Note from the organizers.
TPF2024 was a year of firsts. A new organizer team of Paul and Robert, a new entrance to the show, more use of the 20,000 sq ft of lobby space, wider aisles in a few areas around where we anticipated high-volume games, and over 500 games at the show obliterating the prior TPF record. We also welcomed 10 new exhibitor booths and several returned that hadn’t been in a few years.
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.
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, we added a few more friendly staff faces this year and all the staff were easily identifable thanks to a shirt color exclusive to the staff. 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. In addition to our staff, our volunteers 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. Britney Parker became a staff member this year and did an amazing job. 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.
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!
that the Texas show is made due to its fans, and this year was no different.
This is your show!
Best In Show Winners
One of our favorite parts of the show is the Best In Show Awards. The ‘Best In’ Awards are intended to reward and recognize the incredible amount of work our Exhibitors put into bringing their best games to the Texas Pinball Festival. They spend countless hours repairing, restoring and polishing these machines until they become works of art you can play with.
Tournament Winners
TPF 2024 saw some of the best tournament players in the world playing in our tournaments. There were several top 10 players as well as others in the top 100. Our tournament directors Kevin Stone, Liz Dronet, Dick Curtis, and Ken Kemp along with an army of volunteers did an awesome job of running tournaments like they do every year. Congratulations to all our winners!
Wizards ‘A’ Winners – Eric Stone 1st, Bowen Kerins 2nd, Sanjay Shaw 3rd, and Marc Jackson 4th
Wizards ‘B’ Winners were Jon Stewart 1st, Clark McCoy 2nd, Geoff Davis 3rd, and Michael Hew 4th.
Wizards Novice Winners were Bryce Bush 1st, Kelly Moncla 2nd, Sven Johnson 3rd, and Shawn Quinn 4th
Classics Tournament Winners – Jack Revnew 1st, Mark Meserve 2nd, Eric Stone 3rd, and Geoff Davis 4th
Texas Takedown Women’s Championship Winners – Danielle Peck 1st, Lexi Whittemore 2nd, Louise Wagensonner 3rd, and Tracy Abrahams 4th
Kids Bump ‘n Win Winners – Liam Bradley 1st, Miles Bradley 2nd, Carter Fell 3rd, and Orazio Strealy 4th
For the best TPF2024 show coverage, head over to Pinball News to check out Martin Ayub’s wrap up.