The 2014 Texas Pinball Festival will be held March 28th-30th at the Embassy Suites Dallas – Frisco Hotel & Convention Center in Frisco, TX.

Changing dates and locations is never an easy decision. Several scheduling conflicts (such as the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament being hosted in Dallas/Ft Worth the first weekend in April) and limited or unavailable March dates forced us to seek a new location for 2014.

We are very excited to be moving to the Embassy Suites. It is a beautiful hotel with more than 40,000 sq ft of available show space! In addition, the hotel is directly across the street from Stonebriar Mall offering an abundance of food options and free parking.

More information and special hotel room rates will be announced soon along with our 2014 TPF logo and website updates.

Wow! I think that may have been the longest weekend of our lives! But it was soooo worth it! And now that we’ve had a few days to recover, we wanted to send out one final message for the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival:

We owe a LOT of “Thank You’s”… to each of our exhibitors, including all of our first timers, those that purchased tournament machines, the members of the DFW Pinball & Aracde Club and of course, all of our regulars. The time and effort you put into your games and your willingness to share those games in this format has made the Texas Pinball Festival the envy of other pinball shows. We couldn’t put this show on without each and every one of you. We are proud to hear you refer to it as “our show.”

To all of our vendors and sponsors… Marc Oradat of Elevation Games, who once again brought the largest pin ever created, the Atari Hercules. To Marco Specialties for their always impressive setup and continued support of the show. To Illinois Pin Ball for making the trip down and for bringing what people want to see. To Jersey Jack Pinball for providing three incredible Wizard of Oz games for the show. To Stern Pinball and our distributor Steve Nordseth of FUN! for the line up of Avengers games and to all of the others. You all helped make this show special, so Thank You!

To our speakers Alan Lewis and Randy Perlow (Color DMD) for the thoughtful and informative seminars you presented. To Gerry Stellenberg and special guest Dennis Nordman of Multipmorphic for the excitement you brought by giving away one of your new machines. To George Gomez and Steve Ritchie and to the guys from Jersey Jack. To Jim Schelberg (Pingame Journal), Martin Ayub (pinballnews.com) and Andy Campos (Campos Studios) for their in depth coverage of the show.

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 2013 AWESOME!

And now we say Congratulations! To all of our winners… and there were a lot of them! To start with, Josh Thomson took home the 2013 Stern Avengers Red Cross Raffle pin. Trent Augenstein took home the top tourney prize in the Texas State Championship, A-Division. Grant Mortenson took the top spot in B-Division. Andrew Hassell beat out his competition in the Kid’s Bump ‘n’ Win. 11 pins took home Best in Show ribbons, including the Grand Champion, Marc Oradat’s Varkon.

At one point, we counted 402 games on the floor, but we will stand by Martin Ayub’s (pinballnews.com) count of 357 games, which is an increase of 124 games over last year. We raised over $4,000 for the American Red Cross. We awarded over $3,300 in tournament money plus prize packages and trophies, and $1,450 in Best Of award monies and ribbons. And we increased our attendance by more than 30%.

We couldn’t mention everyone or everything here, so click here to see the rest of our winners and pictures from 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.

And finally, an apology to our tournament players. We ran into some logistical, technical and timing issues that caused tournament play to run very late. We know people were tired, but our tourney director, volunteers and players stepped up and saw it through. We have to say that we knew there would be a few hiccups to go along with the new venue. We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback and we invite you to send us your thoughts too. We welcome all compliments, constructive criticism and suggestions. Please direct them to info at texaspinball dot com.

See y’all next year at TPF 2014!

We couldn’t get by with just t-shirts. There has to be more!

This year, in addition to the awesome 2013 Texas Pinball Festival t-shirt, we’ll be offering up fitted Ladies Tees, TPF Hats and AC/DC Light Up Horns.

The t-shirts are still available for pre-order online until March 1st, when pre-registration closes (hurry!).

The ladies tees, hats and horns are only available for sale at the Texas Pinball Festival in limited quantities. These always sell out quickly, so don’t wait to buy yours. Get them as soon as you get there.

Get more info on all our products on our Swag page.

Gerry Stellenberg with Multimorphic is going to give away a brand new P³ pinball machine (a $9,495.00 value) at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival!

The P³ is a revolutionary multi-game pinball platform. It supports hundreds of completely different game apps, each providing a unique gaming experience and offering something for everybody! Many of these games will be written by Multimorphic’s design team. Others can be written by you! When combined with different upper playfield shot layouts, the possibilities are truly endless.

Attend Multimorphic’s TPF seminar on Saturday, March 16 at 5:30pm to enter a free drawing for this incredible machine. Only seminar attendees can enter, so your probability of winning is relatively high! One Winner will be randomly selected and announced at the Awards Ceremony at the conclusion of the Festival on March 17, 2013 from among all eligible entries received. Entrants must be present at the seminar to obtain an entry form, but do not need to be present at the drawing to win.

