# Pinball Museums - Pinball Expo 2024 - Michael Schiess, Evan Phillippe, Melissa Harmon

**Source:** Pinball News (Pinball Expo 2024)  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2024-10-18  
**Duration:** 33m 59s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtwGQ1HUh4E

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## Analysis

Pacific Pinball Museum executives Evan Phillippe, Michael Schiess, and Melissa Harmon presented at Pinball Expo 2024 on the role of pinball museums in preserving gaming history and introducing pinball to all ages. The museum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in its 21st year in Alameda, California, distinguishes itself from arcades and barcades through educational mission, institutional partnerships, age-inclusive access, rare game preservation, and transparency. They outlined expansion plans to increase playable games from 105 to 500-600 while maintaining a 1,200-game warehouse collection.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Pacific Pinball Museum has 1,200 unique games in warehouse collection with 105 playable daily; planning to expand playable collection to 500-600 games — _Evan Phillippe and Michael Schiess directly stated collection numbers during presentation and capital campaign discussion_
- [MEDIUM] Over 10,000 pinball locations exist in North America with 43,000+ games available according to Pinside map — _Evan Phillippe cited Pinside map data, noting it is likely incomplete ('probably more than that')_
- [MEDIUM] Three major solo-operated pinball museums closed after the pandemic due to lack of governance structure — _Michael Schiess stated 'we lost three of them three major ones all three were were solo' but did not name them_
- [HIGH] Pinball industry contracted to single manufacturer (Stern) in early 2000s, now has 4-5 large manufacturers and 20-30 boutique makers — _Evan Phillippe described industry history: 'many in the 50s through late 90s...shrunk to one stern in early 2000s...back to having four or five large ones and about 20 or 30 small boutique manufacturers'_
- [HIGH] Museum donates approximately $20,000-$25,000 annually in passes to schools, PTAs, and community organizations — _Evan Phillippe stated specific donation range during equity programs discussion_

### Notable Quotes

> "Chris Koontz came along and said one of the wisest things to me. He said, Mike, it's pinball. Let him play it."
> — **Michael Schiess**, ~44:30
> _Reflects philosophical shift in museum approach to child safety vs. gameplay experience and machine durability; Chris Koontz's influence on operational philosophy_

> "It is actually overwhelmingly large. When people go in there, they're generally awestruck."
> — **Evan Phillippe**, ~38:00
> _Describes visitor reaction to the Pacific Pinball Annex warehouse; illustrates scale of collection_

> "We don't pay property tax on the location. We just have to submit reporting to the IRS. We can associate with other institutions in different ways that say a profit business a barcade or arcade would not be able to."
> — **Evan Phillippe**, ~37:00
> _Articulates key nonprofit structural advantages over commercial operators_

> "We're talking about education, artwork, the history of the game."
> — **Evan Phillippe**, ~32:00
> _Defines museum mission scope beyond gameplay; distinguishes from arcade model_

