# Texas Pinball Festival 2023 in Review

**Source:** Cary Hardy  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2023-03-28  
**Duration:** 20m 40s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_41FYq603Ws

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## Analysis

Kerry Hardy reviews Texas Pinball Festival 2023, praising showrunners and volunteers while criticizing exhibitor participation, food truck availability, and venue capacity. He discusses game availability issues, personal experiences including award wins, and community connections made at the event.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] At least 334 games were registered to be loaded into TPF 2023, including arcade machines — _Kerry stated this came from the TPF website registry and provided specific manufacturer machine counts_
- [MEDIUM] Manufacturers brought significantly more games than exhibitors did this year — _Kerry speculated based on observation that exhibitor participation was lower than usual, though he acknowledged lacking data to support this_
- [HIGH] Multiple games were down/non-functional for the entire show, some due to issues beyond transit damage — _Kerry directly observed games that were 'down hard' and expressed concern about potential free ticket abuse_
- [HIGH] Food truck availability was significantly reduced compared to previous years — _Kerry expected 4-5 food trucks but only saw one, resulting in personal spending at Olive Garden_
- [HIGH] Game Rush won Game of the Year at the Twippy Awards — _Kerry directly observed the award ceremony and congratulated John Borg and Stern Pinball_
- [HIGH] Kerry cannot win Best of Show award two years in a row per TPF rules — _Kerry stated this as a known rule, having previously won the award_
- [MEDIUM] Spooky brought six Scooby-Doo machines, manufacturers brought 20 Foo Fighters and around 8 Godfathers — _Kerry cited these numbers but acknowledged they were manufacturer-brought machines not on the exhibitor registry_

### Notable Quotes

> "The showrunners are not lazy. The amount of work involved to get this show going and running without a major problem is mind-boggling."
> — **Kerry Hardy**, ~6:30
> _Direct defense of TPF organizers against Facebook criticism, emphasizing operational complexity_

> "I really do feel that we had a lacking of exhibitors this year and I don't know why but I feel like there was less games that were brought by exhibitors than usual"
> — **Kerry Hardy**, ~15:00
> _Key concern about declining exhibitor participation impacting show experience_

> "in order to win that best of show award you kind of have to go to the next level"
> — **Kerry Hardy**, ~35:00
> _Reflects on competitive standards and his own Johnny Mnemonic restoration not reaching top tier_

> "if I'm going to lose to somebody, it's going to be him"
> — **Kerry Hardy**, ~37:00
> _Shows respect for fellow restorer Kevin Moore who won Best Restoration_

> "I would hope that you did not use your dead game to get a free ticket in for the weekend"
> — **Kerry Hardy**, ~4:30
> _Accusations of unethical behavior by exhibitors bringing non-functional machines_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Kerry Hardy | person | Pinball content creator, exhibitor, and award winner discussing TPF 2023 experience |
| Kim Vanderbeen | person | Co-showrunner of Texas Pinball Festival 2023 |
| Ed Vanderbeen | person | Co-showrunner of Texas Pinball Festival 2023 |
| Paul McKinney | person | Volunteer or organizer involved in Texas Pinball Festival 2023 |
| John Borg | person | Designer at Stern Pinball; Game Rush won Game of the Year at Twippy Awards |
| Kevin Moore | person | Fellow exhibitor and restorer; won Best Restoration award for Mrs. Pac-Man arcade pinball machine (Baby Pac-Man) |
| Lonnie Payne | person | Fellow exhibitor; won Best 90s Pinball Machine award with Back to the Future |
| William | person | Organizer of Twippy Awards ceremony at TPF 2023 |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer; Game Rush won Game of the Year award |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Manufacturer; brought six Scooby-Doo machines to TPF 2023 |
| Pinball Elite Restorations | company | Restoration service; performed rubber change and LED conversion on Simpsons machine at TPF |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major annual pinball expo held in Frisco; 2023 edition subject of this review |
| Twippy Awards | event | Annual pinball community awards ceremony held during Texas Pinball Festival; Game Rush won Game of the Year |
| Johnny Mnemonic | game | Pinball machine restored and exhibited by Kerry Hardy at TPF 2023; had transit issues but played well after repair |
| Last Action Hero | game | 1990s pinball machine exhibited by Kerry Hardy; won Runner-Up in 90s category |
| Grand Champion Getaway | game | Game exhibited by Kerry Hardy at TPF 2023 |
| Game Rush | game | Stern Pinball game that won Game of the Year at Twippy Awards; available at TPF with multiple units |
| Scooby-Doo | game | Spooky Pinball machine; six units brought to TPF 2023; popular game with long wait lines |
| Pulp Fiction | game | Pinball machine at TPF 2023; four units brought by manufacturer, very popular with long lines |
| Galactic Tank Force | game | Pinball machine at TPF 2023; six units brought by manufacturer |
| Foo Fighters | game | Pinball machine at TPF 2023; approximately 20 units brought by manufacturer |
| The Godfather | game | Pinball machine at TPF 2023; approximately 8 units brought by manufacturer, including collector's edition |
| Back to the Future | game | 1990s pinball machine restored by Lonnie Payne; won Best 90s Pinball at TPF 2023 |
| Mrs. Pac-Man | game | Arcade pinball machine (Baby Pac-Man) restored by Kevin Moore; won Best Restoration at TPF 2023 |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Exhibitor participation and game availability, Venue logistics and capacity constraints, Community and social aspects of TPF, Award ceremonies and recognition
- **Secondary:** Food service and amenities at the event, Game restoration and exhibition standards, New game releases and hands-on experience, Community criticism and event management defense