Visit the Multimorphic website for official contest rules and details.

Come play Hercules! At 7 feet tall and 8 feet long, it’s the largest production model pinball ever manufactured.  Atari only made 280 of these monsters that use a cue ball instead of a pinball.

You’ll find Hercules, not that you could miss it, in the Elevation Games booth.

And while you’re in that booth, be sure to check out another pinball rarity: Varkon, a pinball machine designed as video game. Only 90 were produced by Williams in 1982 and this one has been fully restored. We doubt you’ll ever play a nicer one.

Come play a bit of pinball history at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival!

Stern Pinball Inc., in support of the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival and the American Red Cross, has donated a whole stack of Avengers translites, Stern t-shirts and some other goodies. We’ll be giving these away as door prizes as part of our Red Cross Raffle and possibly as tournaments prizes.

And don’t forget that George Gomez and Steve Ritchie will be here personally to sign autographs and talk about all the great things they’re doing at Stern.

Thank you Stern!

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

Please do not kick or hit the machines. This is usually a non-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 and beverage holders are available on many of the games.

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.

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. It’s more fun to compete!

Please make sure to wear your Texas Pinball Festival wrist band on your wrist at all times. It’s the only way we know what your security clearance is (we wanted to do retina scanning, but it was too expensive). If you have a problem with your wrist band, go to the registration table for assistance.

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 working hard to make it a great show for everyone.

I was in NYC this week, and made a Trek down to visit Jack and JJP to check on the WOZ demo games for the Festival this year.  I join the throng of folks that say, “pictures and video do not do this game justice”.  WOW! What a fine piece of flawless craftsmanship!  The LED’s really are a “horse of a different color”.

Jack is a gracious host and gave me the complete tour.  I saw many machines starting to make their way down the line.  This is the highest quality game I’ve ever seen, lots of meaningful toys, easy to maintain and all the new tech really adds to the gameplay.  It plays like an even more solid Bally/Williams.  While the rules are not completely there yet; there’s enough that I could have played for hours more, unaware of what’s missing.  This is a deep game that casual players will also love.  And Jack’s pulling out all the stops to get it ready for the TPF.

We’re looking forward to having these in their first show tournament in the world right here at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival!

John Greatwich of Great Pinball Limited is offering free reproduction backglasses to exhibitors at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival that agree to display it in their game at the show. John has even agreed to pick up the shipping costs!

Gottlieb titles for this offer include: Aloha, Gaucho, Happy Go Lucky and Eye of the Tiger. Classic Stern titles include: Seawitch, Nineball, Star Gazer and Catacomb.

The deadline for this offer is February 19th. Contact John directly for details and availability.

Randy, an avid pinball collector and electrical engineer, conceived an idea for a color dot matrix display (DMD) for pinball in 2009 and intitated a project to see what could be achieved with current technology. By the end of 2010, an engineering prototype had been built and, with the help of Chris Enright, fit to an Attack from Mars pinball machine. After a debut at an Orange County pinball meeting, a flurry of additional work and show appearances ensued.

At the beginning of 2012, ColorDMD Displays LLC was formed to manufacture and market plug-and-play displays capable of colorizing existing game titles. One year after launching the company, ColorDMD has just introduced its fourth product, a display for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Randy will discuss the evolution of the technology and the company, explain how games are colored, and provide some insight into where ColorDMD may be headed next!

Be sure to check out the full ColorDMD line up featuring: Attack From Mars, Medieval Madness, The Addams Family, and Star Trek: The Next Generation in the Elevation Games booth hosted by Marc Oradat!

All of the machines on the floor are eligible for cash prizes awarded by the Organizers of the Texas Pinball Festival. A judging committee will make the final decision on which pins win ribbons and cash prizes. Judging takes place throughout the weekend, and the winners are announced on Sunday afternoon.

Pinball machines exhibited at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival are eligible to win a $100 cash prize and a blue ribbon in each of the following categories:

Best Antique (pre 1960)
Best 60′s
Best 70′s EM
Best 70′s Solid State
Best 80′s
Best 90′s
Best Modern (2000-present)
Best Original
Best Restoration
Best Custom
Best Classic Stern (pre 1990)
Best Classic Arcade Video Game (pre 1990)

Grand Champion – The best overall pinball machine on the floor is named “Grand Champion” and its proud owner will take home a $250 cash prize and bragging rights.

Bring out your best!

Bobby King and the guys from FarSight Studios who make The Pinball Arcade video game will be coming back for the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival. Their goal is to create the most realistic and comprehensive classic pinball video game ever created. Recently, the TV show X-Play named The Pinball Arcade as the Best Mobile Game of 2012!

