Wow! That went fast! So much work… so much fun…

Now that we’ve had a few days to recover, we wanted to send out one final message for the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival.

First, we owe a LOT of “Thank You’s”:

To each of our exhibitors, including all of our first timers, those that purchased AC/DC’s or Transformer machines, the members of the DFW Pinball Club and of course, all of our regulars. We couldn’t put this show on without each and every one of you.

To each of our vendors, especially Marc Oradat of Elevation Games. Marc not only brought the largest pin ever created, the Atari Hercules (a logistical nightmare), he brought the most games and the titles were great ones! Also to Marco Specialties for the impressive setup and for having AC/DC and Transformers available for non-tournament play. To The Coin Drops Here for making the trip from Colorado with their haul. To Illinois Pinball for making the trip down and for bringing what people want to see. To P-ROC for showing us what you’ve got going on and to all of our vendors. You all helped make this show special, so Thank You!

To our speakers Alan Lewis and Gerry Stellenberg for the thoughtful and informative seminars you presented. To George Gomez and Steve Ritchie and Jersey Jack. We love that you’re just normal guys that love to play and talk pinball as much as we do. And we’d love to have you back every year!

To all of our families and volunteers. Some of you sign up to help… some of you kind of have to. We appreciate all the work you do. And to everyone else the helped the show in any way:

THANK YOU FOR MAKING TPF 2012 AWESOME!

And now we say Congratulations! To all of our winners… and there were a lot of them! To start with, Lin Moore took home the 2011 Stern Transformers Red Cross raffle pin. We understand his granddaughter is thoroughly enjoying it. Donavan Stepp took home the top tourney prize in the Texas State Championship, A-Division. Grant Mortenson took the top spot in B-Division. Timothy Street beat out his competition in the Kid’s Bump ‘n’ Win. 28 pins took home Best Of ribbons, including the Grand Champion, Craig Hassell’s Tron Legacy, Encom Edition.

All in all, we counted 233 games on the floor as of Sunday morning, not including any that left early. We raised over $3,200 for the American Red Cross. We awarded $3,275 in tournament money plus prize packages and trophies, and $1,100 in Best Of award monies. And we’ll let you guess what kind of attendance we got. We’d bet this was our biggest year yet, based on the parking lot.

We couldn’t mention everyone or everything here, so click here to see the rest of our winners and pictures of the show. And we know a lot of you got some great pictures and videos. Email us, and we’ll add a link to your albums.

See y’all next year at TPF 2013!

They’re here! We have 2 incredible AC/DC Back in Black and 2 awesome AC/DC Let There be Rock Limited Edition pinball machines (numbers 2 and 3 of each edition!) sitting on the ballroom floor right now! And this is your chance to play them. You won’t find them anywhere else in the country. Only here!

The games new owners turned out for the unveiling and had a blast setting them up and getting their official “first game” in. And now they’re ready for you.

These games are impressive. Everything you’ve heard about them is true. Steve Ritchie promised an amazing game and he delivered!

We want to send a huge THANK YOU to Gary Stern and everyone else involved in getting us these games in time for the show!

A little back story: These games left the Stern factory on Monday afternoon. As of 4 pm yesterday, we were, quite honestly, very concerned they would not arrive in time for the start of tournament play. It truly cast a shadow on the upcoming show. Seven games, all or them tournament machines, would have been a very large hole in the line up. So when we got the call that they were on the dock, we raced over to pick them up directly from the trucking company.

We took a lot of pictures of the “unboxing” and will be posting them soon, along with pictures of the rest of the show as we finish setting up and throughout the weekend.

Tournament play begins today at 10 pm when the registration desk opens. The main ballroom opens at 5 pm. This is going to be a GREAT show!

The 2012 Texas Pinball Festival starts tomorrow at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center located in beautiful Grapevine, Texas. The show officially begins at 5 pm on Friday, but the tournament area will open at 10 am so you may begin competing right away!

Advance ticket sales closed on March 4th, but not to worry. If you were unable to pre-register, tickets to the festival will be available at the door.

If you did pre-register, you may pick up your pre-registration wrist bands, name tags & lanyards, t-shirts, raffle tickets and tournament tickets as early as 10am on Friday. Please remember to wear your wristband (on your wrist) all weekend.

Don’t forget about the free swap meet on Saturday! Make some cash (and room in the garage) and bring that stuff to our free swap meet on Saturday morning in the east parking lot. Every year it gets bigger and bigger. Help make it a success!

The schedule of events page is up! See what’s happening and when at the Texas Pinball Festival here.