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Kerry expresses genuine appreciation for showrunners, volunteers, and the community experience, with positive sentiment about personal connections and award recognition. However, significant frustration with low exhibitor participation, food truck shortage, and venue constraints tempers overall enthusiasm. Tone shifts from defensive about the show's quality to self-critical about his own restorations.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Venue capacity constraints at Frisco Convention Center becoming apparent as show growth continues (confidence: high) — Kerry acknowledged venue upgrade needed due to show size; even critics agreed the space was too small, though Kerry disputed motivations
- **[event_signal]** Twippy Awards ceremony executed smoothly at TPF 2023 without technical issues (confidence: high) — Kerry noted ceremony 'went off without a hitch' and praised organizers, contrasting with problems in prior year
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong community defense of TPF showrunners against public criticism reflects high organizational respect (confidence: high) — Facebook post criticism of showrunners was quickly shut down by group admins and community members; Kerry noted shitstorm of backlash for the critic
- **[design_philosophy]** Best of Show award standards have escalated to require 'next level' restoration/customization work (confidence: medium) — Kerry reflected that despite Johnny Mnemonic being 'one of the best' examples, it didn't reach the elevated standard needed for Best of Show recognition
- **[event_signal]** Manufacturer game quantity compensating for exhibitor shortfall at TPF 2023 (confidence: medium) — Kerry credited manufacturers with bringing many machines (20 Foo Fighters, 8 Godfathers, 6 Scooby-Doos, 4 Pulp Fictions, 6 Galactic Tank Forces) which prevented show quality degradation
- **[event_signal]** TPF 2023 experienced reduced exhibitor participation and game availability despite manufacturer support (confidence: medium) — Kerry observed fewer exhibitor-brought games than usual; speculated about lineup bandwidth issues but acknowledged lacking data
- **[sentiment_shift]** Game Rush acceptance as Game of the Year at TPF 2023; positive reception from content creator community (confidence: high) — Kerry praised the award as well-deserved for John Borg and Stern Pinball team

