DUTCH PINBALL OPEN EXPO 2025

We’re back in the Netherlands for the annual Dutch Pinball Open Expo (DPO Expo) held by the Nederlandse Flipper Vereniging (NFV or Dutch Pinball Association) at the NH Congrescentrum in the town of Veldhoven.

The DPO Expo is the largest event held each year by the NFV and it has grown in scope over the past decade.

Originally called the Dutch Pinball Open and focusing more on tournament play, the DPO was intended to be held in different parts of the country each year to make it more accessible to NFV members. After being held at a former motor museum in the town of Drunen in 2013, the venue was deemed sufficiently suitable for the DPO to remain there for 2014.

However, to help justify the use of the repeat venue, the DPO was expanded with seminars, extra vendors, and even a special guest – a certain Steve Ritchie. This enlarged event added the ‘Expo’ suffix to the title, and the Dutch Pinball Open Expo was born. It has remained an ‘Expo’ ever since, moving to the current venue in Veldhoven in 2023.

Veldhoven is around a 20-minute car journey south-west from the fifth largest Dutch city, Eindhoven. Eindhoven does have an airport, but flight options are a little limited and the weather rather temperamental, so we chose to fly into Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport the day before the DPO Expo began and then take a somewhat crowded 90-minute train ride to Eindhoven’s Centraal station.

THURSDAY

Arriving a day early afforded us the opportunity to explore the city a little and also visit The Pinball Club in Eindhoven which was holding a pre-DPO Expo tournament that night. When we first visited Eindhoven for the 2023 Dutch Pinball Expo, the city was holding its annual Glow festival featuring numerous illuminated buildings. This year Glow took place the week before the DPO Expo, but there were still a few lights from the event to be seen.

Eindhoven is home to the global electronics company, Philips, and its presence is found across the city. The city centre includes the newer Philips Museum as well as the former home of the Museum, the spaceship-styled Evoluon, which hosted the 25th anniversary DPO Expo in 2017.

The 20-minute walk from our hotel to The Pinball Club took us past the famous Philips Stadium, home to PSV Eindhoven.

Not surprisingly, PSV stands for Philips Sport Vereniging or Philips Sporting Association, a reminder of the club’s origins as a football team established for Philips employees.

The Pinball Club recently moved from its previous home 6km to the east, to this new, trendier, more central location in the former industrial complex Strijp-S, which now features multiple restaurants and design studios.

The tournament was group matchplay, but each group played two rounds before being regrouped. There were A and B divisions with each having a final, as tournament director Michiel explained.

A number of pinball-themed artworks by Maarten Coolen were scattered around The Pinball Club’s walls.

The winner of the A Division was Martijn van Amsterdam. Max Birk was second, Norbert Broman third and Ivan Geentjens fourth.

In the B Division, Thijs Kleinpenning was the winner after a tie-breaker with Jan-Willem Smit who was second. Yvonne Vermeulen was third and Shanon Schepens fourth.

After a few hours’ sleep back at the hotel, it was time to head over to Veldhoven for the start of the DPO Expo.

FRIDAY

The Congrescentrum convention centre consists of a number of large exhibition halls which can be configured in several ways, along with multiple smaller rooms for seminars and conferences.

Last year the DPO Expo occupied three halls (Diezezaal, Genderzaal and Kempenzaal) which had been joined together into one large space (shown below in green).

We noted at the time that there was a large unused hall adjacent to the DPO Expo’s space. Well, this year that Beneluxzaal hall was also occupied by the DPO Expo. However, the show isn’t (yet) large enough to occupy all four large halls, so the two smaller ones – Diezezaal and Genderzaal – were given up in favour of the Beneluxzaal.

When we arrived around midday on Friday the show build-up was progressing well.

It wasn’t long before the halls began to fill up.

The wall separating the larger Kempenzaal from the smaller Genderzaal was raised during set-up to help with the transportation of machines, but was lowered before the show began.

Across the corridor in the newly-utilised Beneluxzaal many more vendor stands were being built up, while at the far end the numerous machines used by the Open, Classic and Pingolf tournaments that had been brought in were being set up.

While work to set up the show was continuing, national TV stations were filming reports and also reporting live into their news programmes.

As the machines and vendor stands neared readiness, there was the opportunity for special guest Jack Danger to explain some of the new features in Stern Pinball’s latest release, The Walking Dead Remastered.