Finally, Texas is home to the most polite and friendly folks around, but just as a reminder, here’s a little pinball etiquette:

• Please do not kick or hit the machines. This has never been an issue, but we always like to remind folks to treat the games as if they were their own (the game owners will appreciate this).
• Please do not put drinks or food on the games (and please wash your hands after eating that big bowl of Texas nachos). Trash cans are accessible throughout the game room.
• We love seeing kids at the show. Often times they have never seen a pinball machine and we encourage parents to teach them, but smaller kids should be accompanied by an adult at all times.
• Please share that great game. If you notice someone waiting to play the game you are playing, please allow them to play when your game is finished. Better yet, challenge them to a multiplayer game.
• And finally, keep in mind the folks that put on the TPF are just hobbyists (like many of you) and volunteers. This is not our primary business. Please be patient. We are all working hard to make it a great show for everyone!

Pre-registration is now closed. Thank you to everyone that Pre-registered. Your registration packets will be waiting for you at the show entrance. Packets can be picked up at the registration table as early as 10am on Friday morning when tournament play begins. Remember the main floor doesn’t open until 5pm Friday afternoon.

And not to worry! Tickets will still be available at the door.

For the first time (and at the request of many), we will have a very limited quantity of custom embroidered Texas Pinball Festival ball caps available for purchase at the show.

It’s a nice black 6-panel, unstructured cotton twill cap with a Velcro closure. Caps will be $15 each and available only at the show. When they’re gone, they’re gone.

Welcome to Texas y’all!

The first 50 kids to come through the door at the opening of the show on Saturday will receive a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy hat!

Limit one (1) cowboy hat per child (12 and under), while supplies last.

FarSight Studios will be coming to Texas and setting up a hands-on world premier demo of the home console version of their latest game called the Pinball Arcade. They plan to show off their four launch tables: Tales of the Arabian Nights, Ripley’s Believe It or Not,  Theatre of Magic, and Black Hole, as well as their first two as of yet unannounced downloadable tables.

They have revealed that Monster Bash, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Attack from Mars, Circus Voltaire and other Bally and Stern tables will be added in addition to most of the tables from their Pinball Hall of Fame collections over the next couple years. With licenses from Williams, Bally, Stern and Gottlieb together in one game, FarSight’s goal is for the Pinball Arcade to become the most realistic and comprehensive pinball video game ever created.

In addition, FarSight Studios has agreed to sponsor the Kid’s Bump ‘n’ Win Tournament and are providing some cool door prizes for the Red Cross Raffle.

Time is flying! Make sure your pre-registration and merchandise order is in because we’re shutting it down on Sunday, March 4th, 2012 at midnight. We have to get everything printed, pulled and shipped. And then we have to get ready for the rootinest, tootinest gun slingin’ pinball show this side of the Mississippi!

We still have room for a few more pinball machines, but we’re full up on classic arcade games. Don’t wait until the last minute to get pre-registered and reserve your hotel room. We WILL run out. You can get the hotel details here.

Our Tournament Director Ken Kemp has been working overtime to revamp this year’s tournaments. He’s added a new tournament called the Texas Shoot Out. And, to encourage new and more players to participate, he’s added a C Division to 4 of the tournaments. With these additions and other modifications, we’ll be giving away even more prize money and trophies! Check out the Tournaments page for details. Be sure to read over the changes to the Rules and Guidelines too.

Come play HERCULES, the world’s largest pinball machine! Marc Oradat of Elevation Games will have an Atari Hercules on display for everyone to play and marvel at. Standing at seven feet high and eight feet long, Hercules is popularly considered as the largest pinball machine ever made. Only 280 Hercules were made and it was Atari’s last production pinball machine. And we’re going to have one at the show!

Did you know? Hercules’ pinball is the size of a billards cue ball?

Back for 2012, the Texas Pinball Festival will have an encore presentation of Special When Lit Saturday evening following Pinball 101.

Special When Lit rediscovers the lure of a lost pop icon – pinball. This American invention made more money than Hollywood through the 50s and 60s. Its success swept the world making it the epitome of ‘cool’. Today pinball is all but forgotten. This is the definitive story of the rise and fall of pinball as told by the fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe. A game, a sport, a lifestyle – pinball takes this eclectic bunch of self-confessed ‘pinheads’ back to their youth as they open up passionately to reveal the attractions of the ‘world’s funnest toy’.
 
 Check out the Events page for location and show time.

You may have seen the color display on Attack from Mars, but for the first time, you can see and play Medieval Madness with a color dot matrix display! ColorDMD and Elevation Games are working together to bring it to the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival.

Since the introduction of the dot matrix display (DMD) in 1991, pinball machine manufacturers have used monochromatic gas plasma displays to render video animation and enrich the player’s experience. For years, pinball enthusiasts have awaited an update to the orange glow of this aging display technology.

Color DMD is an LCD display designed to replace the traditional orange dot matrix displays  used in pinball machines. Round dots are drawn to the LCD to emulate the original dots. Because it’s an LCD, any color dot is possible. By adding in proprietary algorithms and hardware, a multicolor display is created to enhance older games designed originally with only one color.

