NORTHWEST PINBALL & ARCADE SHOW 2016

The 9th annual Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show opened to the public on Friday 3rd June in the city of Tacoma, south of Seattle.

The venue is the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center – a glassy construct built on a hill such that the side entrance is on the third floor while the main entrance is on the first.

The show is held on the top (fifth) floor, and as soon as you arrive at the top of the escalator, you see the first change this year. The seminars have moved from a rather disconnected room on the third floor and been brought into the lobby area.

Because of all the glass – and hence all the natural light – the organisers have eschewed the use of a projector for the seminar speakers’ presentations, and have used three large-screen LCD monitors for the speakers and the audience instead.

As usual, all the seminars will be streamed live with the videos then posted on the show’s YouTube page.

THURSDAY

When we arrived around 4pm on the Thursday, preparations were underway in all areas.

FRIDAY

With just a couple of hours to go until the official opening at midday, nearly all the machines were in place and vendors were setting up their stands.

Inside the hall, things were shaping-up nicely.

The show opened at midday, but before then plenty of visitors were buying tickets to be one of the first through the doors.

As visitors entered the hall they came to the merchandise desk which is where they could buy their tickets for the prize draws which took place over the three day.

There was a $1-per-entry daily draw for one large and multiple smaller prizes, and a show-long draw for a brand new Ghostbusters Pro game.

When the doors opened, visitors could sign up for the various pinball tournaments being held over the three days. The main match-play event was split into five qualifying rounds on Friday and Saturday. Players could only sign up for one round at a time, but if they didn’t qualify they could then register for another round up to a maximum of three.

There was also a Classics PinGolf tournament played on a bank of classics machine to the left of the desk. This also ran through Friday and Saturday, with players booking their tee-off times at five minute intervals.

Entry for either tournament cost $20. There were also a women’s tournament, two kids tournaments, a Rookie Tournament with a Galahad or the winner, and a Rising Star championship with a refurbished Harlem Globetrotters as the prize.

The hall soon got busier as more visitors arrived. However, the games were well-spaced so that it never became difficult to move around the room.

In total we counted 215 pinballs set up and playable, either on the show floor, in the tournaments area or at a vendor’s booth.

185 Show Floor Free Play Machines

2001 4 Square Addams Family, The Addams Family, The Aladdin’s Castle Ali Argosy Atlantis Attack from Mars Aztec Bad Cats Batman Forever Beat the Clock Beat Time Big Ben Big Brave Big Lebowski, The Big Top Black Knight 2000 Black Knight 2000 Bride of Pinbot 2.0 Buccaneer Buck Rogers Bugs Bunny’s Birthday Ball Butterfly Capersville Capt. Card Champion Pub, The Circus (Bally) Cirqus Voltaire Congo Count-Down Count-Down Counterforce Creature from the Black Lagoon Crescendo Criss Cross Cross Town Cue Ball Wizard Demolition Man Demolition Man Diner Ding Dong Doctor Who Doctor Who Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Drop-A-Card Excalibur Faces Faces Fathom Firepower II Fish Tales Flicker Flip a Card Flip Flop Flying Carpet Flying Carpet Full Throttle Funhouse Funhouse Galactic Girl Game of Thrones Pro Games, The* Ghostbusters Pro Ghostbusters Pro Ghostbusters Pro Ghostbusters Pro Gorgar Grand Slam Guns ‘N Roses Hercules High Speed High Speed High Speed* Hi-Lo Ace Hobbit, The Hobbit, The Hook Hot Hand Iron Maiden (custom) Jack in the Box Jacks Open Johnny Mnemonic Johnny Mnemonic Joker Poker Judge Dredd Jumping Jack Junkyard Jurassic Park King Kool Kiss Pro Klondike Lady Luck Laser Cue Laser War Lazy-Q Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings, The Lucky Hand Lucky Strike Mars Trek Medusa* Monster Bash Mousin’ Around Mustang Pro NASCAR NBA Fastbreak Nine Ball Nip-It No Fear No Good Gofers Olympic Hockey Party Zone, The Party Zone, The Pharaoh Pinball Champ Pin-Up Police Force Power Play, Bobby Orr Pro Pool Quick Draw Quicksilver Roadshow Roadshow* Royal Flush Safecracker Scared Stiff Shadow, The Ship Ahoy Sing Along Skateball Sky Kings Skylab Sky-Line Slick Chick Space Odyssey Space Station Speakeasy Spectrum Spider-Man VE Spin-A-Card Star Trek Premium Star Trek Pro Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: The Next Generation Stargate Striker Extreme Super Mario Bros. Mushroom World Super Star Super Straight Super-Flite Sure Shot Sweet Hearts Tales from the Crypt Tales of the Arabian Nights Target Alpha* Tattoo Mystique Taxi Team One Terminator 2 Terminator 2 Terminator 2 Terminator 3 Theatre of Magic Theatre of Magic Theatre of Magic Time Fantasy Title Fight Top Card Tri Zone Twilight Zone Volcano Whirlwind Whirlwind Whitewater Whitewater Whitewater Wild Wild West Wizard of Oz, The Wizard! World Cup Soccer World Cup Soccer World Fair X-Men Magneto LE