> "It wasn't started with an endowment like most museums we started with a small collection and it quickly evolved into a non-profit because the purpose of it was different from being an Arcade right from the get-go."
> — **Michael Schiess**, ~10:30
> _Describes founding model distinct from traditional museum structure; emphasizes mission-driven origins_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Pacific Pinball Museum | organization | 501(c)(3) nonprofit museum in Alameda, California in 21st year of operation; holds 1,200 unique games in warehouse, 105 playable daily; engaged in preservation, education, and public access |
| Evan Phillippe | person | Executive Director of Pacific Pinball Museum; presented collection statistics, mission, and expansion plans |
| Michael Schiess | person | Founder of Pacific Pinball Museum; discussed founding philosophy, governance structure, and operational approach to game preservation |
| Melissa Harmon | person | Founder of Pacific Pinball Museum; led educational presentation on pinball technology evolution for children |
| Pinball Expo | event | 40th anniversary celebration in Illinois; hosted Pacific Pinball Museum presentation on museums vs. arcades |
| Pinside | organization | Online mapping platform tracking 10,000+ pinball locations and 43,000+ machines in North America |
| Chris Koontz | person | Influenced Pacific Pinball Museum operational philosophy on game preservation vs. playability for children |
| San Francisco Academy of Sciences | organization | Institutional partner of Pacific Pinball Museum for pop-up exhibits and partnerships |
| USS Hornet Historical Museum | organization | Institutional partner of Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda |
| Chabot Space and Science Center | organization | Institutional partner of Pacific Pinball Museum in Oakland Hills; hosted 'Science of Pinball' exhibit |
| Exploratorium | organization | San Francisco science museum; model for Pacific Pinball Museum education wing design |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; referenced as sole large manufacturer in early 2000s, now one of 4-5 large makers |
| Art Stenholm | person | Pinball artist featured in museum exhibit; daughters provided historical information; noted for feminist-forward artwork |
| Dan Fonts | person | Pinball backglass mural artist; initiated project creating 30 hand-painted 10x10 foot murals for museum |
| Mark Gibson | person | Instructor offering classes at Pacific Pinball Museum during Pinball Expo |
| Humpty Dumpty | game | First flipper game ever made (1947); playable daily in Pacific Pinball Museum; featured in presentation on pinball evolution |
| Go Girl | game | Rare 1990s San Francisco-funded game by artist Michael Brown; technology 10 years ahead of peers; being restored by museum |
| Spooksville | game | One of two upright mirror-based joystick games ever made; museum owns both units |
| Safe Cracker | game | Rare game with original coins in museum collection; playable as originally designed |
| Buckaroo | game | Kick-the-cowboy game referenced in Q&A; visitor with special needs spent 30 minutes playing; influenced their engagement with pinball |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Museum vs. arcade/barcade business models and missions, Pinball preservation and restoration, Educational STEAM programming through pinball, Nonprofit governance and sustainability, Collection management and cataloging
- **Secondary:** Institutional partnerships and community outreach, Capital expansion planning and fundraising, Accessibility and age-inclusive pinball

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — Presentation is upbeat and celebratory of museum accomplishments, expansion plans, and community impact. Presenters express enthusiasm for preservation mission and institutional growth. Audience engagement positive (multiple people indicated prior museum visits). No critical or negative sentiment detected.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Pacific Pinball Museum launching capital campaign for larger permanent home, expanding from 105 playable games to 500-600, building dedicated education wing and visible workshop/maintenance center (confidence: high) — Evan Phillippe explicitly stated: 'We currently have a capital building campaign that we're asking donations and fundraising and matching for, for a larger permanent home' with specific expansion goals outlined