The Pinball Arcade features exact recreations of the all-time greatest pinball tables from Williams®, Bally®, Stern Pinball®, and Gottlieb® together in one game for PS3, Xbox, iOS, and Android. Great tables like Medieval Madness™, Twilight Zone™, Star Trek: The Next Generation™, Attack from Mars™, Scared Stiff™, Elvira and the Party Monsters™, Monster Bash™, Gorgar™, Genie™, Circus Voltaire™, Funhouse™, The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot™, Creature from the Black Lagoon™, Taxi™, Black Knight™, Theatre of Magic™, Black Hole™, Tale of the Arabian Nights™ are included along with many more! Plus, they add more tables every month.

They’ll be showing off their game and their newest tables on all platforms and holding a free tournament with prizes just for attendees of the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival!

You know his work already. Andy did our video last year and is currently the official photographer of the Texas Pinball Festival. He took some truly stunning photos, both of the games, and our guests.

Andy has set up a new website and is offering up his photographs (digital copies) for sale for just $5! Browse his gallery of photos from the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival. If you find something you like, contact him through his website to make arrangements.

We look forward to the photos he’ll be putting up for the 2013 show. And if you see him at there, say cheese!

Many have asked if there will be a swap meet at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival. We may have moved to a new, bigger, more awesome location, but what would the Texas Pinball Festival be without the traditional Saturday Swap Meet?

Got a garage full of project games (or working games) and parts and nowhere to park the car? Bring that stuff to the swap meet and make some space and some cash! It gets bigger every year!

We are not sure just yet which parking lot the swap meet will be held in, but rest assured we will announce and post it in plenty of time. The swap meet will happen Saturday, March 16th at 8am. This is a FREE event.

“Classic Stern Master” Bill Morrison heads up the return of the famous Classic Stern Row at the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival. In addition, Bill is bringing two rare Pinstar “Gamatrons” for everyone to enjoy.

If you have already registered your classic Stern, it will be joined with the others. If you have a classic Stern and want it to be part of this exciting display, sign it up now!

“If you’re enough lucky to be Irish or play pinball, you’re lucky enough!” ~Irish Saying

Ok, maybe playing pinball isn’t part of the original saying… but it should be! And what better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than by playing pinball with Tommy McTilt and his friends at the Texas Pinball Festival!

We’ll be giving away a limited number of festive Irish derby hats on Saturday & Sunday to kids (and adults that really really want one) to help celebrate!

We are excited to announce that popular pinball designer Dennis Nordman will be attending the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival. Dennis’ hits includes: “Blackwater 100″, “Elvira and the Party Monsters”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Scared Stiff”, “Wheel of Fortune”, and many others.

Dennis, along with famed pinball artist Greg Freres, founded WhizBang Pinball in 2010 and produced their first custom pinball machine “Big Juicy Melons”. Most recently, it was announced that Dennis will be working with Gerry Stellenberg and Multipmorphic (also appearing at the TPF).

Be sure to catch Dennis at his Saturday seminar and don’t forget to bring that Dennis Norman game translite or plastic for him to sign.

The PinGulp Beverage Caddy by Pinball Life is “…the final solution for pinball machine beverage management!”

The Texas Pinball Festival has purchased a large quantity of official PinGulp Beverage Caddies and will offer them exclusively to TPF pinball machine Exhibitors at a discount in exchange for mounthing them on their machines during the show.

Exhibitors will be able to purchase the caddies Thursday and Friday during show set up while supplies last. Additional details will be sent to Exhibitors along with set-up instructions. Find out more about becoming an Exhibitor, or register now.

A big THANK YOU to Pinball Life for their support.

Alan Lewis returns for the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival, giving another informative how-to seminar. He’ll be concentrating on two topics: “Using a Camera as a Scanner for Playfield Repair” and “Repairing Sunken Inserts”.

Alan has been teaching pinball restoration techniques at the Texas Pinball Festival for several years now. He has provided invaluable information to pinball hobbyists at all skill levels.

Pinball Controllers is now Multimorphic. And Multimorphic is well on their way to delivering a next-generation pinball machine.

Gerry Stellenberg, joined by famed pinball designer Dennis Nordman, is in the seminar line-up for the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival. Dennis and Gerry will discuss the current state of P3 development, production plans, and reasons why the future of pinball continues to get brighter.

Multimorphic will have a prototype P3 on the floor and available for everyone to play during the show.

…a brand new Stern “Avengers” (pro model) valued at $5,699 MSRP.  This beauty is the latest game by famed pinball designer and TPF special guest George Gomez. We’re purchasing a new machine and we’ll have it set up for tournament play during the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival.