A third area called the Genderfoyer was also used for competitive events. In the first year of the DPO Expo using this venue, the Genderfoyer was used to house the many machines brought by Van Es Amusements. Last year it remained largely unused, but this year it became home to the Team Tournament, Flip Frenzy and Ladies Tournament.

Meanwhile, preparations for the arrival of the first competitors continued, with the registration desk inside the entrance being set up and decorated.

Attached to the Congrescentrum is the NH Koningshof hotel which provides the accommodation and dining options for DPO Expo guests. It’s a large, sprawling maze of corridors over several floors offering 509 simply-furnished rooms ranging from a single bed to a superior kingsize.

We didn’t have time to go outside to take pictures of the hotel section until early Sunday morning, by which time the sun had been replaced by cloud with a light sprinkling of snow.

While the show has expanded beyond its tournament roots, competitive pinball is still a large part of the DPO Expo with many different divisions and formats. In fact, while the show’s public opening hours start at 10am on Saturday and Sunday, the event is opened to tournament players on Friday evening and thirty minutes earlier on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. The tournaments also run long past the show’s closing times on both weekend days.

The first competitive event to be held was the team tournament. Originally a competition for teams of four representing a single country, the team tournament has been opened up to any groups of four players. Teams could check-in at 6pm with play getting underway at 6:30pm.

The Team Tournament divided the teams into groups of five, with each team playing a match against the other four teams in their group.

A match consisted of three rounds. In the first round, each team member played a single game against a member of the opposing team. Then, team members paired up for two split-flipper games. Finally, a hybrid game was played with the first two balls being single player and the third ball played split-flipper.

Points were awarded to the winners of each game and the top team in each group went into the four-team final.

The groups and teams were:

While the Team Tournament was taking place, the first qualifying session for the main Open Tournament was starting in the Beneluxzaal hall.

The Open qualifying ran from 7pm until 10pm during which the 88 players were divided into eight groups of eleven players. Each player played a single game against each of the other ten players in their group. The three players with the most wins in each group progressed to the play-offs on Sunday, with the top player getting a bye through the first play-offs round.

Meanwhile, the Team Tournament was reaching the final. From Group A it was Flipsquad who were the winners. The Dan Lewell Experience won in Group B, Outlane Kings won in Group C, while Group D winners were Team DPM.

The final consisted of five rounds with a mix of single player and split flipper.

However, after four rounds, all teams were equal on ten points, so the fifth round would decide the overall outcome.

In the end it was Outlane Kings who triumphed, with Flipsquad second and last year’s winners, The Dan Lewell Experience in third.

SATURDAY

Saturday at the DPO Expo began at 9:30am when the second qualification session for the Open Tournament began.

Officially public access didn’t begin until 10am, but with tournament players, vendors and show staff allowed in early, the halls were getting busy and queues building for some of the most popular games some time before the public opening.

10am was also the start of the Classic Tournament in the far corner of the Beneluxzaal.

For the Classic Tournament, competitors played ten games on the available machines. Their scores are ranked against other players’ scores on those machines and points awarded. Players could choose to replay a machine but could only play any machine a maximum of two times.

With the show officially open, let’s take a look around the show halls, starting at the corridor leading from the registration desk and into the Kempenzaal hall.

In the corridor leading to the Genderfoyer, Mirco Playfields and Pinball Professionals both had stands.

Moving into the Beneluxzaal hall, we start going anti-clockwise with Hexa Pinball who had two of their Space Hunt games as well as a demonstration of their Plungr connected scoring system.

The RS Pinball stand had the latest titles form several manufacturers, including Pinball Brothers‘ Predator and Barrels of Fun’s Winchester Mystery House.

The homebrew area featured some games we’d seen before but also some surprises.

The Kingpin game above was built from scratch by Tom D.K. originally using a Capcom Breakshot cabinet but, when that was found to be too shallow, one from a Flipper Football. It was built using only pictures of the original game to create the playfield and all the artwork.

Right at the end of the Beneluxzaal were a several more rows of free play machines.

When the DPO became the DPO Expo, the addition of seminars was a major part of the enhanced show package. These now stretch across both days of the show, allowing those who can only attend for one day the opportunity to see the presentations by the special guests and ask them questions in person. As a result, two of the guest speakers – Dr. Sander Bakkes and Steve Ritchie – held seminars on both days.