- **[community_signal]** Structural vulnerabilities in solo-operated pinball museum model; three major museums closed post-pandemic due to lack of governance infrastructure and board management (confidence: high) — Michael Schiess: 'we lost three of them three major ones all three were were solo you started by one person...you really need a board you need governance'
- **[community_signal]** Pacific Pinball Museum implementing robust accessibility and equity programs: free library passes, school/PTA donations ($20-25k annually), pop-up community events, stools for children/elderly, open Tuesday-Sunday (confidence: high) — Evan Phillippe detailed multiple programs: 'library program...donate passes all the time, probably up to tune of $20,000 to $25,000 a year...open Tuesday through Sunday...regardless of attendance'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Positive community reception of museum accessibility; visitor testimonial indicates special-needs child engaged meaningfully with Buckaroo game, motivated to research pinball locations independently (confidence: high) — Q&A attendee: 'I went to the Pacific Pimbalasium last week with my kid...he has talked about it since then and has worked with me on the pinball map to figure out where the closest one is'
- **[community_signal]** Pacific Pinball Museum positioned as leading nonprofit institution with sophisticated preservation, education, and community partnership model serving as reference standard for field (confidence: high) — Described as 'leading institution in the field of pinball museums,' invited to present at 40th Pinball Expo anniversary, has board structure, IRS compliance, charity navigator ratings, institutional partnerships with major science museums
- **[design_philosophy]** Shift in museum operational philosophy from preservation-first protective model to playability-first educational model; influenced by community wisdom (Chris Koontz advice) recognizing older games benefit from active use (confidence: medium) — Michael Schiess: 'At first...I was worried about the older games...Chris Koontz came along and said...Mike, it's pinball. Let him play it...It turns out that a lot of the older games actually like exercise...I don't worry about it anymore'
- **[event_signal]** Pinball Expo 40th anniversary serves as major industry convening with participation from Pacific Pinball Museum leadership, indicating continued relevance of annual trade show to community (confidence: high) — Evan Phillippe: 'really happy to be here to the Pinball Expo here in Illinois and really be part of this 40th anniversary. That is so important for the pinball community'
- **[industry_signal]** Pacific Pinball Museum establishing formal partnerships with major Bay Area science/cultural institutions (Academy of Sciences, Chabot Space and Science Center, USS Hornet, Exploratorium) and international exhibitions (Wolfsburg, Germany) (confidence: high) — Evan Phillippe listed partnerships: 'San Francisco Academy of Sciences, USS Hornet Historical Museum, Chabot Space and Science Center, Exploratorium, Fano Science Center exhibit that was in Wolfsburg, Germany'
- **[market_signal]** Pinball industry cycled through consolidation (many manufacturers in 1950s-1990s → single Stern monopoly early 2000s → current 4-5 large + 20-30 boutique manufacturers); museums provide stability through diverse historical collections across cycles (confidence: high) — Evan Phillippe timeline: 'how many pinball manufacturers existed in the 50s through late 90s, how that shrank to one stern in early 2000s, and how we're finally back to having four or five large ones and about 20 or 30 small boutique manufacturers'
- **[product_strategy]** Pacific Pinball Museum photography project creating professional high-resolution archive of rare and unique games; integrating into National Archive software platform with watermarks for public access and restoration reference (confidence: high) — Evan Phillippe: 'setting up piece of software that is used by the National Archive and National Galleries to make that artwork available...extremely high quality...from every angle'

