UK PINFEST 2025

No August would be complete without the annual UK Pinfest show, so we’re pleased to be back at the Mercure Daventry Court Hotel in Daventry for this year’s edition of the UK’s biggest pinball event.

The location is pretty central for those in England and roughly half-way between London and Manchester. While its ownership has changed twice, the hotel has been hosting the main UK show since 2010, with the exception of 2015 when the show briefly relocated to the Heighway Pinball factory in South Wales.

The hotel has 155 accommodation rooms and the show fills them all within minutes of the discounted-rate booking opening. This allows the organiser, Philip Murphy, use of all the hotel’s conference rooms and corridors, as well as the lobby. Along with multiple side meeting rooms and office spaces, the building includes the 483m² Danetree Suite which is the focal point of the UK Pinfest show, housing most of the machines and vendor stands.

Being some distance from public transport links, most guests opt to drive to the hotel. In the car park you could spot the tell-tale signs of a pinball show being held.

Usually the Danetree Suite is also host to the main Open pinball tournament at UK Pinfest, but this year that competition moved to a lobby area on the lower level, giving more space for free play machines and vendors in the main hall.

FRIDAY

We got the the venue mid-morning on Friday which is the day the show first opens to the public. There is only an evening session on Friday, so the doors don’t open until 7pm. Even so, set-up had begun on Wednesday with the bulk of the machines arriving on Thursday. As a result, by the time we arrived, things were looking pretty good in the main hall.

Machines are brought in through the loading bay at the back of the hall. There is only really room for one vehicle at a time, so vans have to be moved to the car park as soon as they have been unloaded.

While machines were being unloaded into the main hall, there were plenty of other pinballs throughout the building.

Out in the hotel’s lobby, alongside their reception and check-in desk, lots more machines were set up.

This bank of five newer titles were on coin play to help raise money for the Sarcoma UK charity. This year the UK’s pinball community lost one of its prominent supporters, Alan Adair, to Sarcoma – a type of cancer that can appear anywhere in the body.

A surprise guest took advantage of the machines for a break from their usual destructive rampaging

More machines were set up on the opposite side of the lobby. These were primarily for the national play-offs and finals of the UK Pinball League, but were available for free play at various other times.

The UK Pinfest entry ticket and merchandise desk was front and centre in the lobby.

T-shirts for this and previous UK Pinfest shows were available to purchase, along with day, evening and show-long tickets.

Entry cost £25 ($34/€29) per day for Saturday or Sunday, or both days could be bought for £40. Friday and Saturday has separate evening sessions which cost £10 each. A single ticket covering all sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday cost £60 ($81/€69).

Seasoned tournament players would normally want entry for all three days if they planned to play in all the competitive events being held this year, but the relocation of the Open to the lower level meant main hall entry, while highly desirable, wasn’t strictly a requirement to play in the Open, Classics, Ladies or NBA tournaments, nor the League finals.

Along with their show entry, guests were invited to vote for their favourite machines at the show. Voting slips were included with show entry, while there was a collection box at reception for completed forms. The awards for Best-in-Show would be presented on Sunday.

So, let’s head towards the main hall and see which machines were available to play and which vendors were represented when the show opened to the public at 7pm on Friday.

There was highly atmospheric blue/purple/red lighting with some attractive gobo lighting effects across the ceiling. There was minimal direct overhead lighting, helping prevent light glare on the playfield glass.

Retro Arcade Specialists are major supports of UK Pinfest with machines and parts, and by sponsoring tournaments. As distributors for a wide range of machine and parts companies, to complement their parts stand they had a big selection of newer titles, both in the hall and in the lobby.

In the line-up was The Princess Bride on the P3 from Multimorphic, the new Dune from Barrels of Fun Pinball, ABBA from Pinball Brothers and The Blues Brothers from HomePin.

Also in the row was the Funhouse Remake from Pedretti. The programmer for the game, János Kiss, and the voice of the 2.0 version, Mark Silk, were also at UK Pinfest.

