internationa I datel ine
Pinball Tourney
One of the biggest and most
-exciting pinball contests ever was
held recently in Australia. The
contest was staged in hotels and
licensed clubs across New South
Wales and carried prizes totaling
more than $15,000.
The competition, known as the
Coca-Cola Bottlers Hotel Pin King
Championship, created such tre-
mendous interest among the gen-
eral public that many people who
had not previously played pinball felt
the urge to have at least a couple of
tries at winning some of the great
prizes .
First Prize was a Cruise East
cruise for two on the M .S. Rasa
Sayang. The trip, which involved
flying to Singapore and cruising to
Surabaya , Bali, Jakarta , Kuala
Lumpur and Penang, was valued at
around $2,500.
Other prizes included a trip for
two to Lindeman Island, a Rank
Arena color TV and a Rank Arena
four piece hi-fi system . In addition,
prizes worth in excess of $10,000
were supplied by various companies
for the hotel heat winners; these
included
Coca-Cola
products,
radios, Fridgy Bags, 26-oz. bottles
of Bacardi Rum and double passes
to Harold Park Trots.
Approximately 250 hotels and
licensed clubs participated in the
championship with each individual
heat winner to participate in the
knock-out finals, held at the Hyatt
Kings-Gate at Kings Cross, one of
Sydney's leading hotels .
The championship was a market-
ing exercise by Leisure and Allied
Industries of Australia to boost the
popularity of pinball and introduce
the flipper games into hundreds of
hotel and licensed club locations.
All machines were sited in hotels
and licensed clubs on a twelve-
month contract, and then offered
for sale to established operators. The
accompanying advertising campaign
was designed to reflect an in-
creased respectability in the entire
industry .
In many cases the placement of a
pin in one of the hotels represented
a first time ever. " With familiarity,
the location owners are fast to
recognize the benefits from other,
newer machines which these days
are consistently becoming avail-
able," a spokesman for Leisure and
Allied said .
"So the whole business of new
locations establishement was given
a substantial shot in the arm . The
operators who purchased equip-
ment for the competition have been
quick to realize their access to hotels
with the placement for further
equipment . "
The Coca-Cola Bottlers Hotel Pin
King Championship was the brain-
child of Mike Farley, national
promotions manager for Leisure and
Allied . A pilot scheme was run in
Perth earlier in the year creating
some 80 new hotel locations, and
the formula seemed to be a winner
for obtaining new sites.
Farley says, "There is no end to
the marketing of coin machines this
way, and with the acceptabil ity of
multi-national companies participa-
ting in the coin machine industry,
the industry itself can only gain
respectability, in addition to attract-
ing player participation from all
walks of life."
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