 

3 Kids Zone Free Play Machines

Flipper Football Punchy the Clown Super Mario Bros.

 

10 Classics PinGolf Tournament Machines

Algar Andromeda Black Belt Blue Chip Meteor Old Chicago Seawitch Strikes & Spares Supersonic Viking

 

15 Match Play Tournament Machines

Avatar Creature from the Black Lagoon Eight Ball Frontier Harlem Globetrotters Jackbot Mata Hari Metallica Mousin’ Around Rollercoaster Tycoon Shadow, The Spider-Man Starship Troopers Tommy Twilight Zone

 

2 Lobby Machines

Avengers Pro (whitewood) Big Game (Pinball Outreach Project)

Fast Pinball had a number of work-in-progress custom projects on display, all using their pinball control boards. They were also previewing their replacement RGB LED display in a Tales of the Arabian Nights game.

So let’s take a look at the other vendors at the show.

The first seminars began on Friday afternoon, Friday is ‘tech’ day, with Dave Okert and David Shoemaker guiding the audience through the troubleshooting techniques to diagnose and repair faults on all kinds of arcade games and circuit boards.

SATURDAY

The show resumed at 10am on Saturday, with a long 13.5-hour day ahead. It didn’t take long before the aisles started to fill and free machines became just a little harder to find.

Saturday also featured a new batch of seminars. These began at 12:30 with Seattle resident David Thiel.

12:30pm: David Thiel

David spoke about his history in game audio development, starting with early video games and continuing with pinball games for Data East. More recently he created the music and effects for games from Stern Pinball, and Jersey Jack Pinball.

He is currently completing The Hobbit’s music and effects, and is in development on the next titles for Jersey Jack Pinball, Heighway Pinball as well as Multimorphic’s first game.

2:00pm: Dwight Sullivan

Dwight’s seminar took the audience through the creation of the rules for a Ghostbusters pinball’s wizard mode. There are many considerations to be made when designing a mode and Dwight selected members of the audience to come up with ideas about the setting for the mode, what the player is supposed to achieve, how they progress through the mode and the scoring possibilities.

Dwight said this was a condensed version of the process he and his team go through when designing a game’s rules, and he rewarded the wizard mode designers in the audience with Stern Pinball T-shirts.

3:30pm: Nolan Bushnell

Nolan is a famed entrepreneur who is best known for being the pioneer of coin-op video games, as well as starting the company Atari and the restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese.

He began by talking about how he got into electronics and computing through ham radio and then at college where the earliest video games were played on mainframe computers. He continued by describing how the game Pong was created and how that title went on to be such a huge global success.

Nolan described how Pong’s success shaped the video game boom in the years which followed, but also left him with a problem where we wanted to operate games as well as build them, but didn’t want to directly compete with the operators who were buying his games. That led to the creation of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant and arcade chain.

