Friday at the Texas Pinball Festival began with the set-up in the main hall and the start of the tournament qualifying sessions.
To make sure everyone knew they were going the right way, the corridor from reception to the hall and registration desk was branded with TPF banners.
The corridor to the hall
At the end of the corridor was the registration desk where visitors collect their pre-purchased registration packs or by on-the-day entries.
The registration desk
Opposite the registration desk is the main entrance to the show hall. Tournament qualification was well under way with a large crowd eager to set their best game scores for others to chase.
Tournament qualifying on Friday morningMain tournament qualifyingThe Drains Tournament Manager system was used to record scores and manage playersMain tournament qualifyingClassics qualifyingSome of the many plaques and trophies to be won
In the rest of the hall, the set-up of machines and stands was going well. Machines were still being delivered and unloaded. The show uses a staging system, where vans are unloaded into one of several staging areas so the loading dock can be freed-up as quickly as possible. Machines are then moved from the staging areas to their final position.
Unloading one of the vansThe staging areasMachines in one of the staging areas
So, let’s take a look around the hall during the set-up period.
Setting up some of the many free play machinesMultimorphic have a good number of P3 machines to showMarco Specialties have twenty new-in-box Stern machines at the TPF, and another twenty over in California for Arcade Expo which is on the same weekendA few of Marco’s new Stern pinballs along with some classic older gamesCoinTaker have Houdini, Attack from Mars Remake and The Big LebowskiThe familiar sight of the DeLorean on the show floorCircus Maximus have their upcoming Kingpin game for guests to see and playTaking the wraps offWe’ll have a full look later, but this game still needed the decals applyingAmerican Pinball has four Houdini games at the showChicago Gaming has six of their remakes – two Medieval Madness games and four Attack from Mars modelsValley Dynamo brought two of each model of their All-Star Baseball pitch-and-bat gameJersey Jack Pinball have a selection of their four titles for visitors to play, including their new Pirates of the CaribbeanSpooky Pinball have their new Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle game here, but won’t unveil the playfield until their seminar on SaturdayIn the meantime, here’s the cabinet artworkFrom the newest to the oldest, in the History of Pinball exhibitWill this concept Kosmic Khaos game ever be made? Find out laterSome of the many free-play machines which can be played
That concludes our first look at the Texas Pinball Festival main hall. We will be back later with another update once the show opens to the public with full details of this and the seminars schedule which kicks-off at 6pm with Pinball News Editor Martin Ayub and Pinball Magazine Editor Jonathan Joosten running their popular So You Think You Know Pinball prize quiz in the hotel’s bar area.