The Avengers Pro will be the grand prize in our Red Cross Raffle awarded at the conclusion of the show on Sunday, March 17th at 2:30pm. Tickets can only be purchased at the show and you must be present to win. Other great door prizes will also be given away throughout the show to ticket holders. Guests that purchase raffle tickets and hold one-day passes will be allowed back into the show at 2:00pm on Sunday to attend the raffle drawing.

Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20. See our website or visit the registration table during the show for complete details. Download the official 2012 Stern The Avengers pinball machine flyer here.

The Texas Pinball Festival just wouldn’t be the same without the “King of Flow” Steve Ritchie holding court. A favorite among guests, Steve will host an informal chat followed by an autograph session.

Some of Steve’s hits include: Black Knight, Firepower, High Speed, F-14 Tomcat, Terminator 2, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Terminator 3, Elvis, Spider-Man, and of course his most recent “SMASH” hit… AC/DC!

Famed pinball designer and Vice President of Stern Pinball Inc., George Gomez is coming back to the Texas Pinball Festival. George will be hosting one of our seminars to talk about his newest game “The Avengers” and other projects going on at Stern Pinball.

Some of George’s games include Monster Bash, Corvette, Lord of the Rings, Batman (Stern), Sopranos, Transformers, and the classic arcade game Spy Hunter. George will be signing autographs after his seminar so be sure to bring that favorite translite or playfield plastic for him to sign.

Veteran arcade industry figure Jack Guarnieri is returning for the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival, and he’s bringing the much anticipated title ”The Wizard of Oz” with him.

Jack has become a regular at the TPF and a favorite among show guests. He’ll be hosting a seminar discussing Jersey Jack Pinball and The Wizard of Oz. He’ll also be talking about his second game “The Hobbit”.

Our first batch of 2013 Texas Pinball Festival t-shirts is in and they look great! They’ll be sold at the show, of course, but they always go fast. Pre-ordering your shirts is the only way to be abolutely sure that we will have the size you need.

By default, t-shirts will be held for pick-up at the show at no charge. If you’ve pre-registered, you’ll get your shirts when you pick up your packet. To find out more about pre-registering and why you should, click here.

If you don’t want to wait until March, you can have your shirts shipped to you by choosing that option on the order form. And if you want your shirts by Christmas, you need to act fast. December 17, 2012 is the final shipping date for Christmas delivery inside the continental US. What a great gift!

More detailed information about the shirts can be found here or order now.

You thought it would never happen, didn’t you? We finally worked through most of the bugs and pre-registration is open! The form is best viewed on newer browsers and uses an SSL certificate to secure all payments.

Who should use this form? The Pre-Registration and Merchandise Order Form is intended for use by paying guests, those who want to order merchandise and by Exhibitors, or any combination of the three. Why should I pre-register? Because it saves you money over the cost of admission at the door. In fact, the earlier you register, the more you save. Still not sure? Plus, pre-registered guests get a complimentary ticket (2 plays) good on any tournament machine. Click here.

If you are bringing a game (or three) to the show for free play, you’re an Exhibitor. The Texas Pinball Festival relies on Exhibitors to bring their games to show off and share with everyone. They put a lot of work into their machines and we try to reward them for that effort. Exhibitors get a free weekend pass for each game they bring and exclusive access to a private party Saturday after the show closes to the public. If you’re interested in bringing your own games, you can find out more here.

Interested in becoming a show Vendor or Sponsor? Contact info AT texaspinball.com.

The Hilton Anatole is ready to take your reservations. We’ve worked out a great rate for our guests this year, and we expect they’ll sell out fast.

Rooms for guests of the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival are as low as $115.00 per night. Reservations can be made online, or over the phone at 800-445-8667 using the code TXP. Additionally, we were able to negotiate free parking for TPF guests that make their reservations by February 1, 2013.

If you are unfamiliar with the Hilton Anatole, it is truly a beautiful hotel centrally located in downtown Dallas, just 20 minutes from DFW Airport and 10 minutes from Love Field. It’s a 4 star luxury resort and hotel that offers up as many restaurants as well as several coffee shops, delis and bars. Part of the grounds are dedicated to a full service spa and landscaping that will make guests forget they are in the middle of a large city.

Make your hotel reservations now.

The 2013 Texas Pinball Festival will be March 15-17th at the Hilton Anatole, 2201 Stemmons Freeway (I-35E), Dallas, Texas. We are very excited about our move to the Hilton Anatole as we will be moving from a 15,000 sq ft gameroom to 45,000 sq ft of HUGENESS.

Our goal is to make the Texas Pinball Festival the largest and most enjoyable pinball show in the country. If you are unfamilier with the Hilton Anatole, it is truly a beautiful hotel centrally located in downtown Dallas. Special room rates will be announced soon. We invite you to explore the Hilton Anatole’s website: http://www.hiltonanatolehotel.com/

An all new 2013 Texas Pinball Festival logo and website update is coming soon!

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!