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!

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!

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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