Jon Melleney’s 1 Stop Pinball was back with his regular stand on the right side of the hall.

Medway Pinball brought a bunch of machines to help promote their pinball club in Rochester, Kent.

When it comes to custom pinball, it’s hard to beat the Pinball Amigos.

London Pinball had a large stand with assorted parts, translites, flyers and much more, as well as bringing multiple machines in the row opposite.

On a table just outside the main hall, Clint’s Amusements were offering used plastic ramps from games they have refurbished. The ramps were free in exchange for a charity donation.

Keeping all the machines running throughout the show was a dedicated team of blue-shirted pinball technicians. They performed on-the-spot repairs where possible, bringing more problematic components back to their repair area on the stage at the back of the main hall.

When the pinball action got too heated, there was a bar in the main hall to go with the Fuel Bar in the lobby.

The bar in the hall was only open during show hours, but the Fuel Bar in the lobby stayed open much later (don’t ask how we know, but it was apparently still serving drinks at 3am).

Also in the lobby was a hot food service counter which opened up for lunch and dinner each day, with a varying menu of hot food as well as a selection of sandwiches, crisps and chocolate bars.

These dishes were in addition to the small selection of main meals and snacks available to order from the bar. Food and drinks could be enjoyed in the foyer, the bar area, or outside on the patio. Fortunately, there was good weather across the three days of the show, making it pleasant to sit outside to socialise, eat and/or drink.

As we said, the Open tournament was located on the hotel’s lower level, in a lobby area for a suite of offices.

At the bottom of the stairs was the registration and entry sales desk.

The illuminated trophies for the top three in the Open came from Tournament Director, Wayne Johns, whose custom 3D printing business is called Wonderful 3D Printed Things. He also made the trophies for the Ladies Competition.

The Open tournament consisted of thirteen machines, with the oldest being Space Shuttle and the newest John Wick. They included some unusual choices, such as Legends of Valhalla and The Jetsons.

The room included limited seating for competitors and spectators. There was a monitor showing the live stream of the coverage from Pinball Live, but it was on the back wall behind the seating. However, the stream was great for those either not at the show or watching progress from elsewhere in the hotel. It’s also available on Twitch and YouTube if you want to watch any of the action.

The qualifying round began at 2pm on Friday. Entry into the Open cost £15 which included one card entry. Each card featured one game on five machines. All scores on that card are ranked against every other score on the same machine, and points are awarded for each score. The card total is the sum of the points from the five machines.

Ideally a card would include five good scores, but if players decided they already have one or more bad scores, or if a score would reduce one of their existing entries, they could choose to void the card in which case none of the scores are recorded.

Additional cards could be purchased for £7.50 each or three for £20.

When qualifying ended at midday on Sunday, the 24 players with the highest card scores will have qualified for the play-offs, with the top 8 getting a bye through the first round of play-offs.

We’ll return to the Open tournament a little later, because the first tournament to begin was The Pinball Classic. This was the fifth year the tournament had been run by Shaun Harvey. He arranged for eight pre-DMD titles to be set up in the dedicated Pinball Classic room which was at the back of the hotel’s lobby, on the way to the main hall.

Qualifying began at 10am on Friday. The cost to enter was £25 which included 5 tickets, a player badge and lanyard, plus a T-shirt in the size of your choice if you pre-registered.

Each ticket gave you one game on any one of the eight machines.

They were:

Once the initial five tickets had been used, further tickets could be purchased at a price of £1 each.

Qualifying continued until 6pm on Saturday, with the play-off starting at 9am on Sunday.

But, getting back to Friday, one of the conference rooms behind the main hall played host to the Ladies’ Social, featuring their version of the Pinball Olympics. This ladies-only less-than-serious competition, organised by Ailsa Clunie, was accompanied by impressive quantities of snacks and drinks.

The Ladies’ Social and Pinball Olympics on Friday were warm-ups before the more-serious Ladies Competition on Saturday.