After detailing his lifetime in game and business development, Nolan concluded by describing his vision for the future of the entertainment business and the companies who are currently working on creating it.

5:00pm: Jack Guarnieri, Butch Peel & David Thiel

Jack began and ended his seminar in which he updated the audience on the latest happenings at the Lakewood, NJ factory, the production of The Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit, and development on their upcoming third game designed by Pat Lawlor.

Jack was joined by Butch Peel and David Thiel who both talked about The Hobbit and the work they had done on the game.

Butch described the new player and operator features in the game and how it further develops the innovations introduced in The Wizard of Oz.

David played several of the music tracks and effects from The Hobbit, and spoke about how he joined the project with certain musical assets already created, as well as the work still remaining to complete it.

Jim Schelberg from the Pingame Journal had put together a selection of pinball-related clips from the media, and at 8pm these were played on the large-screen monitors for guests to drop-in and watch.

The Classics PinGolf Tournament concluded on Saturday evening when the top eighteen qualifiers played head-to-head games on randomly-drawn machines in a three-strikes-and-you’re-out format.

The winner was Julie Gray from Seattle who won $500 and a trophy.

Here are the full results:

Classics PinGolf Tournament

1 Julie Gray 2 Raymond Davidson 3 Alex Tada 3 Colin Urban 5 Chris Chinn 6 Danny Cabral 6 Nigel Colbert 8 Arron Siverson 8 Jaakko Kuoppamaki 11 Derek Miazga 11 John Kremmer 11 Germain Mariolle 14 Patrick Carlson 14 Eden Stamm 14 Trevor McDonald 17 Karli Pigford 17 Peter Olive 17 Eric Wagensonner 19 Collin Topolski 19 Jordan Semrow 24 Todd Larsen 24 Thomas Urban 24 Martin Ayub 24 Todd MacCulloch 24 Andy Burton 24 Mitchell D. Anderson 24 Chris Perlot 33 Michael Warfield 33 Dan Danger 33 Geoff Simons 33 Todd Rafacz 33 Amanda Kotchon 33 Blake Hurdle 33 Maka Honig 33 Gordon Ornelas 33 Lee Moscaritolo 33 Bob Matthews 33 Jody Reilhan 40 Aaron Garberding 40 Louise Wagensonner 40 Dave Stewart 40 Robert Gagno 44 Jared Baldridge 44 Nicole Pike 44 Dave Mercier 44 David Rauschenberg 49 Justin Blau 49 Sam Atlas 49 Mike Corbett WA 49 Jeffrey Neumann 49 Ryan Newstrum 49 Randall Olson 56 Steven Griffin 56 Luke Camarda 56 John Robinson WA 56 Mike Pantoliano 56 Matt Anderson 56 Joseph Salender 56 Jessica DeNardo 56 Michael Smith 67 Heather Loudon 67 Matt Sarnoff 67 Michael B Bailey 67 Christel Macabeo 67 Greg Dunlap 67 Eric Morales 67 Warren McCulloch 67 Jonathan Hawthorne 67 Tim Tournay 67 Brian Chesbrough 67 Mindy Bert 67 Kathy Gagno 67 Benton Seybold 75 Garrick West 75 Tommy Skinner 75 Joshua Bartlett 75 Sergey Posrednikov 81 Jeff Anderson 81 Robbie Finnigan 81 Heather Willott 81 Nick Taseris 81 Erin Harting 81 Terrence Vaccaro 81 Ron Siemens 81 Aaron Bendickson 92 David Latimer 92 Ken Rudberg 92 Alec Jensen 92 Jason Simmons 92 Levi Dittebrandt 92 Corbin Sheffels 92 Ryan Hess 92 Matt Watts 92 Karri Kuoppamaki 92 Robin Lassonde 92 Brad Kerr 92 Michael Adcock 92 Jade Ang 92 Kevin Birrell 104 Jordy Vaughan 104 Michael Tibbetts 104 Jeff Lee OR 104 Kyle Seller 104 Katie Janis 104 Chris Wolf 104 Sophie Spickard 104 Cameron Staley 104 Dave Grant 104 Greg Harting 112 Kayla Greet 112 Matt Lauro 112 Rodney Olsen 112 Daniel Miller WA 112 Ronnie Vanwormer 112 William Scott Jordan 119 Dan Campbell 119 Zac Petersen 119 Tyler Beard 119 Brent Lane 119 James Daniels 119 Phillip Saltzman 119 Alan Wiley 123 Travis Maisch 127 Jacob Wallraff 127 Daniel Salo 127 Bob Rowlands 127 Maurizio Gagno 127 Mike Becker 127 Miles Grant 127 James Stubbington 131 Chantelle Mercier 131 Dave Bell 133 Darin Lange 134 Brian Warfield 134 Jamey Harting 137 Casey Jones 137 Marcus Schmidt 137 Andre Needham 140 Sean Leary 140 Jeff Gagnon 140 James Beard 142 Chelsey Oedewaldt 144 Jackie O’Malley 144 Jeremy Schultz 144 Nick Pernisco 146 Alexander Young 148 Jodine Hatfield 148 Snow Galvin 148 Brendan Vaughan 150 Nycole Hyatt