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## Transcript

 As you can see, my games have still not been set up after Texas Pinball Festival. I told my daughter to clean her room today, and she asked me how come I haven't put the pinball machines back up. And I was like, well, it's because I don't feel like it right now. And her response was that, well, she doesn't feel like cleaning her room right now. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to her turning into a teenager. What's up guys and welcome back to my channel where I talk and do everything pinball. And I'm going to be talking about Texas Pinball Festival. The show is now over, so let's see how it went. And I know a lot of you out there want me to go into further details of my thoughts and opinions about some of these newer games, like Pulp Fiction, Scooby-Doo, Galactic Tank Force, all those will be separate videos, so stay tuned for that. I want to start this video off by a special thank you to the showrunners, Kim and Ed Vanderveen, Paul McKinney, all the volunteers out there that contributed their time and efforts in order for this show to continuously run without any kind of major issues, to Pinball Restorations ERS for helping out many of you out there with your games to keep them running. And let me go off into the weeds just a little bit here. There are some of you exhibitors out there that I expect better from. Honestly, I do. There were definitely a few games on the floor that were down the entire show. And granted, there are things that can happen in transit. I'm well aware of that. My Johnny Mnemonic was one of them. Things can happen in transit that need to be repaired. But a lot of the times, those are due to shaking. So maybe a loose connector, a plug can come undone or something like that. But there was definitely games that were down hard and the issues are not transit related. And I would hope that you did not use your dead game to get a free ticket in for the weekend. I would hope that. I expect better from those of you out there that did that. because it's well notified and documented that some of these games were down hard on arrival. And while we're at it, I guess I will go on one more little tangent. My voice is still recovering from the show, guys. I do not have my beautiful voice as I typically do, so bear with me on this. But as I was stating, one more tangent. This happened this morning on Facebook. someone decided to post in the DFW Arcade page. They posted this. Now, I'm going to keep this individual anonymous because I don't feel like he needs to be acknowledged, and I don't want to promote his name because I think he's close to about as worthless. There's not many things that trigger me, guys, because a lot of things will water, especially if it's insulting me or whatever, water off a duck's back. Don't care. I move on. But for whatever reason, when I read this, I was triggered and I think it's because I know a lot more about what goes on behind the scenes than he does and he obviously when reading his responses to certain people has no clue either but he thinks he does so without with that being said gonna keep him anonymous but this was what he stated openly on Facebook for everyone else to read it would be really nice if the pinball festival wasn't in Frisco at a tiny convention center. There are so many larger convention centers in much better locations. Close to airports with more space sucks the people who run it are too lazy to drive beyond the suburb they live in. Now after a short amount of time an admin did kick him from the group and the comments were turned off because like I anticipated shit was headed his way. My response was, it's not often I get triggered, but this just did it. The showrunners are not lazy. The amount of work involved to get this show going and running without a major problem is mind-boggling. I would never wish that amount of work on anyone. They are obviously doing something right when all the other shows are following suit on what they choose to do. When it comes to the event location, I agree that the show has grown so large that the venue size needs an upgrade, but the reasoning behind why they choose the embassy has nothing to do where they live, especially when they spend a lot of their time in Florida. You have the right to express your opinion, but beware you are about to have a shitstorm of hate headed your way due to the amount of respect people have for the show and the showrunners Now I only going to spend a little bit more time on this because I feel like there was one other individual that made one more comment towards this guy that says everything that needed to be said I honestly wish that I would have responded the way this person did, but granted he was responding to a comment that this individual did. Anyways, this is what happened. Mike, could give two shits about sucking up to people. The Frisco Convention Center is too small for that kind of event. The price of the festival is way too high. And they lean on others to bring machines to them way too much while being rude and giving way too little to people who bring their games. I'd rather go to pinballs, spend less money, and stay in Austin. And this is where the best comment is made. Mike's response is, I think I speak for everyone who has ever participated in TPF when I say, please do. Mike, drop. And I say that in more ways than one. Good job, Mike. You did a very good, simple, like, yeah, if you don't like it, you have all these issues with it, then stay in Austin. Go to Pinball's Arcade. We don't want you there anyways. And the other thing is that I don't see this individual's name on the exhibitor list. He didn't bring a game. He's got no skin in the game. So I don't really feel like we're going to miss you, guy. All right, so enough of talking about that. I just