Friday evening, like Saturday evening, had a separate 7pm-midnight free play session in the main hall.

Meanwhile, outside the hall at 9pm the first of two Stall Ball competitions was held.

Stall Ball is a competitive gameplay mode where players line up to play one machine. All they have to do is lock (or ‘stall’) the ball in one of the designated shots – an upkicker, saucer, lock, etc. – at which point they pass the game to the next player and join the back of the queue. Drain the ball, though, and you are out. Eventually there is only one player remaining who is declared the winner.

Unlike previous years where a suitable older machine in the hall was used, this year it was run on the Labyrinth pinball which has a special Barrel Ball gameplay mode. This makes it much easier to run a Stall Ball competition as the game picks the shots you need to make and announces when you have either made them and can rejoin the queue, or made one of the forbidden shots or drained, in which case you are out.

On both Friday night and Saturday night, the queue ran down the corridor but rapidly shortened as players were eliminated. The eventual winner on each night won the prize of a large-screen LG 4K TV.

The winner on Friday was Phil Stokes, while on Saturday it was Mike Brayshaw.

When the main hall closed at midnight, guests could retire to the lobby bar to socialise into the early hours, or get some much-needed rest for the busy Saturday ahead.

SATURDAY

Saturday at UK Pinfest began at 10am when the main hall opened.

We took the opportunity to record our Twelve Minute Tour video walkaround, showing you all areas of the show.

At the back of the hall, Andrew from Clint’s Amusements had a long table with assorted new and reclaimed pinball parts for sale.

Along with the hall opening, several competitive events either resumed or began at 10am.

Qualifying rounds in the Open tournament, which had begun at 2pm on Friday, resumed at 10am on Saturday, as did qualifying in The Pinball Classic, while the Ladies Competition’s qualifying began and the first heats of the NBA Challenge also tipped-off.

The Open qualifying ran throughout the day until 9pm, with an additional two hours on Sunday morning from 10am.

When qualifying for The Pinball Classic finished at 6pm on Saturday, the players with the top two scores on each machine progressed to the play-offs on Sunday morning. If a player achieved a top two score on more than one machine, only one counted, with their vacated qualifying position being decided by a play-off by third-placed players.

A total of 136 players registered for The Pinball Classic, with the qualifiers for Sunday being:

Although there was a fun Pinball Olympics competition held for the ladies on Friday, Saturday was when the more serious tournament both started and concluded.

The Bride of Pinbot Ladies Tournament was organised by Diane, Clare, Traci, Vicki, Judith and Ailsa, and came with a guaranteed £1,000 of prize money thanks to UK Pinfest organiser Philip Murphy and show sponsors Retro Arcade Specialists, with trophies from Wayne Johns.

Entries cost £10 each and used a five game card, where players picked five machines from the bank of nine and played a single game on each. Scores were ranked and when qualifying ended at 2pm, the eight top-ranked competitors took part in the play-offs which began at 3pm.

The same bank of machines from the previous evening was used, which meant the machines available were:

The qualifying results were:

The semi-finals were played as three-game matches with 4-2-1-0 scoring for first to fourth places. The top two from each semi-final went through to the final which was played in the same way.

The final four were: Chris Jones, Kate Rothwell-Jackson, Maria Morillo and Alice McKenna. The machines chosen for the final were: Batman: The Dark Knight, Lady Luck and Metallica.

Alice won on Batman with her 45.6m. Kate was second, Chris third, and Maria fourth. In the second game, Maria reversed her last place on Batman to claim the win on Lady Luck with an impressive 3.2m. Alice was second, Chris third and Kate fourth.

So, going into the last game of the final, Alice had 6 points, Maria had 4 points, with Chris and Kate on 2 points each.

There was a third different winner for the third game, Metallica, as Chris took first place, with Kate second, Alice third and Maria fourth. That gave Alice the overall win with her 7 points. Chris was second, just one point behind. Maria and Kate were tied on 4 points, so played a tie-breaker on Rick and Morty which Kate comfortably won.

