Welcome to our coverage of this 42 annual Pinball Expo, held at the Schaumburg Convention Center in the town of Schaumburg, Illinois.
The Convention Center is joined to the Renaissance hotel which is the Pinball Expo partner hotel. It usually sells out quickly once the discounted show rates are released. There are other hotels around 5-10 minutes away on foot, but nothing beats the convenience of staying on the same property as the show.
Other than the Convention Center, the Renaissance has always been in a pretty isolated location with no other businesses close by.
That changed a little earlier this year when Andretti Indoor Karting & Games opened their Schaumburg location next door to the hotel.
A large multi-floor parking garage is also part of the new development, and this has a footbridge into the Renaissance, giving guests covered parking for the first time.
Pinball Expo begins on Wednesday 14th October with the Bumper Blast welcome party held at the Enterrium restaurant, bar and games operation located in nearby Woodfield Mall.
As that event hasn’t begun at the time of writing, we’ll cover that in our next update.
Wednesday is also the primary set-up day in the Pinball Expo show hall and side rooms. It is also when those who pre-registered for the show could collect their badge and any passes for the two factory tours on Thursday and Friday.
Opposite the registration desk, another desk is set up for souvenir purchases and, later, for on-site registration too.
Inside the main show hall, preparations were in various stages of completeness.
Pinball Expo organiser, Rob Berk, also owns the Past Times arcade in Girard, Ohio. For the show, a bunch of machines are brought to Expo for the free play areas.
Stern Pinball brought some much-needed carpet to their stand where their latest titles are available to play. The newly announced AC/DC Remastered is expected to join the line-up after the Stern Pinball factory tour on Friday morning.
Jersey Jack Pinball also had multiple copies of their most recent releases on their stand.
Other stands were still being built. The left side of the hall features a number of smaller machine and add-on manufacturers.
The right side is dominated by the homebrew and custom games area, where a series of gazebos creates a town square feeling, with a rather special centrepiece.
The full schedule of events is posted at the entrance to the hall, and is available online.
Not all the action takes place in the main hall though. There is a series of tournaments held in the four Schaumburg E, F, G & H rooms which are joined together to make one long room.
All the machines had arrived and were being prepared on Wednesday morning.
Next door to the Tournaments Room is the Seminars Room, although by Wednesday afternoon the stage and seating for this had not yet been set up by the Conference Center staff, giving us a little time to bring you this first look at Pinball Expo 2026.
We’ll be back with many updates across the weened and beyond, along with our full show video tour and all the seminar recordings. So, keep checking Pinball News for all the latest from the Schaumburg Convention Center and the 42nd Pinball Expo.