thought it had a nice little funny ending to it. But loading in and loading out process. As per usual, the load in and load out process was very straightforward. And my experience, there was no issues. Everything went off like a hitch. and that was due to the amount of volunteers that knew what they were doing and what needed to be done and speaking of loading in according to the tpf website there should have been at least 334 games there and that includes arcade machines and stuff like that their registry had a total of 334 machines that were going to be loaded into that convention center in total and that's a good amount. Now, like I stated earlier, some of those were dead machines, but also a good deal of those games that are not on the list were games that were brought in from the manufacturers. I believe Spooky brought in six of their Scooby-Doos. There was four Pulp Fictions. There was like six Galactic Tank Force machines, 20 Foo Fighters, and I think around eight Godfathers, and one of those being a collector's edition now you may be asking why are you talking about how many games were supposed to be there and stuff like that is because there were lines and this was one of my biggest like downers of the show was that yes there was a lot of people there and a lot of people were waiting on particular games most of which were like your pulp fiction but the thing is if you have a lot of your older games that aren't working or didn't get brought in general we're losing our bandwidth so the thousands of people that come to this show have less options and so they're going to go to the new shiny pulp fiction and stuff like that when they could also be going to the other games that might be available for play and i don't know if this is right i don't have the data to back up my theory or analysis of this but i really do feel that we had a lacking of exhibitors this year and i don't know why but i feel like there was less games that were brought by exhibitors than usual so it is honestly a good thing that we had so many manufacturers release these games when they did because i don't know if this show could have been as good as it could have been due to the amount of exhibitors that didn't bring a game so in a nutshell on this topic i'm glad the manufacturers brought as many games as they did exhibitors we really need to step up our game next year we had a lot of good vendors and mod makers that were all around the show sprinkled throughout one of which was the one that I recently did some video stuff for and that was the TZ Topper I hope a lot of you got to see that and I got to conversation with other mod makers and other you know people that are doing products for pinball had conversations with them and if things continue this way then I should have some interesting things to show you guys in the near future Thursday night I hosted the Simpsons pinball party unboxing and spoiler alert there was no battery damage on the boards the game fired right up it plays perfectly the pinball elite restorations did a complete clean rubber change out LED conversion on the machine and it was raffled off on sunday and i believe the people that got it couldn have been happier now let talk about food trucks something that i was pretty excited about guys i remember walking out there it might have been friday night maybe even in the afternoon i walked out there expecting to see like four or five trucks like i've seen in the past including last year walk out there i see one i was like where the hell are all the damn trucks so instead of getting food truck food something interesting and to eat then the wife maybe take her to olive garden so there's a hundred bucks right there so i don't know why there were not as many food trucks as usual i don't know what happened there but hopefully next year that improves especially when they had to close up the swap meet as fast as they possibly could because they needed to make room for the food trucks that were allegedly supposed to be there and one showed up speaking of swap meet i didn't get to go this time around because friday i may have had a little bit too much to drink there may have been jagermeister involved and um i have never had good experiences for that stuff i don't know why i drank it this time around but it didn't do good for me okay so i was recovering saturday morning so i was not going to that swap meet even though i really did need to go because i wanted to get rid of a bunch of stuff so that sucked so if you saw me Saturday morning and I looked like hell that's why and Friday for lunch I did go to Perry's I had the usual delicious lunch pork chop I was really looking forward to this thing for a too long it's a little embarrassing how long I was waiting for it but I got it enjoyed it and I'm not one to take pictures and stuff like that of my food guys I'm really not when I see people doing that at restaurants, I laugh because it's just laughable. But there I was recording a video and taking pictures of this masterpiece that got placed in front of me. Comment down below if you too got your visit to Perry's at TPF weekend. One of the big things also that one of my main reasons for really enjoying this show is that I get to see a lot of people that I only get to see at this show or any pinball convention but mainly this is the only show where i get to see certain people so one time a year i only get to see certain friends so it's always something i look forward to because we get to play a little bit of catch-up and chit-chat back and forth about life as well as you know pinball of course but you know a lot of people that you know out there in the in the pinball podcasting world or streaming and everything i get to chit-chat back and forth of all these good people and everything even though it's usually only once or twice a year that we meet and