Trophies and cash prizes were awarded by Ailsa Clunie and Claire Lickman.

Along with a trophy, Alice won £700 in cash. Chris won £200, Kate £75 and Maria £25.

Out in the hotel’s lobby, the national finals of the UK Pinball League were being held at 1pm, run by Paul Garner. Players qualified by playing at meetings in their local region. There are eight regions across the UK and Ireland, with each region sending their top two into the final.

Each finalist played a single head-to-head match against every other finalist. The four players with the most wins would go into a grand final to decide the top four places.

The head-to-head results were:

There was a multi-way tie for the third and fourth places, so a nine-way tie breaker was played on Earthshaker! to decide which two would go into the grand final.

So, the four grand finalists were Nathan Garwood, Greg Mott, Steve Close and Luke Grayson who played a single game on The Avengers.

Steve was the clear winner with 21M, but Greg and Nathan were very close with Greg taking second with 3.356M to Nathan’s 3.332M. Luke was fourth with 0.866M.

You can watch the UK Pinball League final on Preston Pinball’s YouTube Channel.

The fifth tournament on the schedule was the NBA Challenge, run by the Scottish Pinball Association and held in a side room across the corridor from the Ladies Tournament.

The NBA Challenge uses two linked NBA Fastbreak machines to play a series of head to head matches. There were three divisions of play – Main, 11-and-under, and 12-and-over. Qualifying for the Main was played out on Saturday with the final taking place after the two youth divisions on Sunday.

Crowd participation, cheering, chanting and jeering was encouraged, with props provided to build the atmosphere.

For the main division there were eight groups of four players. The players for the first four groups were pre-registered through the Pinball Info forum, while players for the remaining four were allocated on a first-come-first-served basis at 10am on Saturday morning. Entry cost £10.

In the NBA Challenge, each player took part in a 2-player game against each of the other three group members using basketball scoring. The player from each group with the most wins progressed, while the balance of points-for vs points-against was used to decide any ties.

The eight Main qualifiers were:

SUNDAY

When qualifying in The Pinball Classic finished at 5pm on Saturday, there were sixteen qualifiers. Those sixteen were split into four groups of four, with each group playing three randomly-selected machines using a 4-2-1-0 points scoring system for first to fourth place. When all three games had been played, the top two from each group progressed to the last eight.

This play-off system continued to reduce the field to the final four who were: Will Dutton, Josh Iles, Simon Love and Craig Pullen.

The first game played in the final was Night Rider.

Josh was first on Night Rider, with Craig second, Simon third and Will fourth. Play then moved on to Joker Poker.

After last place on Night Rider, Will came back to win on Joker Poker, with Josh second, Simon third and Craig fourth.

So, going into the final game Josh was leading with 6 points, Will had 4 points, while Craig and Simon both had 2 points. That left many possible outcomes, including a three-way tie for the lead on 6 points.

Craig did what he needed to do and won on Aztec to end on 6 points. However, Josh was second to take his total to 8 points. Will was third to end on 5 points, while Simon was fourth to stay on 2 points. That made Josh the overall winner, Craig was second, Will was third and Simon fourth.

Gold silver and bronze and pewter hip flasks went to the top four along with assorted Stern Pinball swag. However, the cash prizes were the most significant, with £2,000 for first, £1,000 for second, £500 for third and £250 for fourth.

Prizes were presented by Tournament Director, Shaun Harvey.

On the other side of the main hall, the NBA Challenge room played host to the 11-and-under division at 10am.

In the two semi-finals it was Daniel vs Sam and Billy vs Michael.

Wins for Daniel and Michael saw them meet in the final, where Daniel triumphed to take first place. The final four places were:

1st – Daniel
2nd – Michael
3rd – Billy
4th – Sam

Medals and Amazon gift card prizes were presented by Ailsa Clunie.

The 12-and-Over division began straight afterwards.