The show continued until 11pm at which point the machines were switched off and the hall emptied in preparation for the final, shorter day on Sunday.

SUNDAY

Doors opened at 9am on Sunday with the quarter-final rounds of the main Match-Play Tournament and the first games in the Rookie Knockout Tournament starting soon after.

The top seven players from each of the five qualifying rounds played on Friday and Saturday qualified for Sunday’s rounds, with the winner of each qualifying round going straight into the semi-finals.

The remaining thirty players took part in the quarter-final which continued the match-play format with ten groups of three. Each group played a single three-player game with points awarded for finishing position. The groups were then shuffled and a second game played on different machines. This continued until four games had been played, when the sixteen players with the most points moved on to the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, the Rookie Tournament for players ranked below the top 1,700 began on the Classics machines before moving over to the same machines as the Match-Play Tournament once the initial rounds were over and the number of machines needed had been reduced.

After playing through the quarter- and semi-finals, the final three in the Match-Play Tournament A Division were Dave Stewart, Germain Mariolle and Bob Matthews. They played the final on Spider-Man, The Shadow and Twilight Zone.

They played a three-game final in what was called multi-match-play, where all three start together on separate machines and swap to the next machine when it is their turn to play. Points were awarded for position in each game.

This resulted in a much quicker final than if each game had been played sequentially, but also lost some of the climactic feel of a final, since spectators had to keep track of all the points earned by each player.

The B Division final took place alongside the A Division and was played in the same manner.

In the A Division it was Germain who scored the most points in the final to take first place. Bob Matthews was second, with Dave Stewart third. In the B Division Dave Mercier triumphed, ahead of Jeff DeBock and Eric Morales.

Here are the full results of the Match-Play Tournament:

Classics PinGolf Tournament

1 Germain Mariolle  2 Bob Matthews 3 Dave Stewart 4 Mike Pantoliano 5 Zoe Vrabel 6 Chris Chinn 7 Michael Tibbetts 10 Todd Rafacz 10 Raymond Davidson 10 Maka Honig 10 Eric Morales 10 Tim Tournay 13 Colin Urban 13 Jeff Debock 15 Nick Cline 16 Dave Mercier 16 Karli Pigford 18 Chris Rhodes 18 John Kremmer 20 Brad Kerr 21 Matt Golden 23 Dave Grant 23 David Latimer 23 Evan McBride 26 Jeff Gagnon 26 Robert Gagno 26 Eric Wagensonner 26 Nic Crowson 30 Julie Gray 30 Kevin Birrell 30 Chris Perlot 32 Lee Moscaritolo 33 Daniel Salo 33 Brandon Tibbetts 35 David Corbin 37 Louise Wagensonner 37 Travis Maisch 37 Geoff Simons 41 Chantelle Mercier 41 Bob Klossner 41 Miles Grant 41 Brandon Bras 41 John Cambareri 52 Michael Smith 52 Kerry Ourada 52 Martin Ayub 52 Danny Cabral 52 Erin Harting 52 John Robinson WA 52 Warren McCulloch 52 Trevor McDonald 52 Nigel Colbert 52 Jonathan Hawthorne 52 Robin Lassonde 52 Matthew Cohn 52 Cameron Staley 52 Joseph Salender 52 Taylor Minter 52 Jeff Lee OR 52 Matt Sarnoff 52 Jaakko Kuoppamaki 69 Flash Haze 69 Sam Stiles 69 Todd MacCulloch 69 Lonnie Langford 69 James Edes 69 Paul Kalk 69 Joshua Bartlett 69 Jody Reilhan 69 Jordan Semrow 69 Jeff Anderson 69 Darren Ensley 69 Michael Warfield 69 Nick Taseris 69 Ryan Newstrum 69 William Scott Jordan 69 Darin Lange 85 Robbie Finnigan 85 Roy Starin 85 Jared Baldridge 85 James Daniels 85 Eden Stamm 85 Andy Burton 85 Mike Corbett WA 85 Dave Bell 85 Nycole Hyatt 85 Matt Anderson 85 Derek Miazga 85 John Salzman 85 Matt Galbraith 85 Alan Wiley 85 Alex Tada 96 Corbin Sheffels 96 Blake Mitchell 96 Sergey Posrednikov 96 Jodine Hatfield 96 Ronnie Vanwormer 96 Tressa Points 96 Arron Siverson 96 Thomas Skinner 107 Nick Pernisco 107 Matt Watts 107 Terrence Vaccaro 107 Karri Kuoppamaki 107 Mindy Bert 107 lauren aquino 107 Erik Warkentin 107 Heather Loudon 107 Rob Moller 107 Dan Danger 107 Peter Olive 107 Benton Seybold 107 Michael B Bailey 122 Kayla Greet 122 Matt Lauro 122 Luke Camarda 122 Tommy Skinner 122 Sam Atlas 122 Christel Macabeo 122 Justin Hugeback 122 Blake Hurdle 122 Steven Ackley 122 Alexa Philbeck 122 Sagel Frazier 122 Sophie Spickard 122 Steve Montgomery 122 Chelsey Oedewaldt 122 Aaron Garberding 122 Heather Willott 122 Michael Adcock 122 James Stubbington 134 Zac Petersen 134 Dan Campbell 134 Kay Kay 134 Eric Zounes 134 Patrick Carlson 134 Daniel Miller WA 140 James Trott 140 Ryan Hess 140 Jared Gamble 140 Brian Chesbrough 140 Katie Janis 140 Matt Ewan 148 Katie Geissler 148 Jackie O’Malley 148 Max Stiles 148 Todd Larsen 148 Amanda Kotchon 148 James Beard 148 Jordy Vaughan 148 Gilbert Sandejas 148 Jason Heitt 154 Snow Galvin 154 Jade Ang 154 Jeremy Edwards 154 Rick Wyles 159 Jessica DeNardo 159 Brian Warfield 159 Ian Fridge 159 Maurizio Gagno 159 Aaron Bendickson 159 Greg Harting 164 Collin Topolski 164 Courtney Klossner 164 Kathy Gagno 168 Jeremy Schultz 168 Trace Pierson 168 Leslie Pierson 168 Gordon Galbraith 168 Dan McLane 168 Marcus Schmick 172 Brendan Vaughan 173 Steven Griffin 173 Tyler Beard 175 Thomas Urban 176 Brooke Lukens

The Rookie Tournament was won by Emmalyn Smith who, apart from the $100 prize money, won a special pinball plaque trophy.

Gordon Galbraith was second with James Frost-Winn in third.

