We’re here at the Mercure Daventry Court Hotel in the town of Daventry near Northampton in the English Midlands for the very first UK Pinfest show.
The Mercure Daventry Court Hotel
Regular readers may recognise this hotel from some of our previous reports, and that’s because the Mercure used to be home of the UK Pinball Party when Andrew Heighway organised it from 2010 until 2014.
After two years without a national show, Phillip Murphy stepped up with his UK Pinfest show, returning to Daventry to host it. Now taken over by Mercure, the hotel has had an interior facelift in the lobby and some of the rooms, but the main exhibit hall is pretty much unchanged.
The hotel’s lobby
The bar – expected home of several late nights
The corridor to the main exhibit hall
Inside the main hall
When we arrived, setting up of machines was in full flow.
Setting up a Black Knight
Preparing a Tecnoforce X Force
Live streaming is set to be a big feature this weekend, with several rigs poised to broadcast games.
One of the streaming rigs on a The Shadow machine
Further into the hall, two banks of tournament machines are set up for the UK Pinball Open and UK Pinball Classic tournaments which begin at 10am on Saturday. Further machines were going to be added to both banks later on Friday.
The UK Pinball Open machines
The UK Pinball Classic machines
At the back of the hall, a row of machines features the latest titles from several manufacturers, including Homepin, Team Pinball, American Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball and Stern Pinball.
Players get a sneaky game on Thunderbirds
Lots of the latest games
Elsewhere in the hall, more machines were either ready for the opening or getting there.
More machines ready to go
Getting a final adjustment
There are a few stands around the outer edges of the hall.
Jim Askey’s stand with a custom Indiana Jones machine
The Scottish Pinball Association are represented
The Northern Lights Pinball crew are here too
Although most machines are turned off until the start of the VIP session at 7pm on Friday, a few were powered up during the set-up period.
Most machines are off, but not all
Setting up even more machines
We’ll