that of course includes meeting a lot of you out there my fans and i hate to say that it sounds weird but a lot of you yourselves use that words when you come and shake my hand is that you say you are a fan of my channel so i'm going to say that when a lot of you Watchers, viewers, subscribers My fellow Patreons All of you that support me In a good way or bad way or whatever I get to finally meet and shake your hand And talk pinball And it's always a great thing It always puts a smile on my face I appreciate that so much It's always a great thing for a content creator to be let known that they have made some sort of impact on how they repair or restore their games or how they look at any kind of new release. I mean, I could go on and on about this, but thank you very much for all of you out there that came up to me and to let me know that you appreciate what I do. Thank you. Now, Saturday night was also the Twippy Awards. I was there to view it entirely. I didn't have a trophy to present or a category to present this year, which I'm totally fine with. I didn't win, but I got second runner-up, which I'm also totally fine with. So, great show, Twippy Awards. There was no major mouth functions or anything. We had a lot of issues last year. This year, it seemed to go off without a hitch. so by all means Bravo way to go William and all and the whole team that was involved in making it happen the game rush took home game of the year congratulations to you John Borg and Stern pinball on the whole team there well deserved now Sunday is always the worst day and I say that because after the first two or three days of this you kind of ready to go home and we all like dreading packing up our games and stuff like that so a lot of us look like hell and but we make it all the way through sunday and then it's time for the best of show awards so those of us exhibitors that brought in our game that we spent time on to hopefully be recognized that is the moment so it's one of those things where um a good amount of my friends we're all competing against each other but we're also helping each other out so there was times where certain games had an issue or whatever and we were right there to get them what they needed whether it be a tool or a part or anything like that we've got each other's backs as well as we support each other in winning these awards now for those that are not aware I cannot win the best of show award two times in a row that's one of the rules so uh even if I was eligible this year guys I'm well aware that my Johnny Mnemonic wasn't going to be worthy of it it was one of those I have come over over time I've come to the realization that in order to win that best of show award you kind of have to go to the next level and as my johnny mnemonic finale video i clearly stated that i didn't feel like i went to the next level with that game yes it looked great i mean it's a one of the best johnny mnemonics that you'll ever see but i didn't like take it to the next level to really make it stand out and pop but i took home two awards this year I took home an award for Johnny the Monarch. It was runner-up for Best Restoration. I wasn't anticipating that. I thought it was going to be in the 90s category, but Best Restoration, I'm fine with that as well because I did put a lot of effort into restoring that. I've got a whole video series documenting all the work that went into it. My friend Kevin Moore took home the Best Restoration Award for his Mrs. Pac-Man machine, the arcade pinball version, Baby Pac-Man. Yeah, not only did he take the award for that one being the best one, but he also got it done from start to finish within a few weeks too. But like I said, well-deserved. He did a great job. But if I'm going to lose to somebody, it's going to be him. So, you know, he's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to Restore. So props to him. And the other award I got was for my last action hero for Runner Up in the 90s. And my friend Lonnie Payne won Best for 90s with his Back to the Future. And I'm kind of kicking myself for this because I kind of, like, encouraged him to bring that game. before the show he's like i'm kind of figuring if i should bring this game or that game and i was like dude bring her back to the future i encouraged him to bring this game little did i know that it was going to be the game that knocked me out of running or possibly getting you know the best 90s pinball machine but like i said if i'm going to lose to somebody i would definitely prefer to be my friends. So without a doubt, congratulations to Lonnie. Congratulations to you, Kevin, on your awards. We'll see what happens next year, guys. Now, I definitely feel like I'm forgetting to mention something that happened over the weekend or something like that, that I need to express a special thank you or something. And I apologize if I did forget to mention somebody or something but I in a nutshell I really had a great weekend I look forward to the next one I would say that I can't wait but currently since it just finished and I'm still feeling the exhaustion from it I can currently wait and I know that those of you out there that were exhibitors and the show runners and everything I'm pretty sure you can wait too for my thoughts and opinions on the newest games that were there for me to play. I will be making separate videos on there like I said at the beginning of these so stay tuned for that. For those of you that made it to Texas Pinball Festival this year let me know in the comment section down below what was your favorite part. Did you play my Johnny Mnemonic or my Last Action Hero or my Grand Champion Getaway? If you did let me know in the comment section down below and until next time guys peace out. Outro Music

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 3068c9f4-9a97-4b5d-afe4-3ffcd9556653*