The seminars take place in a dedicated presentation room called Baroniezaal. Pinball News was there to help with the seminars and record them.

Dr. Sander Bakkes is an Assistant Professor of Game Design and Playful Learning, and here he explores what players enjoy about games, and pinball in particular, and why certain types of game both anger us when we fail to beat them but somehow keep bringing us back for more.

Antoine Depelchin from Hexa Pinball gives a brief update on the French company and their upcoming second title, The Three Musketeers, including details of when and where it will be revealed.

Former pinball artist, Tony Ramunni, looks back on his time creating artwork for Williams and Bally pinballs, as well as his move to Italy to work on Mr. Game titles.

Steve looks back at his nearly fifty years in the pinball business, starting at Atari in California and continuing right up to his latest game with Jersey Jack Pinball.

Martin and Jonathan return for another edition of their free prize quiz, So, You Think You Know Pinball?

With a table of pinball prizes to give away, they ask questions of the seminar audience, offering two possible answers. Those who put together a run of correct choices get to draw a ticket to win one of the prizes.

Gary Stern and Jack Danger take to the stage to tell us how each of them got into pinball along with the latest new products and technology developments at Stern Pinball.

After Saturday’s seminar were over, it was back into the main halls for more tournament play.

The Ladies Tournament had taken place in the Genderfoyer during the seminars.

There were four qualifying groups playing multiple rounds of matchplay, with the top three from each group entering the final.

The winner was decided after multiple rounds of knockout play where the lowest scorer was eliminated each time.

In the end it was Julia Palfi who survived to win the tournament. Petra Uyttenhove was second, Amy Ziegenhagen third and Helen de Haan-Verbeek fourth.

Here are the full results:

There were also two Flip Frenzy tournaments held each day of the DPO Expo, one starting at 10:30am and the second at 7pm.

There was a tie at the top for the first Flip Frenzy, with François de Wrangel and Ad Jonker sharing the honours with 11 wins and 2 losses each. In the second, Alex Sperellis was triumphant with 11 wins and only one loss.

The Classic Tournament began at 10am, with qualifying running through to 7pm. 293 players competed during this time, with the top 40 going through to the play-offs. The qualifiers were:

The top four qualifiers received two byes through the initial rounds, while players qualified 5th-16th got a single bye.

The play-offs had groups of four players playing three games, using the 4-2-1-0 scoring format. The top two from each group progressed to the next round.

By the end it was four players who contested the three-game final – Timber Engelbeen, Daan Rosvelds, Jeremy Dorling and Daniele Celestino Acciari.

In the event, the winner was decided after just two games, as Daniele won on both Flash Gordon and Dolly Parton, giving him an unassailable 8 points. Daan, Timber and Jeremy each had 2 points going into the third game on Centaur which was won by Daan to take second overall. Timber was second on Centaur for third overall, making Jeremy fourth.

The Classic Tournament finished a little after 1am, bringing Saturday’s action at the DPO Expo to a close.

SUNDAY

The DPO Expo opened to the public at 10am again, but as before, the Open Tournament began at 9:30am.

This time it was the play-offs for the qualifiers from Saturday. Each of the four qualifying sessions hosted 8 groups of 11 players, from which the top three progressed to these play-offs. That’s 24 from each session or 96 in total. 32 of those received a bye, making 64 players compete in the first round of play-offs.

The 96 qualifiers were:

The format for the play-offs was four-player groups playing three machines with 4-2-1-0 scoring and the top 2 progressing.

After the first round of 64, the 32 remaining players were joined by the 32 with a first round bye. Those 64 were reduced to 32, then to 16, then to 8 for the semi-finals, and then a final four.

Those four were Arvid Flygare, Johannes Ostermeier, Lukas Ott and Paul Englert, and the three machines they played were F-14 Tomcat, Jackbot and Black Knight: Sword of Rage.

In the first game, Paul had a first ball score which set him up nicely for a win, hardly needing to play his third ball. Johannes crept past Arvid’s score thanks to his bonus multiplier to take second, while Lukas wasn’t far behind in fourth.

Lukas had the best start of the four on game two, Jackbot, and had an even better second ball. But Arvid was gifted a multiball by the slot machine award which put him firmly in the lead. Lukas had a slingshot drain to end his hopes of catching Arvid. Johannes was one shot away from starting Casino Run when he drained, while Paul started multiball but wasn’t able to lift his score much and ended in fourth.