Look for Medieval Madness sporting the new color display in the Elevation Games booth.

We’ll be showing Pinball 101 at the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival!

Learn to play pinball from one of the top players in the world, Keith Elwin. Or… watch Pinball 101 to improve your own game. Featuring more than 50 pinball machines, this instructional demonstrates all the flipper skills you’ll need to improve you scores. You’ll also get game specific tips and more!

Marco Specialties will have copies of Pinball 101 available for purchase at their booth. You can’t watch it just once!

Check out the Events page to see what else we’ve got going on this year.

Attend Alan Lewis’ seminar and learn how to reproduce playfield plastics from beginning to end. Scanning the image, editing to fix, printing on decal paper, and making the clear plastic shape… it’s all covered in this seminar.  Whether you are restoring a woodrail or a DMD, this information will get you started on making your own replacement plastics.

We will have four AC/DC Limited Edition pins and one Premium pin in the tournament area. Don’t miss out!

A big Thank you to everyone that purchased an AC/DC so we could have them at the show! Check out the Game Line-up page to see who they are.

Jack Guarnieri is returning to the Texas Pinball Festival to talk about the progress on his upcoming pinball machine “Wizard of Oz”. Jack is also graciously providing pizza for everyone that attends his seminar (time TBD).

Thank you Jack!

That’s right, the “King of Flow” is coming to hang out with us for the weekend. He will be available to sign autographs. This is your chance to get that Spider-Man or other favorite translite signed, and I’m sure there will be plenty of AC/DC talk.

PinballControllers.com is coming to Texas to show off their P-ROC and PDB driver boards. Anybody interested in custom machine development, including custom software, re-themes, or complete custom machine creations, should come by!

Gerry Stellenberg will be presenting a seminar on Custom Pinball Machine Control Systems. He will explain how to use a P-ROC and PDBs in custom creations and then show, in physical demonstrations, P-ROC/PDBs controlling coils, lamps, switches, etc. Controlling a custom machine has never been easier!

In addition to having boards for sale at their booth, they will have a P- ROC/PDB demo fixture showing the P-ROC/PDBs in action, and even more exciting… they will be unveiling a prototype pinball machine that has to be seen to be believed. This machine has numerous features you’ve never seen before. Come see their vision for the future of pinball – then play it!

And it will be….

…a 2011 Stern Transformers Pro Pinball Machine!

We’re purchasing a brand new machine for use in the 2012 TPF Tournament line-up. At the conclusion of the tournament, this awesome game will be raffled off to benefit the American Red Cross.

Raffle tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20 this year and they’re also good for the many door prizes we give away throughout the weekend. And maybe… maybe we can get George Gomez to sign it too.

You’re the first to see it!

We are pleased to announce famed pinball designer, George Gomez (Monster Bash, Corvette, Revenge from Mars, Lord of the Rings, Stern: Batman, Transformers, and many others) will be the Special Guest Speaker at the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival.

He will be giving a presentation on Saturday, March 24th. Question & Answer and autograph sessions will follow his presentation. DON’T MISS IT!

New for 2012, we’re introducing Texas Pinball Festival hoodies for sale! These are available in sizes Adult Medium through XXX-Large by pre-order only. Orders placed by December 5th will be available for Christmas delivery. Orders placed after that date won’t be shipped until after the Holidays.

These hoodies have a seamless body and pouch pocket, double nap inside for softness, ribbed cuffs and waistband, a fully fleece lined hood, grommets and matching drawstring. They are made of 50% cotton and 50% polyester NuBlend™ preshrunk fleece.

Head on over to the store to order yours, and don’t forget about the T-shirts!

After a lot of work, on-line pre-registration is now open for Exhibitors and for Guests. This year, we’ve automated the process in an attempt to ensure accuracy and speed things up at the Registration Desk at the show.

So… if you have a machine to bring in exchange for admission, start on the Exhibitors page. If you would like to join us this year as a Guest, check out the Pre-Registation page. Lastly, if you can’t make the show, and you just want to order merchandise, go to the Store. As usual, we accept PayPal and check or money order. And if you need T-shirts for Christmas gifts, order by December 5th to make sure you get them on time!

And a great big Thank You! to those of you in our local pinball community who helped with testing and gave some great suggestions.

Take a look at the 2012 t-shirt design. Every year we sell out of our t-shirts and these are looking great! We’ll be sending them off to the printer soon.

Check them out here!

Welcome to our new home on the web! This is where all the newest information about the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival will be announced.  

Look around and make yourself at home. We’re still adding a lot of new features, information, pictures and links. We just couldn’t wait any longer to bring it to you! But please bear with us as we make corrections and adjustments. And of course, check back often so you don’t miss a thing.