PINBALL AT THE BEACH

Welcome to our live coverage of the second Pinball at the Beach which is being held, as it was last year, at the TradeWinds Island Grand resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

Pinball at the Beach is a very different style of show, designed to be much more relaxed and enjoyable for everyone attending. Although there are many special guests from across the pinball world, there are no seminars and very few vendors. The emphasis is on socialising, playing the machines and hanging out in the resort with friends old and new. With that in mind, there are no single day tickets sold, only tickets for all three days which cost $199.

The event is organised by Little Shop of Games’ Marshall Dickson and Edward VanderVeen, formerly of the Texas Pinball Festival. They met at the FreePlay Florida show and conceived this unique type of pinball show, with the inaugural PatB taking place in February 2025.

We’ll be updating this report across all three days of the show to bring you a feel for the machines, the atmosphere and the many attractions of a Floridian beach location.

So, let’s start with the resort. The Island Grand is a large complex of hotel rooms, conference facilities and leisure spots. Within the grounds are numerous pools, miniature golf, tennis courts, a boating lake along several bars and catering outlets, all located on the beach.

You may notice the scarcity of people in the pictures above. While the sun is shining and the skies are blue, the heatwave experienced at last year’s event hasn’t yet come to Florida. So temperatures up until Friday have generally peaking at around 60F/16C. However, things are warming up as we head into the weekend, with 68F/20C expected on Saturday.

While the Island Grand resort is large, it has a sister property next door called RumFish Beach.

Island Grand and RumFish Beach together form the TradeWinds resort. Pinball at the Beach guests can stay at either resort hotel and use all the facilities of both.

Hotel rooms for Island Grand sold out soon after becoming available at the show rate, but RumFish Beach still had availability at the time of writing.

So, let’s move on to Pinball at the Beach itself.

The show opens to guests at 5pm on Friday, but we arrived at midday on Thursday to get a preview of the machines available and see how the show was being set up.

Thursday

Pinball at the Beach’s machines are housed in a large tent in the Island Grand complex, called The Pavilion.

By Thursday lunchtime there were quite a few machines already inside, but many more would be arriving later in the day and on Friday.

The first manufacturer to set up was Spooky Pinball. Their recent Beetlejuice machine was quickly sold out, but they also made a batch of games for shows such as this.

For Pinball at the Beach they brought twelve Beetlejuice machines, split into a row of eight with the Dante’s Inferno topper, and an island of four fitted with the Beetlesnake animatronic topper.

Elsewhere in the hall, the latest games from Jersey Jack Pinball and Barrels of Fun had arrived.

On the other side of The Pavilion, Stern Pinball machines were being set up.

While the machines are prepared, room dividers, drapes and electrical feeds were being installed.

As the sun started to set over the water, we left the team for the evening and returned Friday morning to check on their progress.

Friday

Although there was still plenty to do, the show hall was starting to take shape.

Although most attention has been on Beetlejuice, there is a row of previous Spooky Pinball titles set up as well.

Likewise, the full catalogue of Jersey Jack Pinball machines is set up along with multiple editions of Harry Potter.

Not to be outdone, all three Barrels of Fun titles are available too. Two of their newest Winchester Mystery House, two Dunes and a Labyrinth.

Although the doors don’t open until 5pm today, registration was available for guests in a building opposite the entrance to The Pavilion.

As opening time of 5pm came around, the queue to get in grew. Along them, three rather special vehicles arrived.

So, as 5pm approached, the first in line got excited to have the whole hall of games at their disposal.

Finally, 5pm came around and the show hall opened. Pinball at the Beach 2026 was officially open.

Although there were plenty of amazing games, many guests made their way to the back of The Pavillion for some Beetlejuice.

However, there was still a strong demand for show merchandise.

A little later in the evening, the number of players increased and, while there were still plenty of opportunities to play, many of the more modern machines were occupied.

The 5pm opening time for The Pavilion was also the start time for the Pinball at the Beach tournament, run by Colin MacAlpine and Phil Grimaldi. This was located in the Tarpon Key room which is near the Island Grand’s reception lobby.

The schedule is far more laid back than a more formal tournament, with qualifying split into four three-hour slots over the first two days of the show.

Tournament machines were positioned along the back and side walls, providing plenty of space and a limited amount of seating.

A little later in the evening there were opportunities to watch a movie or relax in the sands as the sun went down.

The movie screening took place in the room next door to the tournaments.

The movie in question was Roger Sharpe’s biopic, Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game, and Roger was present to give an introduction and also answer some questions from the audience after the showing.

Roger also talked about the Sharpshooter game which he co-designed and which bears his likeness on the backglass.

On the hotel’s beachfront, drinks were served as the sun set and music was provided as guest sat around the fire pits to enjoy the evening.

Saturday

The show opened at 10am and it quickly looked and felt as though it would be a warmer day than Friday.

Inside The Pavilion, lines quickly formed for games such as Winchester Mystery House where there were only two machines. Where there were multiple copies of a game it didn’t take long for the opportunity to play.

Let’s take a look around The Pavilion and the games available at this year’s Pinball at the Beach.

Outside The Pavilion, another vehicle had joined the three we saw earlier.

At 3pm an autograph session was held in the Breckenridge building, opposite the entrance to The Pavilion. A long line of guests with items to sign soon formed.

Nearly all the VIP guests at the show were in attendance (including Pinball News), armed with Sharpies to sign whatever poster, banner, jacket, flyer, backglass, translite, playfield or other item was presented to them.

The length of the queue exceeded everyone’s expectations. After two hours, the doors to the room had to be closed, and it took another thirty minutes for those already in to get all their items signed.

As the sun went down, there was another Drinks on the Beach event, with free drinks and hot snacks served.

Although the day had been warmer, the evening became quite chilly, with groups huddled around the firepits.

However, the chill didn’t stop the ever-popular karaoke session from taking place.

We braved the cold for as long as we could, before returning to the warmth of The Pavilion to socialise and play some more games. The first group we found hanging out together were from Stern Pinball and Barrels of Fun.

Over in the Tarpon Key room, the tournament was heading towards a result.

Both the Early and Late qualifying groups played the first six of their twelve rounds on Friday, with the remaining six taking place on Saturday. Once those were over, the top 16 from both groups went into the play-offs where they competed in groups of 4 on three machines, with the top two players from each group progressing.

There were two divisions, A & B, with each having their own play-offs.

In the A Division, it was a win for Shannon Stafford, who repeated his win from 2025’s event. In second place was Donovan Stepp, while Eric Stone was third and co-organiser, Colin MacAlpine, was fourth.

In the B Division, first place was claimed by Malik Berger. JT Thomas came second, Cody Hilliard was in third and Tony Pierce was fourth.

Sunday

Pinball at the Beach opened at 9am on its final day, with vouchers handed out for a free Mimosa or Bloody Mary cocktail from the bar in The Pavilion. After that, show guests had the opportunity to play some of the titles they either never got to play before, or would like to play once again.

The clock reached the closing time of 2pm all too soon. There was no public address announcement, but machines were gradually switched off until just the last few remained powered, while the stands were torn down and packed away.

Even then, there was a line for the Barrel of Fun games until Brian Savage told everyone not to start any new games once their current game was completed.

That concludes our coverage of the second Pinball at the Beach. To congratulate the organisers, Marshall and Ed, for putting together another great show, Pinball News presented them with a couple of small gifts of appreciation.

We hope you have enjoyed our coverage from Pinball at the Beach 2026.

The show, the guests and the games will all be discussed in the next edition of the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine PINcast, released at the start of March and available from your favourite podcast supplier or right here on Pinball News.