan & Corey Stup Let’s Make A Deal

It’s gameshow time, as Dwight and Corey invite the audience to participate in a special version of the US classic show Let’s Make A Deal, with prizes up for grabs and Deal Dollars given out which could be exchanged for prizes at the Stern Shop. Just don’t get the Zonk!

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Between covering all the seminars, we managed time to pay a visit one floor below to the main Pinball Expo show hall. Here are our pictures from there showing the vendors and the machines available to play in the order we discovered them. You’ll also find these in the Thirty Five Minute Tour video at the end of this report.

On Saturday at noon, the four actors from the Galactic Tank Force game who appeared in the 8pm Friday seminar returned, this time in full costume and joined by game artist Christopher Franchi, to sign posters and flyers on the American Pinball stand.

The main hall is a huge room packed with pinball awesomeness, but there were still a few spaces unused and a couple of Expo regulars who weren’t attending this year such as Mark Gibson’s Fun With Pinball.

Someone who was here is Andrew McBain with his Pinball Adventures company. He had brought the first Pinball Adventures title, Punny Factory, as well as a prototype of the next game, Elements.

Multimorphic didn’t have their own stand, but were represented at Expo once again by Wise Trailer Sales who had three P³ machines and a selection of P³ game modules.

Now we come to the homebrew machine section – a collection of games created by people (currently) outside the industry as a showcase for their talents or just to make a game of their favourite theme.

Most are still work-in-progress, but all display impressive levels of creativity and commitment.

On Saturday evening the draw for a brand new Jersey Jack Pinball machine took place. The winner could choose either a Godfather or Toy Story 4, with all proceeds going to benefit the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital.

You’ve seen the pictures, so check out our exclusive Thirty Five Minute Tour video walkaround of the main hall, as well as looks at the tournaments, seminars and autograph signing rooms.

Main Hall

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Autograph Session

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Tournaments and Seminars Rooms

Tournaments

The tournaments held at Pinball Expo each year have always been a big reason for many to attend the show. When Expo was held at the Westin, all the tournaments were held in a glass-fronted corridor which caused congestion and suffered from excessive sunlight as the day wore on. However, since Expo moved to the Schaumburg Convention Center, the tournaments have had their own dedicated suite of four rooms (Schaumburg E, F, G & H).

There were three banks of machines. The largest was for the main Flip Out tournament which consisted of thirty-two recent Stern Pinball titles provided, like all the Stern machines in the room, by Tilt Amusements.

The machines in the main bank were:

• 4 x 007 James Bond Premium
• 2 x Deadpool
• 4 x Foo Fighters
• 4 x Godzilla
• 4 x Iron Maiden
• 4 x Jurassic Park
• 2 x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• 4 x The Avengers: Infinity Quest
• 4 x Venom

They were evenly split between Pro-level machines and Premiums, with the Pros on the right and Premiums on the left.

On the other side of the room were two more banks of machines. One was for the Women’s Tournament and the other for the Classics.

The eight Women’s Tournament machines were:

• 2 x Venom
• 2 x Foo Fighters
• 2 x Iron Maiden
• 2 x Jurassic Park

In the Classics Tournament there were ten machines used.

The machines were:

• Trident
• Kick Off!
• King of Diamonds
• Domino
• High Hand
• Drop-A-Card
• Star Pool
• Harlem Globetrotters
• Hot Tip
• Bristol Hills

Throughout the show, tournament action was streamed live on Twitch by Fox Cities Pinball from northeast Wisconsin. They were joined by an assortment of tournament players who dropped in to assist with the commentary.

The stream was also fed to a monitor in the tournament room where the audience could see the action more easily.

There was, however, a delay of around 10 seconds between what was happening in the tournaments room and what appeared on the screen. That mean whenever there was a cheer or groan by the commentary team, people could turn to the monitor to watch a replay what just happened.

In addition to these tournaments, there were several more held in the main show hall.

On Thursday there was a Virtual Pinball Tournament from noon until 10pm, and the Pinball Expo World Cup Tournament began at 4pm. There was also the Freedom To Play Pinball Tournament using accessible controllers and on Saturday, back in the tournaments room, a Kids Tournament for those aged 14 and under.

Sadly, our duties running and recording all the seminars left us unable to cover all the tournaments except those which wrapped-up on Sunday once all the other events had concluded, namely the main Flip Out and the Classics.

However, we did manage to catch up with the winner of the Women’s Tournament, Elizabeth Gieske, on Saturday evening soon after she triumphed in the final over second-placed Jane Verwys.

