The final day at the Texas Pinball Festival is a short one, with events wrapping up around 2:30pm with the best-in-show awards and the prize raffle draw.
At 2:30pm all the machines are turned off and prizes are awarded to the owners of the best machines in a number of categories.
First though, all machine donors are entered into a draw for cash prizes and donated goodies such as a translite and a Dead Man’s Hand tabletop game.
Then it was time for the best-in show presentations. Each category had two runners-up and an overall winner, followed by an overall Grand Champion. The winners were chosen by the judging team of Bill Morrison, Keith Holbrook, Scott Martin and Rich Wiski.
| Best Classic Arcade Video Game |
| Winner: April Pruitt (Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters) |
| Runners up: Daniel Reinhard & Tom Rohbar |
| Best Antique Pinball |
| Winner: Mark Gibson for Champion |
| Runners up: Adam Jordan & Jeff Frick |
| Best ’60s Pinball |
| Winner: Howard Isaacson for Friendship 7 |
| Runners up: Joe Gonzalez & Shawn Christian |
| Best ’70s EM Pinball |
| Winner: Colin Dowling for Pioneer |
| Runners up: Joe Gonzalez & Nic Schell |
| Best ’70s Solid State Pinball |
| Winner: Kevin Moore for The Incredible Hulk |
| Runners up: Dennis Moncla & Jeff Boulinger |
| Best ’80s Pinball |
| Winner: Greg Campbell for Centaur |
| Runners up: Gavin Miller & Jeff Kohout |
| Best ’90s Pinball |
| Winner: Roy Pennington for Indiana Jones (WMS) |
| Runners up:Eric Streeter & Kevin Moore |
| Best Modern (post-1999) Pinball |
| Winner: Kim Keist for Star Wars (Stern) |
| Runners up:Brandon Harvey & Gary Stuart |
| Best Original Pinball |
| Winner: Bob Herbison for Ace High |
| Runners up: Austin Knight & Terry Haste |
| Best Pinball Restoration |
| Winner: Mike Loeckle for Joust |
| Runners up: Bobby Niefer & Sally Kammer |
| Best Custom Pinball |
| Winner: Paul Wilson for Polynesia |
| Runners up: Mark Gibson & Doug Marley |
| Grand Champion |
| Winner: Lonny Payne (Jurassic Park pinball) |
The only thing remaining was to make the draw for the grand raffle prize of a new Guardians of the Galaxy pinball. Tickets cost $5 each from the front desk and were available throughout the show, right up until the draw rook place.
The awarding of the grand prize brought the Texas Pinball Festival 2018 to a close.
The TPF show gets bigger every year – not just the numbers of machines and vendors, but also in stature with companies choosing the launch their new games or products there. It has got to the point where pinball personalities attend the show even if they are not speaking or part of an official event. It’s just a great place to hang out.
Then there is the number of visitors. The show hotel now routinely sells out almost immediately the show promo code is announced, with adjacent hotels also getting a good number of bookings. The hall was very busy on Saturday during the afternoon and evening, while the corridor outside was frequently packed with guests taking a break or getting refreshments.
Despite the packed schedule of events, the whole three days seemed to go without a hitch this year. With events surrounding Pinball Expo causing uncertainty about that show’s organisation in 2018 and the establishment of Deeproot in San Antonio and Multimorphic being based in Austin, the Texas Pinball Festival is well positioned to take over as the number one pinball event.