The final for this division saw Lucy taking on Ethan for the top spot.

Although it was a close contest, towards the end Lucy gained the advantage and finished the game the winner by 60 points to 53 points. Isaac was third and Katie fourth. All four won prizes of Amazon gift cards.

After Saturday’s qualifiers, the NBA Challenge Main division’s quarter-finals didn’t begin until 2pm on Sunday.

All matches were single head-to-head games, from which Kevin, Andy, Diane and Stewart were the winners who competed in the semi-finals. From those, Andy and Stewart progressed to play in the final.

Andy took an early lead and, although the size of his lead fluctuated during the four quarters, he was never caught. When the whistle blew at the end, he had won the final by 44 to 35.

You can watch the play-offs and finals for yourself on Preston Pinball’s Twitch stream.

Before the play-offs in the Open tournament began at 1pm, there were two presentation ceremonies held in the lobby.

The first of these was to induct the newest members of the UK Pinball Group Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame was established in 2008 as a way to celebrate outstanding contributions to the UK’s pinball community. Nominations for new inductees are submitted by the pinball community, before a final selection is made by a committee representing the many different aspects of pinball, from collecting and competing to operating and organising.

The very first induction presentation took place at the 2008 UK Pinball Show in Birmingham. Prior to Sunday’s ceremony there were thirty members, but that number increased to thirty-two following the latest two inductions.

Pinball News Editor and inaugural Hall of Famer, Martin Ayub, introduced the ceremony.

The first new inductee was introduced by UK Pinball Group Hall of Fame committee member and fellow inductee, David Dutton. He announced that the first new member of the Hall of Fame was Ailsa Clunie.

David listed many of Ailsa’s achievements, including the resurrection of the Scottish Pinball Association, the substantial increase in the number of league meetings and players across Scotland, her drive to bring more women into the game, including the founding of the Ladies’ Social on Friday evening and the Ladies Competition at UK Pinfest, making the pinball community a more welcoming place for everyone, and coordinating the Best-in-Show awards, also at UK Pinfest.

The second new inductee was introduced by UK Pinball Group Hall of Fame committee member and fellow inductee, Wayne Johns. He read a long list of their achievements across decades of involvement in the UK’s competitive pinball scene, before announcing the newest member of the Hall of Fame was Greg Mott.

Greg has been a stalwart of the competitive pinball scene for many years, both nationally and internationally, having been in the arcade scene since 1999, first with video games and then with pinball. In the years since he ran the UK Pinball League for many years and established the UK Championship Series, as well as hosting a popular annual day-long tournament at his home. Two years ago he documented his life in arcade gaming in a book, Pushing Buttons: Memoirs of a Arcade Addict.

The second ceremony was to present the Best-in-Show awards as voted for by the show visitors. These represent the most-enjoyed machines in different categories, ranging from electromechanical to the very newest games, and are a way to recognise the vital contribution of those who bring their machines to UK Pinfest.

Fresh from her Hall of Fame induction, Best-in-Show awards organiser, Ailsa Clunie, announced the winners and presented the trophies.

Best Modified/Refurbished
Winner: Ramones by Chris Williams

Best Electromechanical
Winner: Wizard! by John Bateson

Best Segment Display
Winner: Atlantis brought by Steve Padgett

Best DMD
Winner: The Addams Family brought by Steve Pagett

Best Modern
Winner: Godzilla brought by Janice and Todd Brock

From the five separate category winners, one was selected by a group of judges to be the overall Best-in-Show winner. The recipient won a trophy in memory of Alan Adair. The judges chose the Ramones machine as the overall winner.

Best-in-Show
Winner: Ramones by Chris Williams

The only tournament yet to be decided is the Open.

The extra two hours of qualifying on Sunday morning gave those who could only come to the show for one day the opportunity to put in some qualifying scores before the play-offs began.