Here are the full results of the Women’s Tournament:

1st	Elizabeth Gieske
2nd	Jane Verwys
3rd	Keri Wing
4th	Shannon Ducharme
5th	Mandy Peel
5th	Christine Doherty
7th	Jillian Towne
7th	Christina Capra
9th	Karrie Hill
9th	Anna Neal
9th	Erin Malysa
9th	Rebecca Salam
13th	Jen Ruper
13th	Cassie Begay
13th	Rebecca Hinsdale
13th	Stephanie Guida
17th	Dori Zielinski
17th	Kristen Gregory
17th	Emily Anderson
17th	Alysa Parks
17th	Lindsey Shute
17th	Bre Reynolds
17th	Lily Piazza
17th	Amber Valdivia
25th	Melinda Salminen
26th	Sydnee Deventer
27th	Beth Poore
38th	Emily Sweeney
29th	Donna Wai
30th	Tina Reil
31st	Victoria Herring
32nd	Allison Thrower
33rd	Kristin Machalek
34th	Jenny Lamberson
35th	Stacey Siegel
36th	Ashley Resurreccion
37th	Ashleigh Kolla
38th	Karen Montgomery
39th	Naiviv Sillerico
40th	Regi Bradley
41st	Jen Cox
42nd	Veronica Carbonell
43rd	Kytte Burke

The Classics and Flip Out tournament were both concluded on Sunday.

In previous years many of the same players would be competing in the finals of both tournaments, leading to delays in completing the finals. Fortunately there were no such issues this year.

The Flip Out main tournament final was between Escher Lefkoff and Dalton Ely. Escher had qualified in first place, Dalton in seventh. Both remained undefeated in the double-elimination, best-of-five play-offs until they met in the semi-finals where Escher had won.

Dalton then defeated Zach McCarthy in the best-of-three loser bracket to face Escher again in the main final. Escher had only to win the best-of-five match to win overall. Dalton would have to beat Escher once and then beat him again in the best-of-three loser bracket final.

Dalton did win the best-of-five by 3-0, meaning they had both lost one match and were level. The best-of-three would decide things.

Having just lost to Dalton didn’t appear to faze Escher, as he won the fist game and headed to Jurassic Park for what could be the decider.

Escher won that game too, to take the final 2-0. Dalton was second, Zach McCarthy third and Jason Zahler fourth.

Trophies and prizes of cash, or a new Stern pinball to the winner, were made by Tournament Director Deborah Tahlman.

Here are the full results of the main Flip Out tournament:

1st	Escher Lefkoff
2nd	Dalton Ely
3rd	Zach McCarthy
4th	Jason Zahler
5th	Greg Kennedy
5th	Zach Parks
7th	Donavan Stepp
7th	Walt Wood
9th	Carlos DeLaSerda
9th	Arvid Flygare
9th	Raymond Davidson
9th	Nick Weyna
13th	Sterling Mitoska
13th	Andy Bagwell
13th	Josh Sharpe
13th	Aaron Rich
17th	Derek Price
17th	Mike Pantoliano
17th	Lewis Bevans
17th	Jared August
17th	Nick DeStefano
17th	Zach Sharpe
17th	Steve Bowden
17th	Adam Lefkoff
25th	Paul Madison
25th	Stanley Sowa Jr
25th	Jason Werdrick
25th	Zachary Frey
29th	Preston Currie
29th	Cody Webb
29th	Robert Byers
29th	Greg Lapa
36th	Espen Andresen
36th	Keri Wing
36th	Nick Kennedy
36th	Chris Eagle
36th	Sheldon Olson
36th	Chuck Sanderson
36th	Andrew Foard
36th	Tyrus Eagle
44th	Joe Lemire
44th	Matt Wilson
44th	Steve Zahler
44th	Daniel Brennan
44th	Nick Campbell
44th	Andrew Wilkening
44th	Chris Grace
44th	Kevin Kolodziej
52nd	Tommy Vernieri
52nd	Bob Twichell
52nd	Oliver Baker
52nd	Chris Pascaretti
52nd	Tim Tournay
52nd	Jokton Strealy
52nd	Dominic Labella
52nd	Liam Bradley
60th	Jamie Caton
60th	Trent Augenstein
60th	Andy Burton
60th	Jane Verwys
60th	Mike Kolman
60th	Chris Szatmary
60th	Colin Krawcyk
60th	Tom Graf
68th	Maurice Smith II
68th	Brian Dye
68th	Johnathan Brown
68th	Tom Menge
68th	Tim Zollner
68th	Christina Capra
68th	Jon Rangel
68th	Mark Pearson
76th	Jesse Huber
76th	Scott Slifka
76th	Kristen Gregory
76th	Ted Brockly
76th	Jason Montgomery
76th	Dave Chapman
76th	Patrick Rhomberg
76th	Travis Lancaster
84th	Joseph Landas
84th	Rick Miller
84th	Gene Hwang
84th	Ross Unruh
84th	Zoltan Pataki
84th	Michael Rivelli
84th	Kirsten Adam
84th	Dirk Elzholz
92nd	Tom Knorst
92nd	Stephen Ely
92nd	Jard Cassell
92nd	Walter Dony
92nd	Ian Lukidis
92nd	Jeremy Dorling
92nd	Will Cooper CA
92nd	Mandy Peel
99th	Cassie Begay
99th	Michael Bradley
99th	Paul Younis
99th	Glenn Habas
99th	Andrew Huxley
99th	Damon Conner