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## Transcript

 Okay, thank you for coming everybody. Our talk is titled Pinball Museums, Keeping Pinball Alive. I'm Pacific Pinball Museum Executive Director Evan Phillippe. I'm joined with Pacific Pinball Museum founders, Melissa Harmon and Michael Sheese. I want to start out with this picture. Our intro slide is really fun. Not only do we have the picture of the child playing in the museum on the right side, very first time that ever played a pinball machine. They're about five years old, sitting on top of a stool to play the field. But one of the things we do at the museum is a lot of research. That is a almost never seen by anyone picture from the San Francisco Examiner. It's a bingo pinball machine being confiscated from a gambling den in the early 1960s in San Francisco off of Market Street. And those are teamsters that were hired to collect the bingo machines and move them out because they were too heavy. It's a great picture. So one of the things we do as a museum is paid to go into archives like the Bancroft Archive in Berkeley, which is where we pulled that photograph and no one's seen it until today in the presentation. So that's one of the things we do as a museum. It's a fun picture to share. We are a 501c3 nonprofit in our 21st year and our mission is to inspire an interest in science, art, and history through pinball and to preserve and promote this really important part of American culture. We're located in Alameda, California, And we're really happy to be able to come here to the Pinball Expo here in Illinois and really be part of this 40th anniversary. That is so important for the pinball community. It's similar to the amount of time that we've been open as a museum. We've seen pinball go up and down and it's really in a crescendo right now where it's really popular. And we're really happy to be here. Part of that. Something we'll talk about tonight is the difference between arcades, barcades, and museums and why museums are important and why they're different than an arcade or a barcade. They both serve very similar music functions, but they have very different missions. Something we can see with the barcade on the left is, yes, they have video games, yes, they have pinball, they have food, they have drinks, it's a mostly older crowd, it's teenagers or young adults and up and on the right we see a mural from one of our rooms where we're concentrating on talking about history, math, engineering, art, science, all of the STEAM disciplines through our motto which is play and learn. Have a quick picture of a pinball map. This is a little old. This is a two-month old map but there's over 10,000 locations to play pinball in North America. A lot of them are arcades and barcades, there are pinball museums and there's over 43,000 games available. It's probably more than that. These are just ones that are recorded on the pin side map. So there's probably ones that are not recorded. So it's probably more than that. As mentioned, barcades are really popular for young adults and older customers, but children and younger team players are left out. Museums serve every age, everyone from the youngest child that can come into the museum in a stroller to the oldest patron that might need assistance. Barcades focus generally on newer release games. Since they're privately owned, you have a higher likelihood of having a new game like Jaws or John Wick, something that might be a $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000 game that's brand new in a location like that, whereas museums are more likely to have a variety and a lot of earlier games available. For instance, we have games from the 1940s to the 1920s, or the 2020s. So we start with wood rails and we work up to the current modern age of pinball. A lot of barcades and arcades will not have earlier games because they are harder to maintain, or at least they have a specific background in engineering and electromechanical function to keep those earlier games working. and I'll hand this over to Mike for a minute to talk a little bit about the beginning of the Pacific Pinball Museum okay I kind of covered some of this thanks Evan the beginnings of it was it was not started with an endowment like most museums we started with a small collection and it quickly evolved into a non-profit because the purpose of it was different from being an Arcade right from the get-go. The big difference is that we were always intending this to go on. It wasn't a solo act. And I see some of the other museums that started up like that and remain that way. And I always worry about them not surviving. And sure enough, after the pandemic, we lost three of them three major ones all three were were solo you started by one person and you really need a board you need governance and it needs to be a group effort otherwise it's just going to be one person running it until they don't run it anymore and we didn't want that to happen with our museum so it was it was founded with that uh with that in mind I'm going to play a little video for everybody. This is a really recent drone fly-through of the museum. It's about two minutes long, and we'll give you a little description of, kind of give you an idea of a tour of what we have at Alameda. Thank you. Thank you. Gosh, I love drones. That's a really good overview of the museum, really quickly, if you haven't had a chance to visit. It's really nice that we see at least five or six people in this audience that have been to the museum and being able to come out here and see us that this presentation is fantastic. A couple of you have seen this presentation at a couple different expos that we've been at. But something that makes the Pacific Pinball Museum really different from an arcade and barcade, something we saw some of the ways that we function that are very different is our 501 C three nonprofit status. We're volunteer supported, we're board managed. We're accessible by all ages, including people under age 21. A lot of arcades are 21 and over, and we do provide stools even for the smallest children or the elderly. We have a mission of preservation and we do that through the photography project, which we endeavored on throughout the pandemic. We were close. We photographed in very high quality a lot of our very rare and unique collection items. You can see a lot of those on our screen that we have set up at our booth out on the expo