Going into game three, Arvid led with 5 points, Paul was close behind on 4 points, Johannes had 3 points while Lukas had 2 points, meaning anyone could still win.

Johannes had an almost immediate tilt on his first ball, revealing the sensitivity of the machine. None of the other three could capitalise on that tilt, and it wasn’t until Lukas’s second ball where he started multiball that anyone put up a decent score. Arvid also began multiball, getting close to Lukas’s score going into the third ball.

Johannes couldn’t put up a good score with his third ball, ending fourth in the game and fourth overall. Paul did only slightly better but still ended third in the game. That result meant Arvid had already won overall, with he and Lukas playing to see whether Lukas or Paul would take second.

As it turned out, Arvid did pass Lukas’s score, making Paul second and Lukas third.

Thanks were then given to the team who planned and ran the tournament.

You can watch the play-offs and final games on the JDL Pinball Twitch channel.

The final of the Open Tournament ended around 7:40pm, after which presentations were made to the finalists.

There was another programme of seminars in the Baroniezaal on Sunday. As not everyone can attend the DPO on both days, a couple of the seminars featured the same speakers as on Saturday, but there were also two Sunday-exclusive presentations.

Dr. Sander Bakkes returns with a repeat of the seminar he presented on Saturday for those show guests who missed it the first time.

As the seminar content is essentially the same as on Saturday, we did not record Sunday’s presentation.

Daniel and Christina talk about production of Pinball Brothers’ Predator game, the Trophy package additions, plus the transition to a new board system and the advantages that gives them.

Steve Ritchie is back to revise his talk from Saturday about his long career in pinball, with a new audience, some new stories and some new questions to answer.

The awesome graphics and sculpts in Jersey Jack Pinball’s Harry Potter game are thanks to a team of talented artists, animators and model makers. Here they explain how they created much of what you see in the game.

Along with the main Open Tournament, Sunday included many more competitive events.

There were two more Flip Frenzy tournaments, held at 10:30am and 2pm.

Niels Zera’at Kariefard won the first of these with a perfect 13 wins and no losses. The second saw a win for Stefanie Tesch whose 10 winds and 4 losses put her at the top of the standings.

There was also another Pingolf tournament starting at 10:30am. We’ll bring you the results of these as soon as we get them.

Sunday is also the day for the Youth Tournament.

This is split into three divisions – 8 years old and under, 9-11 years old, and 12-16 years old. The qualifications were held on a block of free play machines in the Kempenzaal hall.

The finals for all three divisions were played on the Harry Potter games on the Pinball Pleasure stand.

In the 8 and under division final it was a solid win for Cas with a respectable 163M total. Len was not far behind on 104M, but sadly Lennert had to retire on 8M when he hurt his arm.

In the 9 to 11 division, Jasper, Amy, Seth and Kyle made it to the final.

On the Harry Potter Collectors Edition it was a clear win for Kyle with his 100M score. Seth was second, Amy third and Jasper fourth.

In the older 12 years and older division, Amie, Julius, Lars and Robin all made it to the final.

The final produced a very clear winner. Robin’s 265M score was way out in front of second-placed Lars on 72M. It was very close for third though, with Julius’s 17.68M just edging Amie’s 17.48M. Sadly, Julius wasn’t able to make it to the presentation ceremony.

Finally in this report, here’s our exclusive Twenty Eight Minute Tour video, walking through all the halls and showing you all the games and vendors at the DPO Expo 2025, all shot in UHD 4K.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our coverage of this year’s Dutch Pinball Open Expo. A huge ‘thank you’ to the organisers who work so hard to make the show bigger and better every year.

The current home at the NH Congrescentrum feels like a great home for the DPO Expo with plenty of space to expand if necessary, while the facility’s staff members in all areas, including the hotel, are genuinely friendly and helpful, always greeting you as you passed them in the corridors.

The new layout worked well, providing plenty of space around the machines and multiple areas to unwind. The whole conference and hotel complex has a rather sprawling layout with plenty of corridors in which to get lost or confused, but in our third year of staying there we only lost our way once in three days.

It will be difficult to find another venue with such suitable facilities, so maybe we’ll be back in Veldhoven in 2026.

Wherever DPO Expo 2026 is held, we hope you can make it and we look forward to seeing you there.

Read more at https://www.pinballnews.com