It’s the middle of January, which means we’re heading off to ExCel London for the UK’s largest annual amusements trade show, EAG Expo.
ExCel London is a large exhibition centre on the east side of the city close to London City Airport, with multiple halls along its north and south sides. These halls can be divided in multiple ways to give a variety of different exhibition spaces, with a central walkway for foot traffic featuring multiple catering outlets.
EAG Expo occupies three connected halls on the north side – N1, N2 & N3, with the main entrance at hall N2.
Entry to the show is entirely free. While pre-registration is encouraged, on-the-day registration is also available. There are no checks made to see whether you are involved in the coin-up business. That’s been the case since the show began, as well as before that when it was called ATEI and held at Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre.
EAG Expo runs for three day – Tuesday to Thursday – from 10am until 6pm. We arrived shortly after opening on the Wednesday, to be greeted by a roaming jazz band.
We already knew that the pinball offering would be pretty sparse this year, with only Stern Pinball represented. Still, we had hopes finding a few more machines on some of the other exhibitor stands.
So, we headed straight to the stand of Stern’s UK distributor, Electrocoin.
There were five Stern Pinball machines in their usual place on the side of the stand.
We had hoped Stern would have released their new game a week earlier at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and then brought it to EAG Expo for its European debut. However, the release of the game was delayed, meaning it probably won’t be revealed until mid-February.
In addition, Stern’s current cornerstone game, Star Wars: Fall of the Empire, isn’t available to purchase in Europe due to licensing restrictions. That meant the newest release here was The Walking Dead Remastered Premium model from last October, with the most recent cornerstone game being Dungeons & Dragons.
Venom, James Bond 007, The Uncanny E-Men, Dungeons & Dragons and The Walking Dead Remastered
All five machines were connected through Stern’s Insider Connected system to a leaderboard to show the top scores from players who were logged in while playing.
Along with the machines, several Stern Pinball staff were at EAG. Gary Stern, John Buscaglia, Doug Skor and Lloyd Dortant were there, holding meetings and distributor briefings in the reserved conference room upstairs.
Gary and John also took time to sit down with Martin from Pinball News and Jonathan from Pinball Magazine to talk about the company’s new European office in Amsterdam, why there was no Star Wars: Fall of the Empire in Europe, the company’s plans for 2027, the state of the licensing business, and much, much more.
You can catch their interview in the upcoming January 2026 edition of the Pinball Industry News PINcast, available at the start of February.
Stern was the only pinball company represented at the show.
In previous years two other UK-based distributors has exhibited at EAG – Pinball Heaven and Retro Arcade Specialists. Pinball Heaven also Stern Pinball, as well as Jersey Jack Pinball, Dutch Pinball, Spooky Pinball and Chicago Gaming, while Retro Arcade Specialists are dealers for Stern, Homepin, Barrels of Fun, American Pinball, Pinball Brothers, Turner Pinball, Pedretti Gaming and Multimorphic.
Pinball News spoke to both companies to see why they weren’t taking exhibitor stands at this year’s EAG Expo. In both cases it came down to the economics, where the costs of exhibiting outweighed any addition income from machine or parts sales.
Phil Palmer from Pinball Heaven told us, “EAG no longer attracts the right market for pinball, especially home users. With 98% of sales going into home use, the high cost of having a stand and accommodation at EAG (circa £10k) [$13.4k, €11.53k] to potentially capture 2% of the market that remains cannot be justified.“
Phil decided some months ago not to appear at EAG, opting instead to hold an open day at his company’s premises. He said, “My own show I decided to do last year was far better attended than EAG has been of late. Myself and all my guests had a great time, we even raised almost £3k for charity!” While he is not repeating the event in 2026, he said he has plans for another Pinball Heaven Open Day in 2027.
David Duncan from Retro Arcade Specialists echoed Phil’s comments, saying his company previously paid £10k just for their stand at EAG 2025 but achieved minimal sales while also having to pay for transportation, accommodation and machine wear-and-tear.
David was considering exhibiting this year and indeed his company’s name appeared on one of the stands, but in the end never signed a contract. As he business has recently moved to new, larger premises, he is looking to host a customer event there instead.
Phil’s comments about the lack of visitors to EAG Expo appeared to be borne out this year too. Even at the busiest times the aisles were pretty quiet and, for once, we had no problems getting to play most of the non-pinball arcade games.
As last year, a significant amount of floor pace was taken up by hospitality areas, including a coffee lounge, a bar area, the large lounge for members of the BACTA trade association and a recharge station for digital devices.
As has been the trend in recent years, the most impactful new arcade games are the large, LED-festooned pieces – the kind which can’t be replicated in the home. Let’s take a look around at some of them.
There was also a packed seminars schedule over the show’s first two days covering a wide range of issues affecting the entertainment industry.
Although our report is on the EAG Expo show, and it is certainly occupies the largest part of the floorspace, EAG sits alongside the Socially Immersive Entertainment Expo and the London Casino & Gaming Show.
The London Casino & Gaming Show contained a mix of gaming machines and casino equipment, as well as hosting the final heats of the UK Dealer’s Championship. As it was a adult-orientated show, this area was cordoned-off with security making sure no under-age visitors entered.
Finally, here’s our exclusive video walkthrough of EAG Expo 2026. Don’t forget to view it in full 4K UHD for the best experience.
So that concludes our look around this year’s EAG Expo. We hope you enjoyed it despite only having five pinballs exhibited. We’d like to say we look forward to seeing more pinballs at next year’s show, but unless the economics of exhibiting improve, we’re not holding our breath. However, maybe we’ll get the latest Stern pinball for 2027.
