PINBALL CURIOUS
Jim Schelberg
So
much
pinball,
not enough Jim
O
bservational humorist Ste-
ven Wright asks, “You can’t
have everything; where
would you put it?” This edi-
tion of Pinball Curious is fueled by this
sentiment, which is commonly referred
to as having too much of a good thing.
What if there were three pinball
shows in one weekend? It could hap-
pen. It did happen. Only a few weeks
after I attended the Pinball Expo this
past October, the Pacific Pinball Expo-
sition, the Free Play Florida, and The
Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo all
took place Nov. 11-13.
How could I gather all the need-to-
know happenings for Play Meter read-
ers? I enlisted the help of cub report-
ers Kim and Ed Vandenveen (orga-
nizers of the Texas Pinball Festival) to
cover Free Play Florida and PinGame
Journal editor Bob Herbison to head
west to the Pacific Pinball Exposition. I
took care of The Houston Arcade and
Pinball Expo.
Pinball culture has expanded in
recent years, especially in the sizes
and number of shows and events.
A crowd has assembled during an
event at the record-breaking Pinball
Expo in Chicago.
PLAY METER
28
The Pinball Expo, one of the first pin-
ball-centric shows, was for a long time
the biggest.
HOW COULD I CHOOSE:
PINBALL EXPO
Its 32nd show this past October
broke its own attendance and hotel
booking records. With an expanding
number of individuals and companies,
organizer Rob Berk felt the pressure
to schedule two, and sometimes three,
events at the same time making me,
for once, have to choose which to
attend and which to miss.
Stern Pinball celebrated its 30th
anniversary (congratulations) at the
Pinball Expo, and celebrate they did.
The partying included the usual, but
always amazing, factory tour and open
house, a massive display organized by
Marco Specialties, and a number of
talks and seminars including a meet/
greet/photo-op with Batman (Adam
West) himself in honor of Stern’s Bat-
man ‘66 game, produced with Joe
Kaminkow’s new KaPow! Pinball com-
pany.
But the main event was held in a
nearby club venue. To save room for
the other, but totally awesome, pin-
ball shows, I’ll be sparse with details,
but wow, it was pretty darn cool. The
Batmobile and Ecto-1 from the Ghost-
FEBRUARY 2017