floor. We also have a warehouse where we store a lot of these rare games keep them in good condition keep them safe keep them accessible for our workers and for parts and for rotating into the museum and we catalog those items really carefully We make old unique and rare games accessible to patrons like Go Girl which was mentioned by Mike earlier That by artist Michael Brown from the late 90s It's a San Francisco-funded game that's very political, and it's also about 10 years ahead technology-wise of every other game at the time. A lot of aspects of that game were copied by larger companies later on. We have that game in our possession. We're working on that game to make sure it's brought back to the museum. It's a special one-off art piece and it's just a really special game that needs to be cataloged, preserved, and made accessible to the public. Spooksville, which is another rare game we have, it's one of two games that's an upright game in the cabinet that's played off of a mirror with a shaker game. It's very fun. It's played with joysticks. There's only two games that were made like that by this company and we've got both. And we bring one of those out on the floor in our oddball exhibit and that's been really fun because It's just not available anywhere else. Safe Cracker, which is a rare game, you can find that to play. We have one that has coins in it, so you can actually play the game the way it's supposed to be played. That is rare. And making sure the games that we have available in the museum are playing the way they were when they were brand new is very important to us. Here's some information about the exhibits. Did you want to talk about that, Mikey? Yeah, well, the pointing people, a few people have come up and talked about how much they enjoyed the pointing people. which is the exhibit that's up now. It's kind of, I remember the first time we did Pointy People, somebody came up from L.A. and I asked him, gee, you came all the way up to see the Pointy People? No, I came to see an arcade that didn't have any Gottlieb machines. But we've done a few different exhibits, one with Art Stanholm, And we actually, Melissa and I got to meet with Art's two daughters who gave us a wealth of information that we just couldn't find anywhere. So we got to talk to them and really fill in a lot of information about Art Stenholm because he's, Chris Koontz made me pay attention to him. At first, you know, it was interesting art, but I didn't quite understand it. but it's really interesting because he was somewhat of a feminist way ahead of his time, and if you look at his art, you won't see any cheesecake. He really seemed to respect women, and he did much, I think, art that was ahead of its time in terms of the content. Something that we do that a lot of arcades wouldn't do is institutional partnerships, partnerships, especially in the Bay Area where we're located in Alameda, in San Francisco, in Oakland. We do associated exhibits and pop-ups with the San Francisco Academy of Sciences, the local USS Hornet Historical Museum in Alameda, the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland Hills, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and the Fano Science Center exhibit that was in Wolfsburg, Germany that Mike also spoke about in the previous presentation. Some of the other pop-ups that we do and partnerships we do are things like Alameda Pride in the Park, which we've done for three years in a row. On the top right side, we see one of our nightlife pop-ups with the California Academy of Sciences. On the bottom left, the science of pinball, which was at Chabot Space and Science Center, and a picture from the Wolfsburg Germany show that was on the bottom right. And doing that routinely, consistently, having that happen yearly or biannually with the institution is really important to us. And that's something that a lot of other organizations would not be able to do if they weren't nonprofits or museum based. One of the things that we think make pinball museums critical is introducing pinball of all eras to new generations, not just modern games from the 2020s or 2000s or the 90s, but games from the 1940s. Games like Humpty Dumpty from 1947, which is the first flipper game ever made. We have that playable in the museum every day with flippers on the sides that run up the game. And if you get good enough, you can flip that ball back and forth all the way up the playfield. I cannot, but I have seen other people do it. It's fantastic. And you can play that game every day in the museum. It's not just a museum piece behind a velvet rope that you can look at. You can play it and you can get good at it. making learning physics math and science fun encouraging people to study stem disciplines preserving games from the 19th century from the 1880s forward we do have an 1880s bagatelle up on our wall which is one of our oldest games as an example of we have a reproduction bagatelle on a podium that is playable in the museum it's actually a really fun game even though it's just played with a marble and kids will go head to head for an hour on that game and have their father keeping track on AFM. We can present problematic games and problematic themes within the context of a museum. We do have future plans for different exhibits that would tackle sexist artwork in pinball. We can do an exhibit that would talk about the kind of racially charged pinball artwork that came out in World War II that is divisive, that we have preserved pieces of, but we can talk about those in the context of an exhibit and present them correctly so people can learn through history. And ensuring stability and continual access to games of all areas in an industry with really dramatic ups and downs. We know how many pinball manufacturers existed in the 50s through the late 90s, how that shrank to one stern in the early 2000s, and how we're finally back to having four or five large ones and about 20 or 30 small boutique manufacturers. We put them together, but it is a industry that goes up and down. And the museums are consistent during this time because they offer games from a variety of areas. And they also talk about more than just the games. We're talking about education, artwork, the history of the game. Here are some of the articles we've had talking about pinball museums supporting the industry as a whole. A Wired article that was really great that came out in 2019 that was actually titled Keeping