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<\/a>In fact, as soon as you enter the hotel you reach the registration desk where show entry can be purchased along with assorted items of show memorabilia from UK Pinfest and also the North-East Retro Gaming (NERG) show which Philip also organises.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Before the show could begin though, all the machines and stands needed to be set up in the main hall (Danetree Suite), in the side rooms and in the hotel lobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many game donors and their machines arrived on both the Wednesday and the Thursday, ahead of the official opening on Friday evening. Several people working on the show commented that for them the Wednesday night is the new Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We didn’t arrive until Friday morning when machine unloading and set up was in full flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is only a single vehicle bay and loading door which can create congestion at certain times and means vans have to be moved as soon as they have disgorged their contents.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>Let’s take a look around the hall as it was on Friday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slowly, but surely, the number of machines on their legs increased throughout Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n The Addams Family Challenge<\/em> shocker chair returned, which makes players sit in an ‘electric’ chair and use hand grips to flip the flippers. We covered the development of the chair in an earlier Pinball News article<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n Along with their parts stand Retro Arcade Specialist brough along several interesting machines, including the new This Is Spinal Tap<\/em> game from home pin which was making its UK (and possibly European) debut at the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It remained covered until the show opened, but we’ll have more details and pictures a little later in this report.<\/p>\n\n\n It wasn’t only in the main hall where pinballs were being readied for the start of the show. The corridor outside had several pinballs and video games on free play.<\/p>\n\n\n At the back of the main hall there were also Rocky & Bullwinkle<\/em> and Austin Powers<\/em> pinballs available to play.<\/p>\n\n\n Returning to the hotel’s lobby, there were eight more pinballs available to play. Most of these were on coin play for charity. Over the course of the weekend they raised a grand total of \u00a31,255.20 which is a new record for the show.<\/p>\n\n\n The hotel’s lobby was also where one of the two bars could be found. When the show hall was open guests could use a second bar in there, but outside show hours the lobby bar was open late into the night.<\/p>\n\n\n The bar staff served a reasonable selection of draught and bottled drinks, along with tea and coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n As well as drinks, the hotel served hot food. There was a bar menu available most of the day, and an extra food counter set up for lunch and dinner service.<\/p>\n\n\n Before we leave the facilities behind, it’s worth noting that the show booked out the entire accommodation at the hotel – all 150 rooms – offering a special room rate of \u00a364 for single occupancy including a full buffet breakfast, which is slightly cheaper than the 2022 rate of \u00a365.50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the main hall, the final touches were being made to the machines and stands.<\/p>\n\n\n This also gave us the opportunity to examine the This Is Spinal Tap<\/em> machine from Homepin in more detail. Retro Arcade Specialists are the UK distributor for Homepin games and had this early model flown over from the Homepin factory in Taiwan for the show.<\/p>\n\n\n Here are some more shots of the playfield’s features.<\/p>\n\n\n The game features both a large backbox LCD panel and an orange dot matrix display. The LCD panel mostly shows clips from the This Is Spinal Tap movie which are synchronised to the gameplay with occasional graphic overlays or special display animations. The dot matrix display shows the game scores and most player instructions. It even includes a rudimentary video mode.<\/p>\n\n\n Unfortunately, like much of the software, the information was minimal and tended to confuse rather than enlighten.<\/p>\n\n\n Full public entry to UK Pinfest didn’t begin until 10am on Saturday morning, but there was a limited number of VIP tickets available which gave access to the main show hall on Friday and Saturday evenings from 7pm.<\/p>\n\n\n Although restricted to VIP ticket holders, the hall was soon busy for the Friday evening session.<\/p>\n\n\n For players into their tournaments, there were plenty to enjoy at UK Pinfest.<\/p>\n\n\n The Ladies Tournament kicked things off at 7:30pm on Friday, with two hours of qualifying before the final rounds around 10:30pm<\/p>\n\n\n After the initial rounds were over, the last four who contested the final were Amanda Simpson, Lucy Vince, Rhian Best and Sarah Vince. <\/p>\n\n\n It was decided to play the final on a single machine – Creature from the Black Lagoon<\/em>. Lucy played first, but it was her mother, Sarah, who set the pace with 29M after ball 1, 20M ahead of the closest challenger, Amanda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda nearly caught up on the second ball, reaching 27.5M while Sarah only improved marginally to 32.5M. Rhian was on 15.7M and Lucy on 6M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda did move slightly ahead on her third ball to 33.5M, but Sarah soon added another 20M on her final ball to secure the win. Rhian was third on 22.6M with Lucy fourth on 6.6M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trophies were awarded by UK Pinfest organiser, Philip Murphy, and David Duncan from Retro Arcade Specialists who sponsored the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n Before the Open Tournament began on Saturday morning, there was free practice on the machines on Friday evening – another reason to buy one of the VIP tickets.<\/p>\n\n\n Also on Friday night was the first of two Stall Ball tournaments held in the main show hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The concept of Stall Ball is a simple one. Players line up to take part and whoever is at the front of the queue plays on the single machine used, which in this case was a Twilight Zone<\/em>. The line quickly snakes around the hall as more and more players join in.<\/p>\n\n\n Each player’s job is to put the ball into one of the nominated scoops, locks or kicker holes which ‘stalls’ the ball. If they achieve that, they quickly leave the machine to the next player and join the back of the queue to play again, but if they drain then they are out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As consolation for being knocked out, Kirk from Tilt<\/a> pinball, beer and coffee bar in Birmingham had arrange for everyone to receive a free can of pale ale as soon as they were eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With potentially only one or two flips needed to stall the ball, the line moved quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
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