Rookie Tournament

1 Emmalyn Smith 2 Gordon Galbraith 3 James Frost-Winn 4 Todd Larsen 5 Sam Stiles 5 Jamey Harting 7 Chelsey Oedewaldt 8 Jason Heitt 10 Danny Cabral 10 Stephen Rakonza 10 Paul Borth 12 Louis Messina 12 Ian Fridge 16 Cameron Staley 16 Ron Siemens 16 Otto Guardado 16 Jessica DeNardo 16 Josh Hornbaker 23 Chris Wolf 23 Matt Galbraith 23 John McConnell 23 Heather Seevers 23 Altwin Hawksford 23 Mike Becker 23 Darin Lange 23 Tressa Points 23 Michael B Bailey 23 Sean Garrett 33 Phillip Saltzman 33 Bo Kellogg 33 Brendan Vaughan 33 Peter Schatzer 33 Taylor Minter 33 William Scott Jordan 33 Neil Kubath 33 Chelsea Rakonza 33 Michael Williams 46 Neil Derksen 46 Elijah Wideski 46 Jon Means 46 Josh Harper 46 Kris Jones 46 Amy Pyrka 46 Quinn Hughes 46 Jordy Vaughan 46 Brent Lane 46 Keith Raschko 46 Matt Ewan 46 James Stubbington 46 Dave Odom 46 Steven Griffin 46 Snow Galvin 46 Jackie O’Malley 46 Casey Jones 58 Sean Shypala 58 Luke Camarda 58 Chris Payne 58 Gilbert Sandejas 58 Ryan Newstrum 58 Robbie Finnigan 58 Nicole Pike 58 Heather Thomson 69 Matthew Manuet 69 Jessica Van Wagner 69 Richard Newland 69 Justin Blau 69 Amber Marie Simon 69 Katie Janis 69 Amber Pepin-Turbide 69 Logan Guardado 69 Dan McLane 69 Sara Jones 69 Marcus Schmick 69 Chris Force 69 Jesse Perez

Emmalyn then joined the three top rookie qualifiers from the Match-Play Tournament in a shootout to win a Galahad pinball machine.

The winner of the shootout and the machine was Nick Cline.

Meanwhile, down at the other end of the tournaments area, the Nitro Rising Star shootout was taking place with a beautiful Harlem Globetrotters fully restored and enhanced by Nitro Amusements as the top prize.

The shootout was between the winner of the Women’s Pinball Championship, the winner of the Match-Play Tournament’s B-Division, and the top two qualifiers for the Match-Play tournament’s A Division who are not disqualified from playing in the B-Division.

Those four played a single game on the Harlem Globetrotters.

The winner was Zoë Vrabel who took the game home with her.

The Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show always has an awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon and this year was no exception.

Byron Raynes hosted the event, thanking the many people who work hard throughout the weekend, as well as the days before and after.

He also thanked the sponsors and all those who brought machines, before announcing the Best-in-Show winners in a range of categories.

Nitro Amusements won three awards. Their The Big Lebowski took two of them for Best Pinball and overall Best-in-Show, while their Harlem Globetrotters – which was the prize in the Nitro Rising Star shootout – won the Best Restoration prize.

Pinball Bulbs won the Best Custom prize for their Iron Maiden conversion of a Stern The Rolling Stones.

The People’s Choice award was picked up by Marco Specialties for their Ghostbusters Pro game.

Part of the money raised by the Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show is used to fund a scholarship for one student in a discipline related to the games and amusements industry.

This year the recipient was Yarhed Shella, a maths and mechanical engineering student at the University of Washington. Yarhed received a $5,000 scholarship to aid his studies.

In addition, an award of $500 was given to the Pinball Outreach Project’s Greg Dunlap and Nicole Anne Reik.

The top three in the Kids Tournament then received their prizes.

Finally, the draws for the two big raffle prizes were made. The winner of a restored Astro Blaster was drawn first.

Then the winner of the separate Ghostbusters Premium raffle was chosen.

Unfortunately the winner wasn’t present, and a call to their phone went to voice mail, but they were in for a pleasant surprise when they replayed the message.

And that brings us to the end of our coverage of the Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show 2016. We hope you enjoyed our reporting, and we leave you with our exclusive Twenty-Two Minute Tour video, where you get to walk around the whole show without getting our sore feet.