Pinball History Alive, one flipper at a time. The local news station that did something beautiful that highlighted the games in the museum. And on the bottom right side, we see a picture from a pinball expo that we went to in California a year ago. And out of the 12 EM and wood rail games that they had at the show, we brought nine of them. every other game was modern and it becomes more important for an institution like us to make sure that wood rail games wedge head games games from the 70s and earlier are available as these become more focused on 80s and 90s games and newer because they are still fun to play and they talk about pinball history and evolution and when we bring games like this to a expo we actually get just as much play on them from people of all ages as the new games So it's really important to still bring those. This was shown in Mike's presentation a little earlier, but this is one of the clear pinball machines that we can see that installed at a pop-up exhibit and everyone crowded around it. And one of the other things we do as a museum is hold classes. And you can actually see one of Mark Gibson's classes. He's out here on the expo floor on the left in our large warehouse. And on the right is one of the pop bumper exhibits that Mike had made to show the function of the pop bumper and the physics behind it. And something special we can do as a museum is not just win awards, but also make sure that we're very transparent about our operation. We're really happy that we have a platinum seal of transparency from GuideStar. We're a great nonprofit and we're a three-star charity, which is a really hard one to get on Charity Navigator. So making sure that you're accessible is something that is different for a museum than, say, a private arcade or barcade. People can actually look and see what we do with the money that we raise and the money that we have. What goes into exhibits, what goes into long-term plans, and what goes into preservation. We're really happy this year to have won a whole bunch of awards, which is something fantastic. Best of East Bay Best of Parent and Parents Press And we can do things like work with Bay Area Arts Together which is a dedicated Bay Area Arts group of institutions and museums especially after the pandemic reopening trying to get people to come back out to these institutions and we were part of that organization We have a lot of equity programs at our museum which is different than say an arcade or barcade. You can go through the library program and you can access free passes for people that might not be able to attend the museum normally. We donate back to the community on a huge level. We give passes to almost all the organizations that ask for donations for fundraising for themselves. Huge amounts of schools, PTAs, other groups that would raise money. We donate passes all the time, probably up to the tune of $20,000 to $25,000 a year. We are available for almost the entire week. Regardless of attendance, we're not focused on only the weekend and only being open on the weekend for a mass attendance. We're open Tuesday through Sunday. You can come to the museum when we're not that busy. We do pop-up exhibits for causes. Recently we did one for Blood Drive. We brought our Dracula game out to a Blood Drive, which was fantastic. That was a good partnership. It was really popular. It actually drove people to donate blood, which is fantastic. So we do partner with organizations that have well-meaning and we make sure that we're supportive of that in the community. We foster positive pinball recognition. Depending upon your age and where you got introduced to pinball, there might not be a positive connection with pinball in the community, but we want to make sure that we foster positive pinball views in the community and access, and make sure that we maintain that high standing in the nonprofit community for the awards that were mentioned. We can see one of the big school groups on the left that has visited the museum. And then a couple of the exhibits on the right side that Mike had made that were, I think, mentioned in the previous exhibit as well. And now I will hand things over to Melissa for her mini presentation. The necessity of invention, what does it mean? Thank you. Thank you, got it. Okay, very good. Well, everyone, I just want to say, just imagine you're six years old. This is a class that the slideshow is for a class to help kids imagine how the technology of pinball evolved over time. And so most of these slides are going to be asking questions. You can read them at the bottom. So I'm not going to talk, I'm just going to show the slides so you can see this progression beginning with Croquet and why, you know, what was the necessity for bringing Croquet indoors, you know, so the kids can have more than one answer to these things. So I'm going to change the slides by hand. Oh, no problem. While they're doing that, I've got to say, Melissa probably had the hardest job of any of us. I mean, everybody thinks fixing games are hard and everything. I think teaching kids is really the hardest thing. It requires a lot of patience. Filing switches is pretty easy, but I really admire what she did. Anyway, I think this is just fun to imagine. And that bag of tail is here. It's amazing, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Woo! That one always knocks me out, though. Let's see, Richie. That's it. Cool. Thank you, Melissa. That was our mini presentation within a presentation. So this leads us to what does something like the Pacific Pinball Museum need, using us as an example, as a leading institution in the field of pinball museums being an actual nonprofit and trying to preserve pinball history, make it accessible to the public and survive in perpetuity, if possible. The pros and cons of running a nonprofit. The pros would be we don't pay property tax on the location. We just have to submit reporting to the IRS. We can associate with other institutions in different ways that say a profit business a barcade or arcade would not be able to We are mostly based on fundraising and attendance Optimally a museum is based on about 50 attendance and about 30 grants and about 20 donations. And that's a good combination of donation sponsors and grants. We currently have a capital building campaign that we're asking donations and fundraising and matching for, for a larger permanent home and better preservation of the museum's