We are loaded up-“finally”
Wow! So many new firsts this year and a ton of people to thank. We decided to use as much of the additional 20,000 sq ft of lobby space as we could, made the aisles wider in a few areas around where we anticipated high-volume games and you delivered almost 500 games obliterating the prior TPF record. We also welcomed 10 new exhibitor booths and several returned that hadn’t been in a few years. It was awesome to have Rob Anthony repairing boards for us again as well.
We added a few more friendly staff faces this year and plan for a few more in 2025 as we were very light in our back door check-in area and missed getting the new exhibitor/collector entrance set up (promise we will fix that). We greatly appreciate Tony, Heath, and “The Big Guy”-Trey, who still did an amazing job getting all those additional games to their right home. We also introduced our new check-in verification process. This process helped ensure that games brought to the show were working and safe for you to play. Big Texas thank you to Pinball ERS Team – Kevin Moore, Jessica Richardson, Mike, Jenny, Sandra, Pat, Frank, Harrison, Billy, Ashley, Cayman, Lara, Tim, Pat Danis, and Cary Hardy for verifying all of the machines brought to our festival. Finally, thanks to Nic Schell, for tweaking a few EMs when they needed it (especially Hang Glider…maybe organizers should not bring games, lost count on the number of years we tell ourselves that)!
We increased the value of our “Best in Show” awards this year including the runner-up categories. This is the first time that we know that a Home Brew game, Friday the 13th, has won the Grand Champion award. A big thank you to Imoto and Aaron Davis (FASTpinball) for coordinating with the group of makers to get almost a dozen home brew games on the floor this year, and thank you to those creative guys for sometimes what is years of effort. Thank you to Rich Wiski, Bill Morrison, Michael Lube, Scott Martin, and guest judge Gary Stuart for a hard-fought judging effort with all those games on the floor and we look forward to Keith Holbrook’s return next year. Thank you, Keith for the many playfield restorations seen across the show, as well as the contributions of Ken Head, Kevin Moore, Jessica Richardson, and Bob Herbison in getting show games ready for folks.
This year saw the largest number of seminars we’ve ever had, and we hope that you got to enjoy some of the focus on “How To:” / “Making” that we are re-introducing to the show. Thank you to Pam Heffern, Howard and Richard Barnett, and Imoto for all the pre-planning that goes into producing our seminars. Visionality does a fantastic job of securing the high-end equipment and staffing to ensure that you have an excellent audio and visual experience at the seminars.
In addition to our main tournaments, which pretty much sell out way before the show opens, so we added two additional pick-up tournaments with both Hanger Pinball and NTXPinball that were well received. We kicked this off with a seminar by Louis Marx on how to get involved with Tournaments. Hopefully, you were able to enjoy some friendly competition that benefited several charities.
Tournament directors Dick Curtis, Elizabeth Dronet, Kevin Stone, and Ken Kemp planned for months before the show and rolled with the punches too ….and many thanks to everyone that contributed one of the 25 Tournament machines.
Another first was the addition of our TPF Concierge, Elaine, to field all of your questions and be point for our volunteer coordination.
We can’t forget Team TPF, our staff, and volunteers that keep all the parts of TPF moving whilst exuding that Texas Friendly that our show is known for. Jaelanne, thank you for your efforts on food truck coordination this year and for getting better coverage and a few more options. Kris Klinge, thank you so much for all the responsibility you take on each year, your knowledge of the show and taking the lead during shut down to clean up the registration area was a big help.
In addition to seminars, Pam Heffern pitched in wherever she was needed in our retail area, and her husband Scott assisted on AV setup that had an impact where the show wouldn’t have happened without it, thank you! Marc Davis, Lisa Miller, Leslie Sinclair, and Ron Reynolds, thanks for taking on all the extra shifts and being so helpful and positive. Past show organizer Grieg Riddle and his wife Joanne took on several gift shop shifts as well. Newcomers Darryl Gamboa and David Vandiver took lead positions in the gift shop area and for their first time did an amazing job. Well done all!
Britney Parker, what a pleasure to work with you and we appreciate your help when things went into extra innings on Saturday night. Shelley Nunnelee and Carey Fishman saw the lines we had and jumped in to help even when they weren’t on the schedule. Thank you so much for pitching in and giving up some of your play time to help out the show.
Keith, Eric, Rusty, and the Houston guys/gals, thanks for coming, adding to the “party” atmosphere, and not tearing the place down-
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Alphagraphics: Katie and Mary are awesome, fantastic response to everything we threw at them before and during our show.
Exhibitors, thanks for dragging all your stuff, some from way across the country, being available for early ride time, and upping the quality of your booths, so much good “making” this year!
Manufacturers, thanks for the cartwheels it took to get 10 new and/or never-before-seen games on the floor again this year. Collectors that work on games all year, huff them up to the show, even with rain this year, and try their best to keep them running through the whole show, we really appreciate all your efforts.
Thank you to all of those who participated in our daily survey contest that helps keep TPF a first-class show!
If you missed out on TPF merchandise, be sure to check out the TPF store between now and April 5th. We added posters and a few hats we have while they last, and we are introducing Gildan Ultra shirts in black with the Captain Fantastic art.
See you next year, March 21st – 23rd 2025.
Paul & Robert