The B-Division of the main tournament concluded while we were in the seminars, but it was won by Miles Bradley, with Anna Neal in second, Frank Marion third and Ryan Dunn fourth.

That only leaves the Classics Tournament to decide.

The Classics play-offs followed the same format as the main, with a double-elimination format where it was best-of-five games in the winners bracket and best-of-three in the loser bracket. Whoever won the loser bracket would need to beat the winner of the winner bracket twice if they are to win overall.

Zach Parks remained undefeated, having also been the top qualifier. He faced Lewis Bevans who he had already beaten in the quarter-finals but had won the loser bracket to play Zach again in the final.

Zach won on Kick Off! while Lewis won on Domino, making the third game on Trident the decider.

Zach had a good second ball putting him comfortably in the lead, even though his third ball drained quickly. Could Lewis match and overtake him?

It wasn’t to be. Zach won the final of the Classics tournament, with Lewis second, Nick Weyna was third and Robert Byers (who had to leave early for a flight home) was fourth.

Here are the full results of the Classics tournament:

1st	Zach Parks
2nd	Lewis Bevans
3rd	Nick Weyna
4th	Robert Byers
5th	Greg Kennedy
5th	Tom Knorst
7th	Bob Matthews
7th	Steve Zahler
9th	Dominic Labella
9th	Ryan Dunn
9th	Jeff Teolis
9th	Tommy Vernieri
13th	Willy Allen
13th	Zach Sharpe
13th	Preston Currie
13th	Cody Webb
17th	Keri Wing
17th	Jeremy Dorling
17th	Dave POnce
17th	Nick Campbell
17th	Nick DeStefano
17th	Espen Andresen
17th	Andy Bagwell
17th	Josh Sharpe
25th	Matt Wilson
25th	Chris Campbell
25th	Nick Kennedy
25th	Alex Lecky
25th	Tom Menge
25th	Andrew Foard
25th	Mark Pearson
25th	Tim Tournay
33rd	Kristen Gregory
34th	Jillian Towne
35th	Mike Weyenberg
36th	Liam Bradley
37th	Koi Morris
38th	Mike Pantoliano
39th	Nick Squires
40th	Brian Dye
41st	Stacey Siegel
42nd	Greg Lapa
43rd	Shannon Ducharme
44th	Jeff Rank
45th	Mike Conlon
46th	Don Coons
47th	Matt Lemoine
48th	Matthew Sitko
49th	Lily Piazza
49th	Shane Jackson
51st	Luke Sheahan
52nd	Anna Neal
53rd	Whayne T Rouse
54th	Derek Lehmann
55th	Kyle Tarter
56th	Ej Osis
57th	Sydnee Deventer
58th	Steven Bowden
59th	Tyrus Eagle
60th	Glenn Habas
61st	Maurice Smith II
62nd	Will Cooper
63rd	Troy Hall
64th	CC Castaneda
65th	Alysa Parks
66th	Hagan Major
67th	Nate Timperley
68th	Michael Bender
69th	Matt Rowbottom
70th	Bill Lembesis
71st	Dino Gaspari
72nd	Dalton Ely
73rd	Jard Cassell
74th	Mike Carmoney
75th	Johan Flygare
76th	Ben Sauter
77th	Bob S. Johnson
78th	Rob Wintler-Cox
79th	Dan Reeves
80th	Walt Wood
81st	Walter Dony
81st	Jamie Caton
83rd	Zachary Frey
84th	Jokton Strealy
85th	Andrew Wilkening
86th	Stephanie Guida
87th	Ricky Bryant
88th	Rich Morgan
89th	Ross Unruh
90th	Austin Deventer
91st	Mike Burgess
92nd	Mike Polisky
93rd	Vince Giannini
94th	Karrie Hill
95th	Bob Twichell
96th	Naiviv Sillerico
97th	Amy Gunson
98th	Rich Wagner
99th	Armando Rodriguez
100th	Donna Wai
101st	Kevin Kolodziej
102nd	Paul Borth
102nd	Veronica Carbonell
104th	Mark Faje
105th	Steve Martin
106th	Neil McRae
107th	Scott Weigum
108th	Michael Bradley
109th	Ashleigh Kolla
110th	Rick Miller
111th	Greg Durant
112th	Cassie Begay
113th	Jack Spark
114th	Chuck Sanderson
115th	David Spark
116th	Tim Zollner
117th	Emily Sweeney
117th	Deb Kapke
119th	Chris Szatmary
120th	Zoltan Pataki
121st	Kytte Burke
122nd	Sheldon Olson
123rd	Joe Madia
124th	Roland Nitsche
125th	Robert Werner
126th	Chris Grosvenor
127th	Chris Vaaler
128th	Trisha Burgess
129th	Regi Bradley
130th	Michael Rivelli
131st	Nikki Miller
132nd	Kristin Machalek
133rd	Lizz McD
134th	Wyatt Winters
135th	Roger Sharpe
136th	Scott Slifka
136th	Jordan Allen
138th	Christina Capra
139th	Will Long
140th	Micah Adams
141st	Jesse Huber
142nd	Kyle Ingrelli
143rd	Damon Beals
144th	Marty Kraft
145th	Jenny Lamberson
146th	David Rowland
147th	Matt Severin
148th	Amber Valdivia
149th	Dave Chapman
150th	Jon Rangel
151st	Erin Malysa
152nd	Stanley Sowa jr
153rd	Nick Naruz
154th	Bradley Smith
155th	Mark Bjorkquist
156th	Deborah Tahlman
157th	Christopher Cacioppo
158th	Scott Elliott