collection. and people have probably heard about the Pacific Pinball Annex. People may have seen pictures over time. It's generally likened to the warehouse at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie when the Ark of the Covenant is being put away, and it is actually really similar. It is actually overwhelmingly large. When people go in there, they're generally awestruck. When we have sales where we sell duplicate games to raise money for the museum or we have people that have come to deliver a game that they're donating, they're generally blown away by the layout of the museum or the annex. For a really quick glimpse of the breadth of what we have in the annex, we've got this little panoramic. That was Steve Sabota took that at our last expo that we did in 2016. There were over I think 550 games to play and that was about half our collection at that time. And then there's a lot of murals that you'll see up there. We have 30, they're 10 feet by 10 feet square hand-painted pinball back glass murals that were done by Dan Fonts. One of our board members started the pinball mural project. and Ed Castle did, I think, the majority of them, and Darcy Bruno did some, and Eric Koss did some, and they're beautiful. They're all hand-painted. I don't know how these guys do it. They have to work in the dark to start the project, and then some of them take six months to do. So one of the things we're fundraising for, to kind of wrap up the presentation before you do Q&A, If you've been to the museum in Alameda, we have 105 games that are playable every day. In our warehouse collection, we have 1,200 more unique games. And what we're currently fundraising for is to not maybe necessarily have 1,200 games available for play at a specific time, but have more like 500 or 600 games available for play, have a visible workshop and maintenance center for tours, have an education wing for all the exhibits we have which are set up just uh just like the exploratory in san francisco for education stem and learning and then have storage for the rest of the game so we don't have out on the floor so it might not be the largest single proprietor pinball collection but we do have the largest collection owned by an organization at that 1200 with 1300 total but 1200 unique games we would like to open up for q a if anyone has any questions about that. Two questions. User. I want to thank you. I went to the Pacific Pimbalasium last week with my kid. And he has some special needs. we played Buckaroo for about half an hour that's the kick the cowboy game and he has talked about it since then and has worked with me on the pinball map to figure out where the closest one is to where we live so he really loves it I remember selling you that shirt that you're wearing thank you for wearing it to the end absolutely my question for you you're doing the photography project have you published that anywhere have you shared those or are they mostly inside your collection the second quick question is what's some of the work you've done with other museum organizations? Sure. Those are great questions. We are currently setting up a piece of software that is used by the National Archive and the National Galleries to make that artwork available to integrate it into our website. So it's an accessible project and archive for people. They do have watermarks on them, but for reference and access, and they're extremely high quality. They were photographed in a contained, designed environment very professionally from every angle, back glass, play field, front, back sides of the games. So for anyone that is doing any color referencing, restoration, is finding parts for games that might be missing, or is trying to discover the name date of a game, that is going to be great for people when you bring that live. So that's currently in progress. This is just a massive undertaking to identify and keyword all those different games that are going in. So it's taking a while. In terms of institutional partnering, it's with the Academy of Sciences, Chabot Space and Science Center, USS Hornet, other nonprofits like Alameda Pride in the Park, different organizations that are in Alameda, a lot of East Bay organizations just because that's where we're located. but we're always looking outside of California as well. We have had people tease the concepts of going outside of the country again, like when we went to Germany. How many people do you have on your board of members? On the board of directors or board of directors? Are we at eight? Five. Five? Yeah. Five right now. We currently have five on the board of directors. It varies. You talked about the, what best practices for, what's the word I'm looking for? Keeping them in working order with the kids, like, you know, with all ages. What do you, like, how do you police double, like, Like, does it bother you as much as it bothers us, I guess, is the question. Like, how do you – what is a good – how do you change that into a teaching moment? What are your practices to teach double – you know, transition a double flipper to a player? You know, I mean, ways. Like, I use the baseball method. Hey, slow it down. You don't just get up there and swing. But I'm just asking other people who experience it day in, try to find better tools in my toolbox for that. We have a little flippers program, so we're part of that. But the first part of your question, I think, is how do you deal with kids? At first, there were a lot of my games, and so it was bothering me. And then Chris Koontz came along and said one of the wisest things to me. He said, Mike, it's pinball. Let him play it. You know, because I was worried about the older games when they were multi-balling. You know, you can multiball a wood rail. I thought, that's probably not too good for the machine, you know. But his attitude was, hey, we'll fix it. Don't worry about it. And so I don't worry about it anymore. It turns out that a lot of the older games actually like exercise. so getting played hard is okay for them and we do try to indoctrinate children when they come in to play the game slowly we do make rounds during play to remind people and giving a little bit of instruction for play if needed it's really helpful for any other questions we do have a table and people can chase us down so definitely thank you so much for coming yeah thank you you

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 7d46fc9c-4f0d-487f-8c83-183df2734d5f*