Of course, it also gave those who were at or close to the cut line at the end of Saturday’s qualifying a sleepless night wondering if their scores would hold up. Having the extra qualifying on Sunday also avoided a clash with the final rounds of The Pinball Classic.

The play-offs began as soon as the ceremonies in the lobby had concluded at 1pm.

Included in the top twenty-four who qualified was James Aw, who is just 12 years of age. Here’s the full list of qualifiers:

The top eight received a bye through the first round of eight head-to-head, best-of-five matches. The eight who made it through the first round were joined by the the eight bye-holders for the second round of eight matches.

That left the eight quarter-finalists, who were: Mike Christiansen, David Fowler, Andrew Foster, Greg Mott, Josh Iles, Rich Mallett, Craig Pullen and Nathan Garwood.

The quarter-finals saw wins for Mike, Andrew, Josh and Nathan, setting up two semi-finals of Andrew versus Mike, and Josh versus Nathan.

In both semi-finals it was a close run contest.

Despite winning on Willy Wonka and Nascar, Andrew couldn’t hold off Mike as he won on The Jetsons, Metallica and, in the tie-breaker, Space Shuttle.

Meanwhile, despite taking a 2-0 lead on Jaws and Legends of Valhalla, Josh couldn’t prevent Nathan winning the next three on No Fear, Metallica and Guardians of the Galaxy.

So, Mike Christiansen and Nathan Garwood contested the final.

Mike won game 1 on Guardians of the Galaxy, but Nathan came back on The Beatles to level the score at 1-1. Mike took the lead again on Godzilla, needing just one more win to wrap things up, which he did on the next game, Nascar.

In the tie-break for third place played on Legends of Valhalla, Andy beat Josh, making Andy third and Josh fourth.

Trophies were presented by Tournament Director, Wayne Johns, along with prize money of £2,000 for first place, £1,200 for second, £900 for third and £500 for fourth.

The losing quarter-finalists, David, Greg, Rich and Craig, were all ranked equal 5th and earned themselves cash prizes of £300.

Here are the full results:

With the Open tournament having its own space rather than being in the main hall, there was less pressure to wrap things up earlier and no disturbance from the dismantling and transportation of machines and stands. The last game of the final concluded at around 7:15pm, long after the 4:30pm closing of the main show hall.

Although that wraps up the official tournament schedule, there were plenty of other competitive events taking place at UK Pinfest.

Alongside impromptu challenges and cash games, there was a mini team tournament and also a ‘One Ball Twist Contest’ played on the Pulp Fiction machine in the lobby and run by Shaun Harvey, with cash prizes of £100/£50/£25/£10 for the top four scores.

The winner of this was Josh Iles with a score of a little over 13M (on one ball), with Craig Pullen second.

While we have covered all the official UK Pinfest events, the show is just as much about the social side of the UK pinball community. The breakfast room before the show opens for the day and the Fuel Bar in the lobby once it closes are always popular haunts, with the patio filling the gap during show hours. Like many, when we return home we’re often surprised at how few games of pinball we actually played across the three days.

Each year, organiser Philip Murphy manages to squeeze more and more into the UK Pinfest show weekend. There are also changes made to try to improve the overall experience.

Although the move of the Open tournament to the lower floor took it out of the sight of non-competitors, the reclaimed space in the main hall was welcomed by many. It also helped with the problem from previous years where casual players wandered into the tournament area to play the machines.

The quality of machines to play also seems to improve year-on-year, due in part to a greater availability of mods and other game enhancements which owners enjoy showing off, but also to the speed and efficiency of the repair team who quickly pounced on any reported issues.

And that brings us to the end of this years UK Pinfest report, except to add that during the show a total of £1,100 ($1,485/€1,270) was raised for the Sarcoma UK charity in memory of Alan Adair.

Although not officially announced yet, the 2026 dates are already locked in as Friday 28th, Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th August. Hotel bookings aren’t yet available for those dates, but keep an eye out for the announcement, as they will probably sell out within a couple of minutes.

Read more at https://www.pinballnews.com