It’s January and we’re in London, which means it’s time for another annual the EAG Expo trade show.
Pinball News has been reporting from the largest UK coin-op and amusements trade show for the past quarter of a century, back to when it was called the ATEI (Amusement Trades Exhibition International) and held at the much-missed Earls Court Exhibition Centre.
Since 2010 the show has been called EAG (Entertainments, Amusements and Gaming) Expo – occasionally with the ‘International’ moniker thrown in for good measure – and held at the ExCel London Exhibition Centre in the Docklands area of London to the east of the city.
EAG Expo is held over three days, from Tuesday to Thursday in north-side halls N1 to N3 in the ExCel Exhibition Centre.
Although it always includes a number of slot machines amongst the mix of machines, this year the gaming element has been expanded and turned into a separate London Casino and Gaming Show. The new show has a dedicated section of the hall (N3) with its own entrance, as well as a couple of entrances from the EAG Expo show floor.
Here’s the layout of the floor with EAG Expo taking most of the space but the London Casino and Gaming Show occupying the right side:
There were two stands at EAG Expo featuring new pinball machines.
The first was the UK Stern Pinball distributor, Electrocoin.
This was the first European showing of Stern Pinball’s recently-announced Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye game. There were two models of the new game here – one Premium and one Pro. They were joined by three other recent Stern Pinball titles: John Wick, Venom and Foo Fighters.
Naturally, there was extra interest in the new game, both from potential buyers and also from competitive tournament players keen to learn the rules.
There were Insider Connected leader boards showing the highest scores for all four titles on a monitor mounted above the bank of machines.
Stern Pinball has a team at EAG Expo, including company CEO and President, Seth Davis, Chairman, Gary Stern, Chief Revenue Officer, John Buscaglia and Director of Export Sales, Doug Skor.
Pinball News and Pinball Magazine sat down with Gary, John and Doug for a chat about the latest release, the current state of the pinball market, the resale value of pinballs, the pros and cons of certain licences, plus Gary’s cooking tips!
You’ll be able to hear all this and more in the January 2025 edition of our joint Pinball Industry News PINcast, available in the Media section of this site and from your favourite podcast supplier when it is published at the start of February.
Also at the Electrocoin display of Stern titles were Janos Kiss, the Team Pinball programmer for The Mafia, Funhouse 2.0: Rudy’s Nightmare, Whirlwind: Total Chaos and other Pedretti Pinball titles, and Mark Silk the voice actor from Labyrinth, Funhouse 2.0: Rudy’s Nightmare, Whirlwind: Total Chaos and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, plus future yet-to-be-announced titles.
The second stand with pinballs was from the UK supplier, Retro Arcade Specialists. They are UK distributors for several pinball manufacturers, including Barrels of Fun, Homepin, Pinball Brothers, Turner Pinball, Hexa Pinball and American Pinball.
For EAG Expo they brought eight pinballs, including The Blues Brothers from Homepin and ABBA from Pinball Brothers.
There was one other pinball at EAG Expo and that was a Stern Led Zeppelin Premium being used by ASK Global Solutions to demonstrate their credit card payment system.
It’s a system we saw pre-installed on two of the five Stern Pinball machines on the Electrocoin stand.
Probably the only major manufacturers without a presence here were Jersey Jack Pinball and Pedretti Pinball. We were also hoping Bitronic might have returned to the show with their in-production Tokyo Perfect Drift game, but sadly they didn’t attend this year either.
Looking at the rest of the show, it was slightly disappointing to see all the unused space in the hall. There were large expanses of seating to help fill the space, but there were quite a few empty booths, especially on the left side of the hall.
For those visitors looking to try the amusement games, there were plenty to enjoy with little or no wait to play them.
There were no stand-out new games, but one suitably amusing amusement from Baytek which caught our eye was called Goatz ‘N’ Ropes which involved hauling a goat up a sheer cliff face, avoiding obstacles and collecting awards.
While many cartoon themes have received the pinball treatment, there’s one truly classic cartoon yet to be licensed.
Over in the London Casino and Gaming Show, the majority of items on display were video slot machines, but there were a few gaming supplies stands such as clothing and replacement parts.
There was also the final of the UK Dealer Championship taking place. Thankfully, the title refers to casino card and chip dealers.
Finally, here’s our Pinball News Twenty-Nine Minute Tour walk through both the EAG Expo and the London Casino and Gaming Show, showing you all the stands and, of course, all the pinballs.
We’ll be back next January for the 2026 EAG Expo show. The dates are yet to be announced, although we would expect the show to be held on 13th-15th January, 2026. Check out the Pinball News Diary page to get the actual dates as soon as they are confirmed.