Although it’s the day of the finals for the two major tournament, Sunday is tear-down day in the main hall. No games can be played and the power is switched off to the vendor stands.

And with the closing of the show, we wrap up our coverage of Pinball Expo 2023.

This 39th year show was undoubtedly a big success with the issue of non-working free play games on the show floor being greatly reduced. In part that’s thanks to show organiser Rob Berk having a large collection of maintained, interesting games already set up at his Past Times arcade in Girard, Ohio. It’s a long drive to bring them to Expo, but it pays dividends.

This year also attracted several new game launches. Biggest of all has to be Jersey Jack Pinball’s Elton John game, but new pinball company Barrels of Fun made their debut here with their Labyrinth, while Turner Pinball brought a close-to-production-ready Ninja Eclipse and Pinball Adventures did likewise with their Elements, although both these latter two will probably undergo some changes before we see them next.

With American Pinball bringing their cast of Galactic Tank Force to the show, it was more a matter of who wasn’t at Expo, and why? There are now two clear markers in the pinball calendar around which you need to launch your new game – the Texas Pinball Festival and Pinball Expo.

Of course there is far more to Pinball Expo than we have been able to cover in this report – and plenty that happens in the Renaissance hotel’s two bars and around the fire pit that’s best not recounted here – but we hope you get a good flavour of the five days we spent in Schaumburg.

Any negatives to Pinball Expo this year? Well, the show seemed quieter than last year in terms of visitor numbers. There were also a few gaps on the show floor where more games or vendors could go. We know a last-minute rearrangement of the floor plan was required when the Convention Center realised they’d given the wrong dimension to the organisers, so we’re happy to cut them a little slack there.

From a purely selfish point of view, although three days of back-to-back seminars provides plenty of variety for the audience, we’d appreciate an earlier finish so we actually get to see the show, and more set-up time between seminars to give speakers space to get set up and get any unexpected technical requirements sorted out.

Despite that, we hope you enjoyed our extensive coverage of Pinball Expo 2023, containing 300 pictures and over 28 hours of video recordings. We’ll be back next year for the 40th year of Pinball Expo. It’s promising to be even bigger, with talk of starting events a day earlier to pack everything in.